K-SCORE: 73
Rappers: Outkast
At this point in the blog we've heard from Andre 3000, and we've heard from Big Boi. It's time to put them together and hear from Outkast! The song Kyle is reviewing today is Roses, a timeless exercise in hilarity and deep-seeded grudges. This song is definitely on my list of "Songs I could listen to at any moment", I wonder what Kyle will think!
NB: Any Mention of the name "Caroline" in this song is purely coincidental. The views of the artists in this song do not reflect any views of the authors of this blog towards anyone named "Caroline". Thank you for your understanding.
-Mike
Readers, I apologize, but I’m not sure I could possibly make the experience of this song any funnier than it already is. Outkast, this is what happens, apparently, if you give talented and vindictive young men with the maturity of a twelve-year-old time to spend with shallow attractive women and money to produce music.
Mr. 3000, welcome back to the blog. You deliver a stellar performance in Roses that had the side of me that thinks Family Guy is funny in fits of hysteria. More so than any particular lyric, the overall direction of this song is absurdly hilarious. Even if the amount of time it takes to write and record a rap is pretty small, substantial effort had to go into perfecting the great chorus and beat. The classy piano intro and drumming in the background could have accompanied any number of songs about something other than shaming one particular woman named Caroline, who, apparently, is “the reason for the word: bitch.” It just seems like quite a lot of energy exerted on publicly comparing someone to crap and then saying that you “hope” that the “bitch” crashes “into a ditch.”
Andre, I’m not discrediting your song because of the subject matter chosen. In fact, I encourage rappers throwing me a curveball now and then and testing to see if I can appreciate a song that uses the word ‘poo’ thirty-six times, but “Roses” isn’t perfect. I find it funny that you’ve probably gotten thousands of people to unconsciously hum you’re chorus’s tune knowing they can’t vocalize it because saying “I know you like to thank your sh*t don’t stank” aloud would turn some heads, however at times you’re just mean. The end in particular is cruel in an unsatisfying way. The rap is good, but at the end you just call this girl a “stupid” “dumb” and “punk a** bitch” without rapping. Insulting Caroline is only funny because you tell us her actions and discredit them simultaneously. Calling someone dumb and stupid and giving me nothing that they did that was dumb or stupid is both dumb and stupid.
Big Boi, your verse is worse than The Juicer’s. I appreciate you switching up the form to have your speedy but intelligible lyrics spitting more insults at this girl, but the rest of the song is fun to listen to. You, on the other hand, sound like you're reading your lyrics off of cue cards.** I wasn’t impressed, and you cost Andre 3000 and “Roses” crucial points.
Seventy-three Roses (a lot of roses when you think about it), which is damn impressive considering how childish this song really is. I’m not sure I agree the “real guys go for real down to Mars girls,” though. Martian women leave you breathless in a painful - I'm going to die now - kind of way. To each his own, though, 3000. To each his own.
**(As a side note, I’ve been curious since “General Patton” as to the reason behind spelling your rapper moniker with the ‘i’ at the end, and I’ve come up with what is definitely the reason. Mr. Patton, you were born in Savannah Georgia, which, as everyone knows was founded by James Oglethorpe in 1733, an anti-slavery advocate in England and believer in family farming over urbanization. Later oxen would be brought to Georgia and bred to make cotton industry take off in the state. Boi is Portuguese for ox, and you named yourself this out of respect for Oglethorpe and his ox-filled slave-less dream. An obvious reference really.)