Shit sandwiches of ’06

I should have known yesterday when I admitted to liking Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man," Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous," and Kelis' "Bossy" better than probably any rap songs that have come out so far this year, people might get the wrong idea. As such, I'm instituting a special state of no homo Juelz Santana on this post.

If there's a problem with not having Sirius or XM satellite radio and/or a stereo that's compatible with an mp3 player in your car, it's that it's basically impossible to listen to any radio station these days for more than 10 minutes at a time. I probably have as diverse tastes in music as anyone other than retarded people (they love everything), but I pretty much end up riding around with my finger on the scan button.

Without further ado, my list of some of this year's biggest shit sandwiches.

Beyonce featuring Jay-Z, "Deja Vu." Hilariously, it would seem as if radio has more or less given up on this one. There was a two-week period after this came out when I couldn't get in my car without hearing this mess (and promptly changing the station). Compare that to the summer "Crazy in Love" was big. That had to have been one of the most played songs since the days of "Torn" and "Iris," two of my personal favorites from high school. Extra nullus. Think about how bad a song would have to be for radio not to play it when it's being performed by Beyonce and Jay-Z. They could've done a cover of Donovan's "That's the Time I Love the Best" and gotten better results than that.

Cassie, "Me & U." As I mentioned in my post on Cassie here the other day, she likes to claim that she's part Philipino and part black, though I've got my doubts about her being part black. What kind of black chick you know is going to make a song all about how she enjoys swallowing a man's unit, especially if she's not getting any money, er, crack out of it. That's what I call pure white girl tendencies, and god bless her for it. Perhaps she meant that she's had a little black in her at times, like Usher when he used to live with P. Diddy back in the late '90s. Is this the real reason why Freddie P would always run back to Florida during the taping of Making the Band 2, not to mention constantly being seen sucking on his thumb? Hmm...

Disturbed, "Land of Confusion." Granted, there's nothing "urban" about this one, but every once in a while I'll switch it over to St. Louis' young, aggressive white guy station, 105.7 the Point, to see if Weezer or something is on. More often than not these days, it would seem, they're playing this mess. Yep, it's a cover of the "classic" Genesis record. The weird thing about it is that it doesn't sound much different than the original at all. The Genesis version might even be a bit gullier than this wack shit. As such, you can't help but view this as yet another cynical attempt to get a hit record by recording a cover version that sounds exactly like the original a la Uncle Cracka-ass Cracka's "Drift Away" or the Ataris' "Boys of Summer."

Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean, "Hips Don't Lie." As I mentioned in one of my posts somewhere (I can no longer keep up with this shit), maybe the most awful thing about Shakira and Wyclef's "Hips Don't Lie" is that it's probably ensured that she'll continue to have a career here in the first world for another five years or so. Just when it was looking like she might be confined to being popular only in Germany and parts of Africa where they get TV. I mean, the bitch has had bad songs before. With that voice, it's not like she could have a good song if she wanted. Wyclef does kinda take it to the next level though when he raps, "I need a whole club dizzy / Why the CIA wanna watch us? / Colombians and Haitians / I ain't guilty, it's a musical transaction." Jesus, man.

Justin Timberlake, "SexyBack." In a year full of awful, awful shit sandwiches, Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" might actually be the least listenable. Supposedly, it was produced by Timbaland, maker of Bol personal favorite "Promiscuous," but I'm willing to believe that this is another one of those cases where he's taking credit for some ghost producer a la his work on the first Justin Timberlake solo album. I never bought into any of that foolishness about Tim being some sort of genius in the first place, but I'm sure if he squatted over a keyboard and dropped a series of deuces at completely random intervals, the result would sound better than this, if not somewhat similar.