Most of our horrible decision-making processes during nightlife activity is due to ingestible goodies, but these are often accompanied by the notorious tunes playing at that precise moment. Most party music has the profound effect to either ruin everyone’s night or get the house kickin’ like a sensei.
These anthems have that awesome power to cause mayhem at any social gathering. If any of these play near you, either run for the hills or stick around to see what happens. Just make sure to have an exit strategy:
7. “Killing in the Name” (Rage Against the Machine)
Okay. Unless you’re at the dimly-lit pharm party of a former emo classmate, you’re probably not going to hear this song at any social gathering. But God help the poor soul hosting the party if this one is thrown on. Every valuable possession he owns—from his parents’ African urn to his plasma TV—will be reduced to rubble. By the time Zack de la Rocha sings the final “FUCK YOU, I won’t do what you tell me,” the fire department might be busting in the front door.
If you think I’m overreacting, do a little research on Woodstock 1999. That was NOT three days of peace and music.
6. “Blurred Lines” (Robin Thicke)
This one has to be here simply because it's arrogantly refused to leave our every day lives. The song has that condescending ability to be a total piece of lyrical shit, yet toe-tappingly catchy. We liked that quality a few months ago, but now that’s the sole thing we absolutely hate about it. We hear it everywhere we go.
I’ve been to my campus bookstore three times since the beginning of school. It's been played all three times. I had never seen so many disgruntled faces than when everyone at the register heard “E’erbody get up” in its first few seconds.
Multiply this by 100 at a party filled with drunken savages, and you have people ready to destroy whomever's iPod is blasting that four-and-a-half minutes of Marvin Gaye rip-off.
5. “Wagon Wheel” (Old Crow Medicine Show)
If you’ve never been to a bar surrounded by drunken boors screaming this song at the top of their lungs, you've never truly had a good time. Darius Rucker recently did an awesome cover of the song and said in an interview after its release, “I didn't know that every college student south of the Mason-Dixon Line in the last eight years knows this song. I had no idea.”
And that’s the goddamn truth. The song’s graspable lyrics and classic country melody (despite being released less than ten years ago) resonate with any college kid who might think they’re a good singer after knocking a few back, but are really just straight shitty vocalists. Mumford & Sons did a cover, too, but those English dudes can’t pull of a 'Murican song like that. It’s in the Geneva Convention.
4. “Sweet Caroline” (Neil Diamond)
Don’t get me wrong. Most of this song is great karaoke material. Most of this song is fun to belt out at the top of your lungs with your friends on the shuttle ride downtown. Most of this song is very non-creepy.
This classic was selected solely because of the one disturbing line, “Reachin’ out, touchin’ me, touchin’ you.” There have been way, way, way too many weird instances at the bar where I’ve seen young vodka savants actually using this line as an excuse to go for desperate girls who are just trying to drag themselves through the rest of the night. Physically aggressive utilization of a single lyric? Very much so. Neil may have had some ulterior motives when writing this back in '69.
3. “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (Def Leppard)
When I think of Def Leppard, I think of the '80s. And when I think of the '80s, I think of Rickrolling, “Rock Me Amadeus,” Pablo Escobar, and all the other incorrigible notoriety that decade left behind as its legacy. (I do respect Tim Berners-Lee though. You wouldn’t be reading this pointless ranking right now if it weren’t for that sandbagging son of a bitch.)
This 80's anthem is adequately sexual, so it’s not uncommon to hear it when you’re out and about. If enough assholes are standing around you with full cups of alcohol in their hands, though, this song’s chorus quickly becomes “Pour some [beer/wine/jungle juice/Zelko] on me” as said assholes dump their entire drinks all over everyone within the general vicinity.
From then on, it’s an unstoppable chain reaction of beer showers and fist deliveries right to the suckhole. Simple inevitability at its finest.
2. “Tequila” (The Champs)
You won’t hear this Sandlot throwback often, but God forbid this one plays at the bar you happen to be perusing on a weekend night. Good night and good luck. You’ll be smelling like a Cabo local the next morning.
1. “We Can’t Stop” (Miley Cyrus)
“Twerk” was added to the Oxford Dictionary Online this year, thanks in part to our innocent Disney queen’s colorful dance routine with #THICKE at the VMAs a couple weeks ago. America’s impending implosion is upon us.
“We Can't Stop” is dangerous. You can’t look on Twitter or Vine anymore for a weird little dog making funny noises without encountering 12 videos of sloppy blondes twerking on every wall in sight. And, sadly, the song is nowhere near over its popularity in college towns. Girls love it. They aspire to do the “dance” just as well as Miley did at the show that launched her into that rarified atmosphere of infamy. And guys love it because, well, the girls are getting better and better at it.
Now Miley's got her hands on a sledgehammer and construction equipment. I don’t even wanna know what’s gonna happen next.
Honorable Mention: Ram Jam, “Black Betty,” the song responsible for more speeding tickets and methhead pregnancy scares than any other in the history of mankind.
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