[Read Part 1 | Illustration by Jen May]

5. Cher Lloyd – “Want U Back”

Are people stupid? Are people getting stupider? Is that a real thing that’s happening? Is the Internet ruining our brains? Do babies have iPhones? What is the world like? Is Cher Lloyd because of climate change?

Cher Lloyd is very thin and very young. She was born when I was eight. Whenever I hear of a celebrity being born in the early nineties I imagine my child self cradling said celebrity as a newborn baby in my child arms, and then I resent them for making more money than I do.

“Want U Back” is upsetting. It begins with Cher expelling a guttural monkey sound: she’s MAD. Oh my god she’s so mad. She wants him back so bad!!!!! But then she giggles moments later. She’s confused. She doesn’t know how she feels! The narrative begins with Cher breaking up with a dude because he didn’t “have much game,” but then he starts dating another girl, she sees them “walking all over town,” eating at “restaurants,” and now she’s jealous- she wants him back. She’s irrationally convincing herself that his relationship with the other girl is all a ploy to get her attention, but I don’t really think that’s true about him. Cher is crazy; she’s vindictive. She’s saying that the new girl wears ugly jeans. Now a rapper named Astro who appears to be eight years old is backing up her stupid point in a rap. Both Astro and Cher Lloyd, I’ve learned, were contestants on the TV show The X Factor. The song ends with Cher making a bzzzzzz noise with her lips and breaking the fourth wall, asking her audience, “Do I sound like a helicopter?”

Bzzzzzzzzz. Do we live in a Dystopia?

Continue reading The Ten Most Beloved Songs I Hate [Part 2] →