Worst song on KROQ's 25 Most Requested Songs of All-Time (2006)

i probably like 90% of these songs at least a little, but as a whole it makes me feel like advocating curfews

i was unaware of 40% of them, including #1

being old ftw i guess

This is easily Papa Roach. on a particularly cranky day of mine, I'd vote "What I Got" simply cuz every hipster huckster sings that shit at karaoke and it's always been overrated.

But "Last Resort" was next level nonsense. Armed with only a weak facsimile of an Iron Maiden riff, a vocalist only capable of aggravating nasal staccato, and a hyperbolic pathos that was chic in nu-metal in the early 00s, this song exploded and for the life of me I could never figure out why.

Folks an hate Disturbed all they want, but David Draiman has an extremely charismatic voice that sets them apart. Papa Roach had *nothing*.

However, do not let that let us lose sight of the fact that Brad Nowell's Sublime didn't merely cross the 'mega-douche' line, they drove a Bradley tank over it and pitched a tent on the other side.

Papa Roach had *nothing*.

naw man. for one thing the song is kind of the iconic song of its type from that era, the value of "everybody" would need some solving/qualification here but, like, everybody who was hearing this kinda thing back then remembers "Last Resort" and gets hearty lols from the memory now. Beyond that, I think I've said this before, but I was working in treatment centers for kids with heavy problems then, and "Last Resort" was genuinely meaningful and valuable music to pissed-off kicked-around foster home kids back then. It was a song that spoke to them, that showed them how music could powerfully articulate what they were feeling. Sure: you and I might lol at "Suffocation! No breathing!" but I knew young dudes who heard that and went "fuck yes, that is how I feel," who sang it at the top of their lungs alone in their rooms when they were too angry to speak for themselves.

The world is full of young dudes like that, so Papa Roach, though they suck, get love from me.

When I saw the name of the poll, I thought "oh, my choice is whatever Sublime song is the highest."

"Date Rape" is an abhorrent song, but "Wrong Way" - the story of a man horndogging an underage prostitute - is considerably worse.

Always weird to me to find out "Date Rape" is actually popular in parts of the country, or liked by anybody at all. Really didn't hear it all that much then or now. It's fucking awful. Once at karaoke I was having some good eye-contact with this girl, she seemed cool, we were digging each other's dancing - - - and then she lost her shit for her friend doing "Date Rape" and it was all over.

― Doctor Casino, Wednesday, July 2, 2014 1:43 PM (1 week ago)

In Rhode Island, Sublime are on the radio constantly, especially "Doin' Time" and especially during the summer. It's agonizing. The local modern rock station even has the tendency to trot out album cuts ("Caress Me Down" being particularly popular), and the Top 40 station can't get enough of "Santeria." One of the most popular live concert bands in the state is a Sublime cover band.

Supposedly, much of Sublime's Rhode Island popularity has to do with a concert they played in April 1995 at The Ocean Mist, a popular hangout for URI kids. That show, which is apparently a well known bootleg, is something of a Sex Pistols at Manchester Trade Hall moment for the numerous and execrable ska bands that litter Southern Rhode Island.

1. Sublime - Date Rape
well this is the easiest poll ever
― Star Gentle Uterus (DJP), Wednesday, July 2, 2014 12:29 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thought this, exactly, as soon as i opened the thread

― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, July 2, 2014

thought this, exactly, before i opened the thread

no seriously i was living in LA when KROQ went all-in on sublime and there was just no doubt in my mind as soon as i saw the thread title

just fyi the other most KROQ-y tracks on there would be dramarama and oingo boingo

I wasn't exposed to date rape as much as Under The Bridge, a song that is still weirdly ubiquitous. So I'll go for this one.

I miss Dammit.

I love two of these ("Dead Man's Party" and "Blister In The Sun"), and hate only nine. Impossible not to vote for "Date Rape," though the Beasties' "Girls" has much to answer for as well. If "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)" was on this list, I'd be forced to vote for that - it is truly one of my least favorite songs by anyone, ever - but taking its absence into account, "Date Rape" it is.

whoa. fishbone actually made a music video for their cover of date rape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xgmSfiy_tY&feature=kp

When did KROQ go on the air? Curious about the two Violent Femmes tracks which are so much older (1983) than anything else here

My most hated thing on here is Linkin Park, by a mile.

I would never in a million years listen to Sublime on purpose, but I actually have gone to bat for them before on ILM. Before I said "They definitely had that amazing ability to "give their songs a zip code," to paraphrase Tom Waits. Maybe you just don't like the zip code they conjured? Where Beck or his handlers try to cram it down your throat that Beck is the "product of L.A.'s smorgasboard of multi-cultural reference points" or whatever, Sublime genuinely seemed like that - for better or for worse. All the references to men selling oranges on freeway offramps; the casual and smart use of Mexican slang and Span(gl)ish, playing with class and race in unique ways. Search "Waiting for My Ruca." That's a great song."

I think I'm about 50% full of shit there (I actually think Beck *does* do that stuff well, and I can't think of examples why I would have praised their racial/class politics), but I think they have a really organic point of view that always felt pretty un-cynical.

I saw them play once at a house party, in 1993 I think. They played a bunch of Fugazi and Black Flag and Bad Brains songs as well as their own tunes.

Also I think my favorite song on here might be "Anything, Anything." That song is a total time machine to me.

"in the end" is a jam

i grew up in vegas where the local scene is i think still about 70 percent sublime cover bands, something about the geography (proximity to california) made them part of the air, i've been to innumerable parties where some asshole with an acoustic guitar covered "caress me down," and i still like about half of the self-titled album. idk. "date rape" and "wrong way" are the worst though

I remember moving out to California in the early 2000s and hearing Anything, Anything still on the radio all the time. It was like, "oh, here is the song from the Nightmare on Elm Street karate sequence. Wonder if they'd take requests for the theme song from RAD?"

one of my best friends in high school was super into papa roach so i've heard more of them than i was even curious about, and man, if there were a band that more desperately wanted to be faith no more without the remotest capability i haven't heard them. also imo "last resort" >>>>>> "scars," probably my least favorite song that isn't "butterfly" by crazy town

Come on party people won't you listen to me.
Date Rape Story.

Also, realizing that I'm not doing Sublime any favors here, the correct lyric is "come on party people won't you listen to me - date rape stylee."

kinda have a soft spot for "Last Resort"

i can totally understand people squirming at the glibness of "date rape" - as I said, I dunno how I feel about it being the no. 1 KROQ call-in jam, esp when Sublime clearly weren't worried about indulging in homophobic pandering in the last verse.

But it's a matter-of-fact acknowledgement that date rape exists, is about power and opportunity (last verse underscores that), and is fucking bullshit, in a genre chock full of mouth-foaming misogyny and objectification (rest of list underscores that).

Not saying you have to play it at your wedding, not saying that watching a room of dudes hoot and holler over it isn't gross. Just pointing out why that girl at karaoke may not think it's the worst thing ever.

I mean, yeah, Sublime were probably total douchebag homophobes. But I see the last verse more as more of a "what goes around comes around"/"Karma, maaan" thing than specifically out to target gay people.

of course it is homophobic but no more so than Seinfeld's "not that there's anything wrong with that"...

Thanks for going to bat against Papa Roach, Neanderthal. That's my vote. "Wrong Way" and "Caress Me Down" are just gross and both WAY worse than "Date Rape."

oh word. I don't even listen to that album. It was a profound disappointment for me as a Sublime fan and then like a three-year living nightmare as the singles rolled out and completely dominated modern rock airplay.

Also, realizing that I'm not doing Sublime any favors here, the correct lyric is "come on party people won't you listen to me - date rape stylee."

― how's life, Thursday, July 10, 2014 10:11 AM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL

naw man. for one thing the song is kind of the iconic song of its type from that era, the value of "everybody" would need some solving/qualification here but, like, everybody who was hearing this kinda thing back then remembers "Last Resort" and gets hearty lols from the memory now. Beyond that, I think I've said this before, but I was working in treatment centers for kids with heavy problems then, and "Last Resort" was genuinely meaningful and valuable music to pissed-off kicked-around foster home kids back then. It was a song that spoke to them, that showed them how music could powerfully articulate what they were feeling. Sure: you and I might lol at "Suffocation! No breathing!" but I knew young dudes who heard that and went "fuck yes, that is how I feel," who sang it at the top of their lungs alone in their rooms when they were too angry to speak for themselves.

The world is full of young dudes like that, so Papa Roach, though they suck, get love from me.

― Now I Am Become Dracula (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Wednesday, 9 July 2014 21:33 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is a fair point, and perhaps my earlier post would have been made better had I said they had nothing *for me* specifically. But I don't want to diminish the value it held for some of those aforementioned kids.

Jacoby Shaddicks of Roach once showed up in #metal on DALnet around 2001 one night. he lasted five minutes, unable to withstand the barrage of "POSEUR!!!" insults.

while I agree with croupier's assessment upthread, the other problematic line in "Date Rape" is 'the moral of the date rape story is it does not pay to be drunk and horny'... which, besides greatly oversimplifying the root case of rape (I know, 3 minute song etc etc) is basically like saying 'hey man, don't get drunk when you're horny, you might accidentally rape someone and go to jail'. Rather than 'hey, the moral is that rape because it is abhorrent, violent, sociopathic behavior'.

*root CAUSE

also remove the "because it" from the last sentence ugh

I love how the protagonist goes to her drawer to look up her local attorney-at-law. Quaint reminder of bygone days.

Of all the Beastie Boys songs out there why on earth would people choose Girls?

Having never heard the Sublime or Papa Roach songs, I think Add It Up annoys me more than anything else here, and I generally like Violent Femmes.

Of all the Beastie Boys songs out there why on earth would people choose Girls?

Kind of assuming that this is the world's frattiest radio station we're talking about here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KROQ-FM

You have already voted in this poll and cannot vote again.

goddammit

Curious about the two Violent Femmes tracks which are so much older (1983) than anything else here

Those songs and a few other hangers on from that era were in regular rotation on my local alt station when I was in high school. In much the same way that newer songs from when I was in high school twenty years ago are still in regular rotation today. "Alternative" but by no means progressive.

ok guys you gotta see #26-50

26. No Doubt Spiderwebs

27. Sublime Smoke 2 Joints

28. Nirvana Come As You Are

29. The B-52's Rock Lobster

30. Weezer Undone (the Sweater Song)

31. Green Day Boulevard of Broken Dreams

32. Beastie Boys Brass Monkey

33. Soft Cell Sex Dwarf

34. Red Hot Chili Peppers Give it Away

35. King Missile Detachable Penis

36. Blink-182 All the Small Things

37. Dynamite Hack Boyz N the Hood

38. Korn Got the Life

39. Sublime Wrong Way

40. Pennywise Fuck Authority

41. Jane's Addiction Been Caught Stealing

42. New Order Blue Monday

43. Nine Inch Nails Hurt

44. Beastie Boys Intergalactic

45. The Smashing Pumpkins Today

46. Social Distortion Ball And Chain

47. The Killers Mr. Brightside

48. The Offspring Come Out and Play

49. Oingo Boingo Little Girls

50.System of a Down Chop Suey

I have such an urge to watch Repo Man right now

37. Dynamite Hack Boyz N the Hood

okay this would have been a contender for "Date Rape"'s crown

I'm definitely w DJP here, so easily Sublime
Papa Roach song had a decent chord change

like seriously all I did was read the words "Dynamite Hack" and then everything went blank with rage for a moment

kinda shocked how soundly New Order beat Orgy in the battle of the "Blue Monday"s - orgy's at #415!

Sex Dwarf?? Weird

kinda shocked how soundly New Order beat Orgy in the battle of the "Blue Monday"s - orgy's at #415!

it seems shocking until you remember that one of these bands is New Order and the other is Orgy

i know that. i also know we're talking about a KROQ request line, not a critics poll.

da croupier otm about "date rape" hitting a nerve in that cultural milieu, which just makes it sadder imo. like, you have one of the smarter bands in its class willing to address the subject in a song and the thesis isn't, rage-filled misogyny sucks let's imagine or do something different, it's be more careful about your rage-filled misogyny or else you'll get fucked in the ass / fall a notch or two in the grand constellation of patriarchy. i doubt sublime were / are explicitly homophobic or hateful, but getting butt-fucked in jail is depressingly standard, universally accepted shorthand for "losing your manhood." that concept doesn't turn on homophobia so much as it turns on its root, patriarchy. the girl in the song actually exists as a sympathetic character, which is probably why the girl at karaoke likes it, but instead of turning on any new insights about what "date rape" actually means for the victims or the poisonous culture that perpetrates and then condemns it, it just slots it in as one of the "thou shalt nots" in the newly equal-rights-y and litigious bro code. but then, what else to expect from sublime, who are basically the poet laureates of this particular flavor of SoCal patriarchal culture, enlightened, chill, into cool shit, acknowledging rape as a statutory offense, possibly leading to butt-rape in prison (how progressive!).

anyway the good Orgy song was "Stitches"

man sublime are one of the worst bands ever

was gonna say, would be a little odd for sublime to call out "abhorrent, violent, sociopathic behavior" on principle or offer fresh insight considering their other songs

def don't think anybody has to love the song, i just don't get the "obv this is the worst thing" when it's surrounded by umpteen heartfelt odes to blue balls and being a muthafuckin' reject psyyyycho

in this context "date rape" is a goddamn psa

Oh yea Dynamite Hack woulda walked this. Fuck them imo