On Guilty Pleasures

No, I'm not talking about masturbation.

My guilty pleasure deals with one of those musical offerings that we like but are ashamed to admit it. For the most part, our guilty pleasures exist only in secrecy, for fear that our friends would mock or abandon us were they to find out. Guilty pleasures need not be kept secret, however, and the purpose of this post is to clear the air, as it were, with regard to one song that I can't help liking, no matter how much my pride or aesthetic taste try to persuade me otherwise.

My failing upsets me greatly. The song is perhaps the most vacuous ever to be released, with scarcely any redeeming factor, save its "beat," and I've always hated when people say they like a song for its "beat," phat or otherwise. The song is the Black Eyed Peas' recent single "Boom Boom Pow." Just how atrocious and nauseating a song is it? Here are the lyrics:

Gotta get that
Boom boom boom

Yo
I got the hit that beat the block
You can get that bass on the low
I got the that rock and roll
That future flow

That digital spit
Next level visual shit
I got that (Boom boom boom)
How the beat bang (Boom boom boom)

I like that boom boom pow
Them chickens jackin' my style
They try copy my swagger
I'm on that next shit now
I'm so 3000-and-eight
You so 2000-and-late
I got that boom boom boom
That future boom boom boom
Let me get it now

Boom boom boom (gotta get that)

I'm on the supersonic boom
Y'all hear the space shit zoom
When, when I step inside the room, them girls go apeshit
Y'all stuck on Super 8 shit
That low-fi stupid 8-bit
I'm on that HD flat
This beat go boom boom bap

I'm a beast when you turn me on
Into the future cybertron
Harder, faster, better, stronger
Takes the ladies extra longer, cuz
We got the beat that bounce
We got the beat that pound
We got the beat that 808
That the boom boom in your town

People in the place
If you wanna get down
Put your hands in the air
Will.i.am drop the beat now

Yep yep
I be rockin' the beats (Yep, yep)
I be rockin' the beats (Yep yep yep, yep)

Here we go, here we go
Satellite radio
Y'all getting hit with (Boom boom)
Beats so big I'm steppin on leprechauns
Shittin' on y'all you with the (Boom boom)
Shittin' on y'all you with the (Boom boom)
Shittin' on y'all you with the...
This beat be bumpin' bumpin'
This beat go boom boom

Let the beat rock

This beat be bumpin' bumpin'
This beat go boom boom

Don't believe me? Listen for yourself:



Can someone translate this gibberish? Chickens jacking style? Stepping on leprechauns? Shitting on me? Perhaps I'm so 2000-and-late, but I can't make heads or tails of any of this nonsense. Lyrics aside, the vocals are overproduced and pushed through a vocoder, making the song resemble, if ever so slightly, Cher's insufferable "Believe."

But what bothers me most is that, despite my recognition that this has to be the one of the most asinine songs I've ever heard, I can't resist it. In fact, I can't wait for for will.i.am to drop the beat.

Kill me...now.