Shea Serrano[Editor's note: Why This Song Sucks determines why particular tracks blow using science. It appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday.]
Song: Skrillex's “First of the Year”
History: There were some remarkable musical things happening in London right around the beginning of this century and a guy from Los Angeles maybe heard some of them and then he got an interesting haircut and then he made “First of the Year” and everyone was like, “Holy fuck. This is amazing.”
Atmospherics: Digital melodicism; amber pianos; ambient wind tunnel spookiness; RAHRAHRAHRAHs; VHGHHHHHHs; !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!s.
Scientific Analysis: Now, duh, “First of the Year” is cool. That seems clear. Skrillex took a bunch of things that didn't go together and stacked them on top of each other, which is a shitty methodology for making a sandwich but is apparently aces for making dubstep tracks.
Oh, FYI, combining foodstuffs remains to be the premise for my greatest scientific failure to date. I thought that since I enjoy Kool-Aid, and since I enjoy beef-flavored Ramen Noodles, beef-flavored Kool-Aid would be like if you could somehow combine receiving oral sex with regular sex. I was, as it were, mistaken.
Incidentally:
At the Serrano household, the rule is, if the kid asks for it after we've warned him that he doesn't want it, then we give it to him. This is also referred to as the “I Bet He Won't Ask To Touch The Iron Again” rule.
At any rate, the song is cool. But cool, like the dick move, isn't science. My cousin Juanito is cool. He slicks his hair back. That's probably the coolest thing a man can do.
But Juanito had to ask his teachers to write on the chalkboard in different colored chalks or else the words would get all jumbled up in his brain. Dyslexia has been kicking science's ass for years, is what I'm saying.
Video Analysis:
Let us assume that this video is a peek into an actual sliver of the universe somewhere (which seems to be the point of shooting a video in this manner, I'd think). And let us assume the moral of the allegory here is that child predators should be destroyed by monsters (which also seems to be the point of shooting a video like this, I'd think). Then this conversation happened 30 minutes before what we see, and that's pretty awesome:
Kid: Mama, can I go play at the park?
Mama: With whom?
Kid: Alone.
Mama: Of course. Just call me when you want me to come get you.
Kid: With what phone? Want me to take yours?
Mama: What? No, no, no. I'm in the middle of a Draw Something game. Leave the park, walk down the block, then go into that basement of that abandoned building. You know the one?
Kid: Which one?
Mama: The dark, dirty one, sweetie. The one where no one can see anything that's going on inside.
Kid: [shrugs]
Mama: Dude, that one. Remember when we were driving to the store and I said, “Hey, look, that's the building we saw on the news, the one where they found all of those dead bodies”?
Kid: Oh yeah.
Mama: That one.
Kid: Okay, cool.
Awesome.
Conclusions:
(I) Meat flavors do not make for adequate beverages.
(II) Johnny Depp is turning into a loon.
(III) Skrillex very likely has the best hair of any musician of all-time not named Freddie Mercury. Freddie Mercury has the most regal hair in history. Sometimes I don't even describe it as “most regal,” I just say, “regalest,” even though I know that's not a word. Fuck you, spell check. You just got Freddie Mercury'd.
(IV) If your kid is born with the ability to summon paranormal forces through his or her fingertips, you're off the hook for trips to the park.
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