Review Summary: Souja Boy creates the worst album of the new millennium. This 50 minute pile of garbage shall go down in musical infamy.
Every year it seems as though there is always one song at high school dances that causes the average wall flower to break out into spontaneous dance. Whether it was Lil’ John’s infectious “Get Low,” or Fat Joe’s simple, yet strangely addicting, “Lean Back,” there was always that one prominent single…
Unfortunately for 2007 that single is Soulja Boy’s “Crank That,” a track that can only be defined as a "ghetto square dance record" the lyrics of which amount to nothing more than instructions for performing a ridiculous dance which rivals that of the “Cotton Eyed Joe.” The production of this track is absolutely horrendous, sounding as though it was recorded on a laptop microphone in a teenager’s bedroom while procrastinating. Bearing all this in mind, it is safe to say that “Crank That” is one of the worst one-hit-wonder’s in music history, surpassing even the Baha Men’s 2000 hit “Who Let the Dogs Out?”
And that, loyal readers, is only one of one of fourteen musical abominations on Soulja Boy’s new album, Tell ‘Em.
What follows the first single is a series of songs which seem to have certain sections of “Crank That,” sampled over and over again. These samples serve as the backing beats to opuses of lyrical failure. In fact, it is incredibly hard to take anything said on this album seriously due to the obvious lack of effort and production set forth by Soulja Boy. For example, the song “Sidekick,” consists of random ramblings by Soulja Boy that pay homage to his beloved electronic device, his T-Mobile Sidekick. The resultant lyrics contain the following….
“Man I Can't Believe That I'm Rappin 'bout a Phone
But What U Won't Believe Is I Wrote This Song....
It is my hope that anyone reading this realizes that any song that questions why it is written should not have been written in the first place.
In addition to incredibly asinine lyrics, the song titles are basic descriptions of what the respective song is about. For example, “Pass it to Arab,” is simple the aforementioned song title repeated over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, repetition can be extremely effective and catchy in music, however, for Soulja Boy, the recycling of samples and repetition of nonsensical lyrics creates an album which progresses nowhere and leaves the listener asking, “Why?”
In conclusion, Soulja Boy may have written the worst album of the new millennium, but he has done more than that. He has taught a ridiculous dance to the masses, sold hundreds of thousands of records to naïve teenyboppers, and has even made this reviewer sit through his flagrant display of musical ineptness. For this, I give him the utmost respect and credit; he is, in essence living the American dream. However, this reviewer would rather “crank” some Tupac in the stereo instead.
