Best Novelty Song of the '00s?

Weird Al? The Lonely Island? Someone else?
What's your choice for the best novelty song of the decade?

my humps

thong song

put a donk on it

ship otm

Danger High Voltage

The Cheeky Girls - The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)

I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE!

Ha! Two of these songs are in my top five (four, really) of the decade and one is in my top fifteen. So keep em comin you cheeky boys/girls.

My contribution is Fast Food Rockers: "Fast Food Song"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3dPXxPGbmM

chocolate rain

"Rockin' the Beer Gut"

Tenacious D - "Fuck Her Gently" (plus essential Spumco video)
http://myplay.com/videos/tenacious-d/fhg

so what definition of novelty song are we working for? wikipedia's?

A novelty song is a comical or nonsensical song, performed principally for its comical effect. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs.

tenacious d are the worst

Yeah I fuckin hate that song

I must believe that "my humps" was performed principally for its comical effect.

Man idunno, in retrospect "my humps" legit seems like the best BEP single, while "choc rain" is so obviosly going after that viral audience and artists like sisqo will forever be associated with their "thong songs"

*obviously

i don't think "chocolate rain" was obv going for an lol viral audience!

"Acceptable in the 80s"

I don't believe in the concept "performed principally for its comical effect" because I don't believe in the intentional fallacy! carry on

tenacious d are the worst

― can i ox (J0rdan S.), Sunday, August 23, 2009 11:54 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Aren't you the collegehumor.com stan? stfu go watch the Whitest Kids U Know

haha you misstrawmanned me on both accounts, sorry

I kinda better the definition of novelty song as a song where the structure/whatever is so WTF that nobody would ever try to copy it i.e. Chocolate Rain or My Humps

United States Of Whatever

If The Darkness and Andrew WK count for this then I guess..

Because I Got High

^i'm gonna go with this

actually my favorite is this if this counts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKr0DeUuy-o

What What (In The Butt)

^not saying it is, but it should definitely be nominated.

Oh yeah Afroman is the clear winner here.

Man idunno, in retrospect "my humps" legit seems like the best BEP single, while "choc rain" is so obviosly going after that viral audience and artists like sisqo will forever be associated with their "thong songs"

― Alex in '83 (k3vin k.), Monday, August 24, 2009 12:09 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh it definitely is: best Black Eyed Peas single

I wonder how well "Boom Boom Pow" would do if that poll was made today.

Blink 182 - Fuck A Dog obv

;)

Feel Good Hit of the Summer

"Boom Boom Pow" would get -1 votes god willing

Daphne and Celeste - "U.G.L.Y."
Crazy Frog - "Axel F"
Gwen Stefani - "Hollaback Girl"
Lil' Mama - "Lip Gloss"
Young B and Webstar - "Chicken Noodle Soup"

You people are not trying hard enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbkxaHV4HkU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MVCgoW7aa0

Dollyrots - "Because I'm Awesome"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6Vze7ZlLH8

Yo Gabba Gabba - "Party in My Tummy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX-nnauvOn4

Does "Trapped in the Closet" count?

Robin Sparkles - "Let's Go to the Mall"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF1b1pf9DRY

Make that Kidz Bop - Axel F (Crazy Frog)

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XcsOyJZTrEc&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XcsOyJZTrEc&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Er, right...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcsOyJZTrEc

Buckwheat Boyz - Peanut Butter Jelly Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8MDNFaGfT4

Soulja Boy - YAHHH!

White n Nerdy by a wide wide wiiiiiiiide margin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEzGIuY7kw

das racist- combination pizza hut and taco bell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ8ViYIeH04

Milkshake

!

nahh, not enough of a novelty song imo, but maybe the best song in the thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lswckcEAqd8

Yeah, I figured it was borderline, given that it hadn't come up.

Does "The Ketchup Song' count?

Good God that "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" song is FUCKING AWFUL!!!

Not sure if it's 'novelty, and the 'hamster dance' or whatever it was called was pretty awful, the the Cuban Boys' tribute to John Peel is pretty incredible and downloadable for free:

http://www.thecubanboys.co.uk/discography.htm

Does "The Ketchup Song' count?

― EZ Snappin, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:25 PM (1 hour ago)

i work child care @ a jewish community center when i'm not at school and i never knew they jacked those hand motions straight from "mitzvah guerrera mitzvah", i was pretty pleased w/ myself that i knew them already from the ketchup song

i dunno if that's the name of the song, maybe one of our more informed jewish posters knows what i'm talking about

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukjCcUFMbSE

man watching this again brings a smile to my face:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA

and of course rick astley = '80s pop repackaged as '00s novelty item

who let the dogs out {/troll}

smell yo dick was pretty good

o yea 'dick in a box' ?

idioteque

o yea 'dick in a box' ?

― johnny crunch, Thursday, August 27, 2009 9:08 PM (36 minutes ago)

shit, duh

This thread's just depressed me because I didnt realise how close to the end of the 00's we already are, what in the fuck :/

Anyway what about TISM's "everyone else has had more sex than me" although all their songs are kind of "novelty" so am maybe stretching things.

"Hey Ya!"

rmde

Girl Talk (2 albums worth)

It IS depressing. This decade SUCKED, it was the worst decade ever. Except for the nineties, which sucked more.

u old

This was such a sad, crabby mean-spirited decade, because of internet people are jaded and less tolerant of crappy throwaway novelty hits. Two days after something comes out, everyone is bashing it all over the place. Not a good climate for "novelty" songs. It seems no one wants to have anything in common with anyone else anymore.

Where do mashups/bootlegs fit in?

"Stacy's Mom"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csrPT9ClVUc

NOBODY liked this song except me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoN6XfyQsr4
Dan Le Sac v. Scroobius Pip - "Thou Shalt Always Kill"

posting this at whiney's request

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s492PMdIaJs

lcd soundsystem - losing my edge

i didn't mind "Thou shall Always Kill", Snrub.

Eamon - Fuck It

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poOfsDVq9KE

good call

Blog 27 - Hey Boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDdybVROvMc

Brittney (now Nikki) Cleary - I.M. Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z77VGHcmn4w

Freelance Hairdresser - Marshall's Been Snookered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6UR19s3PO8

YTMND - Collected Works (My fave is "Sex School")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vlyYOv0vvw

Just "Sex School" here

The "My Humps" New World remix (mash-up with Dvorak) has been erased from Youtube, so here's the Zshare:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/64786275eec13e83/

00s probably deserve separation between novelty hits as historically understood, and novelty hit viral videos and/or memes (Chocolate Rain, that song where the guy from 300 is superimposed on everything etc) - the latter arguably has way more cultural penetration in a certain sense, but I'd still like to observe the continuity between historic novelty hits (that actually have huge radio airplay and broad recognition) and their present-day equivalents, eg "My Humps," "Because I Got High" etc. I have an easier time thinking of novelty hits proper from the first half of the decade...maybe proof that their traditional territory is being taken over by quickie internet things, even more digestible and even more replacable once the novelty wears off. Really, there's a memorable novelty tune every couple of weeks online at this point, none of them selling a single copy but still getting into people's heads. I saw that "Hiphopapotamus" thing from Flight of the Conchords in a karaoke binder, for pete's sake!

"Because I Got High" is prob. best of anything mentioned so far. Hard to figure out what to do with performers like Eminem, who dressed up regular songs as if they were novelty hits, or things like "Work It" which on at least some level were more about the striking, weird vocal effect than about the performance itself. I guess novelty hits have to include "humorous" lyrical content though, right?

And don't forget the Novelty Cover, eg Alanis doing "My Humps," Alien Ant Farm doing "Smooth Criminal"...

Wow, there are a ton of ILM threads on novelty songs, btw. I started this one: Best Novelty Song On K-Tel's "Looney Tunes' Compilation

And this one actually might be helpful for this thread: Novelty song of the year.

(Hamster Dance has gotta be 90s btw! The original was like an animated gif on a Geocities page or something!)

holy shit

I have never heard the entirety of "Chocolate Rain" before

This is close to some Reich-level genius shit mixed in with a helping dose of crazy.

Well, don't know what part of the universe this makes sense in, but it exists and is unreal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FvyGydc8no

das racist- combination pizza hut and taco bell

Okay I hope there's a mix of this that actually has bass in it because that would actually make this worthwhile. I hope I'm hearing shitty Youtube fidelity screwing with this and that the actual song isn't this tinny and lifeless, otherwise I would have to recommend that everyone associated with creating and distributing it be beaten until they find Jesus.

PopoZao?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_aY7HZvFpQ&feature=channel

okay I think this sums up the past decade pretty well

Oh man, didn't realize the Das Racist above wasn't the Wallpaper remix!! This is the one that I think most people have written about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyfc10qDcR4

Agreed on Internet memes, I guess, though a lot of good novelty songs happened there.

This still kind of sucks, though; the booty version hinted at in the original video has way more potential.

Although this is okay once it gets going, I'd much rather hear the sparse version above with actual harsh immense bass underneath it to make it really punishing as opposed to this quirky cute-puppy remix. (That would probably make it less of a novelty song, although it worked for "Dildo" in the 90s.)

So what's the highest-charting novelty song of the decade? "Laffy Taffy"? I'd disqualify Avril's "Girlfriend." (It's getting harder to tell what's novelty and what's not. I can't imagine actually defending "Birthday Sex" as a novelty song now, but it is one.)

just to further defend my original suggestion, "The Thong Song" got to #3

We need da croupier to do another poll like this one:
Ladies and Gentlemen...The 40 Most OMGWTFLOL(ROFFLE) Songs Of The 90s.

'Two days after something comes out, everyone is bashing it all over the place. Not a good climate for "novelty" songs.'

People becoming more comfortable with being mean is surely lamentable, but so are songs put forth seeking the approval of others.
That pizza hut song is terrible, but why would they owe anyone any bass?

Because, if it had a beat, it wouldn't be terrible anymore?

yes it would.

haha

okay maybe what I really mean is "it would be a type of terrible I could embrace and revel in rather than a type of terrible that makes me want to kill"

I really wanted to like the song when it got to "I'm in the Taco Bell/I've got that taco smell" but the music wouldn't let me.

i miss when novelty hits were made by crass old european men just out for a buck.

like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at8hZpXyykM

A couple of years ago, one of my old bandmates was convinced that we could get rich and/or famous by writing a novelty song about the sudoku craze, a la "Pac-Man Fever."

wow, i don't remember ever seeing that thread (although i posted once toward the end so i apparently i did), that list is so full songs that are...not that crazy at all. or at least considerably less WTF than something recent like "Poker Face" that i wouldn't have even thought to suggest in this thread.

xpost to jaymc linking the 90s LOLWTF thread

The Pierces - Boring

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXbk3OL-t-s

thong song really does kinda define the decade in so many ways.

Toby Keith - Courtesy of the Red White and Blue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NynbLtRLisg

I dunno, "Thong Song" is to the early 00's what "Birthday Sex" is to the end of it, a raunchy but not strictly novelty song that's a bit more shameless than other similar songs.

A novelty song, to some extent, needs to uproot itself from time/place, or indelibly stamp itself in time/place so insanely and so shamelessly (a la "Disco Duck" or something) that it doesn't quite gel with the culture around it. That's why Eamon works and Jeremih doesn't -- R&B never really followed Eamon through on this idea, but there's a whole context, maybe subgenre, of stuff that paved a way for Jeremih. Similarly, it wasn't weird at all to hear "Thong Song" played back to back with other early 00's tracks, even if it might have been a little sillier than the others. Not true of turn-of-century stuff like, say, "The Sunscreen Song," which really doesn't fit in with anything else.

wow, i don't remember ever seeing that thread (although i posted once toward the end so i apparently i did), that list is so full songs that are...not that crazy at all. or at least considerably less WTF than something recent like "Poker Face" that i wouldn't have even thought to suggest in this thread.

hahaha do we really want to go there again

i have a harder time thinking of pop hits from this decade that aren't omgwtfroffle. i mean you could fill a top 20 with nothing but linkin park.

that said, my vote for best novelty song would probably either be "fuck it" or "sex in the kitchen"

how did blessid union of souls not make that 90s list

that was less a knock on the list (although LOL @ your Keith Sweat post, Dan) than a comment on the divide between decades, though. 90s pop novelty seems generally more earnest and well-meaning, whereas in the 00s it seems kind of shameless and winking about it. and of course the 80s were brazenly cheeseball but it feels somehow harder to look down on that stuff as much or fall into 'ironic appreciation,' maybe because the best hits and the silliest hits were so often one and the same.

BTW, we somehow missed Bloodhound Gang so far...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTW8oUV8Aq0

The 80's have a similar novelty problem -- plenty of really popular songs were also essentially novelty songs (is "Relax" a novelty?) but the 80's also had a genuine Novelty movement via stuff like Dr. Demento and Weird Al etc. So as weird as a song might be, you could probably also get nerds doing Star Trek parodies of it or something. And there were artists who seemed to exist solely FOR Dr. Demento, like Julie Brown and the "Fish Heads" guys, etc.

I love that bloodhound gang song

"Relax" is not a novelty song

Tila Tequila's "I Love U" -- the "earnest" Natalie Portman rap?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUxviLaRCWU

xpost, I think that seems obvious too, but at the same time it's certainly weird.

well there's a lot of retroactive novelty (of which frankie definitely qualifies at least stateside). kris kross is definitely a novelty act in hindsight but judging from that article about them in spin's best of '92 not everyone was so sure at the time

I think there were plenty of people who thought that cute twelve-year-olds with backwards clothes were a novelty act; the fact that their song was pretty much chart-friendly hip-pop is kind of secondary.

Just because it's Jewel, U & Me = Love qualifies, I think.

i'm not sure why this is but media outlets have always had a sneering (and arbitrary, considering how ridiculous their champions are) attitude towards novelty acts and for this reason I'm grateful most of them have died. (and this might explain why Kriss Kross were so petrified of being lumped in with ABC) But if you look at the Sanjaya/William Hung examples, it looks like American Idol has picked up the sneer-slack for this decade.

(and arbitrary, considering how ridiculous their champions are)

part of what i love about popular music is how, from a certain angle, pretty much everybody looks like a novelty-shlepping ass clown. lou reed, godfather of alternative rock or mr. "walk on the wildside"? d'angelo, reclusive genius or that dude who stood around bare ass naked to whimpering sounds? to be any good you have to have a certain degree of ridiculousness.

NOBODY liked this song except me:

Dan Le Sac v. Scroobius Pip - "Thou Shalt Always Kill"

― Mr. Snrub, Friday, August 28, 2009 2:54 AM (16 hours ago) Bookmark

^^ fucking hate this record

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog - "I Keed I Keed"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJqJM4xM-oE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j2YDq6FkVE

bitch, where'd the mothafuckin cheese go at?

posted it upthread, dude

"Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy"

I'm sure there's a whole thread worth of country novelties, but "Save a Horse" is the only one I'd really expect to show up prominently on most decade-end lists etc.

Would throw "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" in there with it, I think.

this thread should totally become a classic-style poll though. not the OMGWTFLOL one though b/c as observed that one is full of utterly ordinary good songs - I think "Return of the Mack" is in there for pete's sake!

"Ticks" isn't far from a novelty song.

yeah "return of the mack" was the one where i was like ok i give up

had no idea "Thong Song" was still this decade, seems older than "Blame Canada"

it was released in 2000 as the 2nd single from a 1999 album

No Aaron Carter so far, but here's two:

Aaron's Party (Come and Get It) (embedding disabled on the official video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsSwXRqrJ0U

That's How I Beat Shaq
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oITCug7v7Q

Dahv - Mean Girls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBpsmKhUFJk

No Youtube for Pass the Shirley Temple

Girlicious - Stupid Shit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKmdbZZ1kvg

Hmmmm, does "Teenage Dirtbag" count?

Yeah probably, great song

Schnappi Das Kleine Krokodil + dance remixes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe3FG4EOgyU

Scooter - RAMP! The Logical Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tj6DDdzAQc

2Ge+her - "U + Me = Us (Calculus)" and "Before We Say Goodbye"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEKWZk16N_w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbTgCooAHI0

I'm going to say The Collected Works of Jonathan Coulton here, too. Esp "Re: Your Brains", "Code Monkey", "Still Alive", "The Future Soon", and "Chiron Beta Prime". Hear em all here: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/store/downloads/

And an unplugged version of "Code Monkey":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s8S7QxpjeY

whoever does a classic-style poll for this decade's novelty songs should have a stronge hand to make sure people don't vote for perfectly ordinary popular songs out of giggly nostalgia/racism, because i didn't

no need for a poll imo, but otm

did i miss it or has no-one posted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o

Morningwood is borderline:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8YfJTOGg2M

And I don't think anyone mentioned any Electric Six yet...

Miley Cyrus - "Wake Up America"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dytT-8n5IZE

^Uh, wouldn't argue this anywhere near "best," it's probably just her most WTF song. "Hoedown Throwdown" probably counts, I guess, as does (sort of) "Party in the U.S.A." I'm surprised more Disney stuff doesn't own this list, but they imported a lot of their straight-up novelty. Do like Skye Sweetnam's "Why Doesn't Santa Like Me" though, for one of their Xmas comps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtYduaPNLSY

No one's mentioned Snoop Dogg - Sensual Seduction or Ying Yang Twins "Wait"

there was a day that I couldn't make myself stop listening to "tooth fairy": myspace.com/mademoiselleallegra

shout outs to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYvH7Gjbxh4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuX5_OWObA0

Should at least be one hyphy track here... Mistah F.A.B. "Ghost Ride It"?

Afroman, "Industry Diss"

Chacarron Macarron, obv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvkHIZg_954

"Hoedown Throwdown" is utter garbage on record. But to show I'm not a cold-hearted Disney hater, here's a song from Phineas & Ferb in German:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKDLYJ2_2Ro

Oh man, Dynamite Hack was 2000!

I listened to that myspace for that little girl singer (I posted a while back) for two hours straight.... I wonder if anyone else likes one or more of those tunes.

This thread is really entertaining! i haven't gone back yet to hear more yet, Captain, but i think i will!!

United States Of Whatever
― billstevejim, Monday, August 24, 2009 6:30 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

I think "The Bad Touch" barely missed out on this decade, but I like "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo" better anyway.

Seriously if we're talking "Best" and not just "omg remember this random novelty song from the 00's" some of these are pretty piss choices.

Does "Purple Pills" count?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gb4zj7M5ec

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQTXawaAKNA

One slightly embarassed vote for Flight of the Conchords here, dead heat between "Bowie's In Space" and "Foux du Fafa". BOEUF!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93FT-STxDGM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWD2QlZS_yc

'gay bar'

Well, just naming the best novelty song of the decade wouldn't be a very interesting thread. As has already been mentioned, it's getting harder to understand exactly what a novelty song is this decade. But I think of this thread as, "if you made a 100-song CD-R of novelty songs from the 00's, what would have to go on there?" But to do something like that you have to both wade through and include a lot of utter shit (to someone); that's part of what makes it a novelty song!

And "Bad Touch" was a 2000 single from a '99 album.