Hotly debating the merits of LMFAO
Party Rock Anthem is a song best paired with cheap tequila and dubious decisions. When a friend recently sent me the link to this music video, it brought back nostalgic feelings for simpler times, foolish-er times. The album and the anthem are hard to nail down. The lyrics are raunchy and clownish, they age like a tattoo you got on a part of your body that gets fat and stretches out as you hit middle age. Yet, the music is incredibly catchy, iconic even; the theme music to a season of life. That season was often manic and reckless. A time before kids and serious responsibility, when one was not required to be efficient with their energy.
So, there we were, my wife and I driving down the freeway, hotly debating the merits of LMFAO. Were they a flash in the pan? Were they geniuses? Why are we still talking about them ten years after the fact?
For a while I laughed at the thought of where these guys are now. Can you imagine them performing at the local rec center yelling the line “I’m runnin’ through these hoes like Drano”? How sad. Yet the music video has an unthinkable 1.9 billion views on YouTube! With that number of views, you can buy the rec center. Heck, you can probably own all the rec centers in the Midwest. Back and forth we went in our discussion of them.
“The music is not any good, it’s just no substance cotton candy”
“Yes, but sometimes the sizzle is so incredibly hot, you can’t even tell if there’s steak or not!”
How could we get to the bottom of this issue? What was the question we were even trying to answer? Why were we even talking about this? Or more importantly, how could we not be talking about this?
I decided to listen to the entire album Sorry for Party Rocking. It’s obnoxious and unrelatable. These guys are talking about champagne showers and a fist of vodka. They’re talking about walking into a club and everyone knows their name, hangovers that are easy to recover from and leopard print clothing. Meanwhile, I wear shirts my wife picked out at Costco. I carry the load of real life. We’re talking middle of December, overcast skies, at a 9 to 5, drive home from work in 16-year-old truck, living in the Midwest, REAL LIFE. I hate these guys, I absolutely hate these guys.
***
Yet I can’t stop listening, it makes me so wistful. The LMFAO life is so close. Like the pre-COVID life you can practically reach out and touch it. Yet it’s gone forever.
But the music is so good, it’s honey to my drab brain. It’s the chaos my mind craves. And it’s the shifting sand of a base and meaningless existence, a pointless passing of the time, a long piss into the wind.
After a while, my wife and I conceded that the music is worthwhile. We confessed the sin of being hooked to this guilty pleasure. The debate rolled on to the next question: how could this get so popular? Those 1.9 billion views, the attention of 25% of earth’s population deserved an explanation. I tried to outflank her philosophically. My argument: people are shallow enough to want something so preprocessed and palatable. We want a little uncomplicated fun, some music with no strings attached. Like the songs themselves, it’s chicks and drinks and late nights out. A non-stop party without the cleanup. Surely the magnetism of these ideas is enough to propel the outlandish success?
My wife is a crafty debater. She’d laid the trap and I walked right into it. Far too pragmatic to fall into lofty overthinking, she stated the obvious, “There’s no way they did it on their own, they must be related to some big shot in the industry.”
I replied, “Not necessarily, I think their work is able to stand on its own!”
“Well, look it up,” she said.
***
I didn’t even make it to end of the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article:
“They respectively are a son and grandson of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy.” [1]
You got me wife. The two LMFAO guys have what the Chinese call “guanxi”. Serious guanxi. A connection in the industry, a backdoor into the game. The discussion continued: were these guys any good or was it just because of their guanxi?
“Well of course they were good, they had to be good to capitalize on these opportunities.”
“Sure, I’ll give you that point, they were good. But as soon as they were ready they could walk through that open door, they didn’t have to wait for someone else to open it for them. They’re Gordy’s, they’re music royalty.”
According to almighty Wikipedia their career seems to have climbed upwards from 2006 and then crested in 2011. It’s not even clear if they’re still making music. The argument turned to the longevity of an artist, an arc of a creative career.
“I think you’re getting confused, they guys aren’t musicians, they’re rock stars. Musicians continue to create. These guys accomplished their mission and got out of the game.”
“But then what!?”
“Whatever they want! They made it! They were huge.”
In 2011 Party Rock Anthem topped the charts in numerous Western countries, including the US and UK. By 2012 they were performing with Madonna at the Super Bowl Halftime show. Six months after that they were announcing an “indefinite hiatus”. (Who knows what that means) By 2015 they were in court with a Brewery in Muskegon, Michigan, alleging that a name of their stout violated the band’s trademark. Oh how the mighty had fallen!
***
“If you could be them would you want to be?”
Ordinary people pretend like they know the answer to this question. We soothe ourselves with the assertion that the LMFAO guys simply must be miserable. All the pressure, all the partying, all the money, there’s no way they could have peace of mind. That simply must be the meaning of their indefinite hiatus.
Reality is I’ve done my life but have never done theirs. My wife and I are tempted by different things. For me, the idea of walking into a restaurant and everyone knows who I am appeals to my fragile ego. To be known, to be significant, not just a faceless slob in the crowd. My wife is more tempted by power.
“Even if you weren’t making music anymore, you’d have a platform to make a change. You’d have a voice, a voice that people listen to.”
Maybe not a ton of people would listen. After all, can you imagine people saying, “Hey did you hear that guy who wrote Champagne Showers started a non-profit to support breast cancer research?” But still, out of 1.9 Billion there would be some who would make that jump.
***
We approached our exit and pulled off the freeway. Our debate having run its course, the inside of the car became quiet. I silently added up in my head all the advantages the LMFAO guys had. Money, music, guanxi, girls, talent, and the ability to wear leopard print pants without being judged – man, some guys have all the luck. They created and built, but all in the service to what? A soundtrack to a late night? A philosophical dilemma? A monument to corruption?
I cannot judge them. In an alternate universe, somebody out there is hotly debating the merits of Drew Fralick. Somebody who’s jealous of my Costco button ups and lightly read blog.
REFERENCES
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMFAO
2. Luke 19: There’s a story told of a nobleman who goes to a distant land to have himself appointed king. He gives three months wages (a talent) to several servants and asks them to put their talents to work. When he comes back the first servant has turned his talent into ten talents, the second one had turned his talent into five talents, but the third had simply saved his talent so as not to lose it. He buried it in the ground and waited for the king to return. What little he had was taken from him and given to the one with ten talents.
There’s a responsibility to use talent in service to something greater than ourselves. We may not end up with ten talents, but we’ve got to be the most Party Rocking version of ourselves.