The Rob’s 5 Dumbest Songs of 2013

It's becoming tradition.  A lot of GREAT songs came out in pop music this year, as well as a whole bunch of weird noise that were able to get some airtime.  Last year, I gave the five dumbest songs of 2012 (available HERE), and now I'm back to give the five dumbest songs of 2013!

I want to make it clear; Dumb does not necessarily mean bad.  Sometimes, they coincidentally ARE bad, but not always.  It really just means that the lyrical content or some aspect of the some was so odd I was dumbfounded as to how it became popular.  So, here now I present to you the five dumbest songs of 2013:

#5 will. i. am feat. Justin Bieber - #thatPOWER:

Spelling is correct.  For the first AND second time ever, 2013 had TWO songs whose titles began with a stupid hashtag enter the Top 40.  To me, that is not 'modern,' that's 'desperate' and 'dumb.'  Can you think of the other one?  Mariah Carey and Miguel had a song called "#beautiful."  However, since this song came first AND is the inferior song in my opinion, I'm inducting this record.  Every time I saw this song come up in my playlist with its stupid hashtag, lower-case "that," and upper-case "POWER" I wanted to punch the wall...  hard.

#4 Britney Spears - Work B--ch:

The separation between an artist and their audience is much smaller than it used to be.  Before I got into radio, if a fan wanted to hear new music from an artist, they pretty much had to keep their ear to the radio.  Nowadays, fans and DJs get their music pretty much at the same moment through social media and the internet.  A lot of people in my news feed heard this song before me, and literally every single one of them were saying how bad it was.  Many of my friends claimed it had the "worst lyrics of any song ever."  I thought to myself, "could it really be THAT bad?"  So I listened to the song for myself...  and yes, yes it could be that bad.  The lyrics in this song are especially dumb.  I chose this song over Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" for the induction of having DUMB lyrics.

#3 Major Lazer feat. 2 Chainz, Bruno Mars & Tyga - Bubble Butt:

There have been some major music milestones: When Elvis shook his hips on "The Ed Sullivan Show;" When BeatleMania came to America; The invention of the electric guitar; But when musical pioneers like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven were putting the finishing touches on their brilliant symphonies hundreds of years ago, I don't think in their wildest dreams they could have ever imagined a song like "Bubble Butt" would even qualify as music.  But here we are folks, and I've played "Bubble Butt" more times on the air than all of their music put together...  Such is life.

By the way, instead of attaching the real video for the song, I've decided to use an 11-second clip of a dog dancing to it:

#2 Baauer - Harlem Shake:

I don't think I have to explain this one.  When the internet got a hold of what was essentially an incomplete track, really just a production beat from then-unknown producer Baauer, some kids released a video of themselves having what seemed like a seizure to the song.  For some reason, this video went viral immediately, and imitators  tried taking their shot at making an avant-garde senseless dance video to the record...  Imitators to the tune of MILLIONS.  Heck, even we here at KISS-FM and TownSquare Media in Evansville made a dumb "Harlem Shake" video.

#1 Ylvis - The Fox:

This song showed me just how dumb the world can be.  While I can stand before you honestly and say that I have never played this record on the air (you're welcome), MANY radio stations played this song in REGULAR ROTATION!!!  While I am absolutely not going to research the origins of this song, my understanding is that it was created pretty much as a joke, but the joke wound up being on us.  The lyrical content of this song, which sounds like it was written by a toddler, recognizes that we know the sounds that "popular" animals like dogs, cats, and cows make...  But we don't exactly have a generally accepted sound that a fox makes.  The sound they offer has haunted my nightmares, and if you're not familiar with it, watch the dumbest video of 2013 below.  As you watch, keep in mind that as I post this blog (December 11th, 2013), this particular YouTube video is on its way to 300,000,000 views.  Three.  Hundred.  Million.  Views.

This was the dumbest song this year without a doubt: