The video for Cee-Lo Green’s new single, “Fuck You,” (I’ll pause here so that you can go watch it. You’re back? Good.) makes me seriously lament that the last time I saw the girl I Ioved driving ‘round town with somebody else, I was only like, “My heart is broken, but I am sure my trust issues will be resolved in time.” Apparently a good number of Internet users agree with me.
What’s the recipe for 1.4 million YouTube hits in four days? I’d say it’s a loose combination of the following: jazzy typography, an infectious Stax sound (see: “WHHHHY LADY?”), notoriety as a prior producer of serious summer jams, promotion on prominent blogs, the dog days of August, a 9.5% national unemployment rate, and the sweet, sweet catharsis of hundreds of thousands of disillusioned young people with Internet connections and Friday afternoons to kill belting out, “Fuck you, and fuck her too,” and meaning not, “I wish misfortune on my former lover and her new paramour,” but rather, “I condemn the greed and moral bankruptcy of previous generations and current corporate America; I despair that my education and talents will ever be valued or that the Great Recession will end; I have no basic life security, no health or dental care or guarantee of a social safety net; I am ridiculed by older workers for wanting to achieve more than fetching coffee, or else I am ‘freelance,’ or else I tell my friends ‘I am freelance,’ but actually I am unemployed; I am saddled with enormous debt for a degree that was supposed to secure my bright future; I doubt my nation’s involvement in overseas conflicts; I feel powerless; I consume too much caffeine/sugar/sodium; and so, in summary: Fuck this.”
Plus, damn. It’s really catchy.
Ehh, sounds to me like your grasping at straws. Something tells me that Cee-Lo/much of his target audience may not all be under back-breaking student loans with depressing employment options (this is coming from someone in this situation). In fact, it sounds like you might be writing this review so that some website that hires 30-somethings to understand 20-somethings might think they should write a longer version with a zestier title. People might be in the mood to say “Fuck You”, but when are they not, considering that it can be said out of cockiness as well as frustration? Sometimes a sweet jam is just a sweet jam.
Wow, what a textbook violation of Moff’s Law. This is a criticism website, Sunshine. Maybe you’d be happier elsewhere.
As for the original post, I think it’s fantastic. By far one of my favorites to appear here.
Yes, the original post – it’s very good. Witty and yet true on many points. Angst at the right throttle.