Like it or not, increasing obscenity is a seemingly inescapable trend in music. From relatively tame gestures like Elvis Presley’s hip gyrations to the outrageous lyrics of 2 Live Crew, some artists have always taken it upon themselves to see if it is really possible to sell an act that mainstream culture would call lewd and unsavory. So far, the answer has always been a resounding “Yes!”
I remember listening to “Bad Habit,” from the Offspring’s album “Smash,” when I was younger and relishing in the sheer vulgarity of Dexter Holland’s simulated road rage.
A little later in life I would become acquainted with artists like Too $hort and Snoop Dogg, who took raunchy, degrading lyrics to new heights with classics like “All My Bitches Are Gone” and “Ain’t No Fun (If The Homies Can’t Have None)” respectively.
For a while, these songs reached my ears through someone else’s stereo. In fact, I spent most of my childhood collecting bits and pieces from friends’ collections, rarely seeking out new music entirely on my own, regardless of the lyrical content of said music.
These days, with the help of the Internet, I am able to dive headlong into just about any musical genre I feel like, and as a result I have become acquainted with sub-genres I was previously oblivious to. Each winter the cold weather keeps me indoors and often leads me into unexplored musical territory.
Last year I spent my first winter in Eugene holed up in my dorm room listening to some of the most sonically spineless music on the planet. I filled my head with pop songs that rotted my teeth with their childlike sweetness and easy-to-digest song structures. It was fun, but a person can only have so much good, clean fun.
Fast forward to this year and I can’t seem to get enough of the dirty. Never before have I so adored songs that would be almost completely without lyrics if played on the radio.
What is it about these songs that has me so hooked? Why is it that dirty wordplay is more appealing than the clean stuff?
Sometimes it begins with the instrumental. “Ain’t No Fun (If The Homies Can’t Have None)” draws listeners in with an inspired mock-radio intro, moving on to an upbeat, soulful and unbelievably perverse R&B tune before a series of raps. The juxtaposition of extreme vulgarity with a cheery instrumental makes this song a classic.
But if instrumentals were originally what drew me to songs laden in lyrical filth, then how have I come to love over-the-top booty music? The minimal, in-your-face, high-tempo instrumentals of artists like DJ Assault don’t provide too many instrumental nuances and intricacies to get into, forcing the listener to focus on the often overwhelming lyrics.
I recently played Assault’s “Yo Relatives” for a few friends who hadn’t heard it, and their reaction was priceless. What can you do but laugh when a deep, bored-sounding voice booms through the speaker to tell you, “Yo niece, yo nephew, yo grandparents suck”?
Fans know that lyrics that, like these, can be printed in their entirety, are hard to come by in DJ Assault’s music.
Assault doesn’t practice the kind of nimble wordplay that makes dirty raps by artists from Spank Rock to 2 Live Crew so entertaining. These artists sell records because their raps, even those that revolve around subject matter similar to Assault’s, dress the vulgarity up with verbal skill.
Assault bombards the listener with one message over and over, utilizing short rhyming verses usually followed by one word repeated until it loses all meaning. It’s simple, it’s repetitive and it’s infectious. These aren’t qualities that I generally find in music I can’t turn off, but DJ Assault’s work has been on repeat for a while now. So what gives?
Assault’s lyrics are easy to remember and recite, his beats do get booties moving, and his open and frequent use of words not found in polite conversation plays to our attraction to the taboo. It might not be high art, but it sure does stick itself in your head. And while I may not be able to explain exactly what it is that makes a song like “Asses Jigglin’” excellent, it seems inevitable that artists will keep working further and further outside the realm of common decency, and listeners will keep on gobbling it up.
[email protected]