Where were you July 4, 1992? Sitting in the backyard sipping a cool beverage while you watched your neighbors swim and hoping his wife's bathing suit top would come off? Perhaps you turned up the radio a bit as that hot song came on. You couldn't remember the guy's name. It was too black for you. But you knew the song. It was about women's asses.
"Baby Got Back." Sir Mix-A-Lot.
It was number one that week. It had the country by its puckered hole, and it was accompanied by a video that was nothing short of anal worshipping. (Later Burger King would use the song so its customers could know what part of the cow they were eating.)
It was, by every stretch of the definition, a bad song. Pointless. Tired. Novelty. It was the kind of thing older people couldn't believe was on the radio and younger kids thought was funny. Anyone between 15 and 30 just thought it was dumb.
While still a joke, it is no longer number one. That was actually the only Fourth of July when it was. It was replaced the next year by Janet Jackson singing one of her songs (they all sound the same so no title is necessary), and no song since then that has hit number one on the Fourth has matched it for sheer pointlessness. Maybe Brandy and Monica's 1998 hit "The Boy is Mine." Maybe not.
Of course, any self-respecting music lover knows Top 40 music is utter crap, so being number one only means your crap floated to the top of the bowl. Occasionally something good, like 1984's entry (Prince's "When Doves Cry") will sneak in and remind you that sometimes the public gets it right, but 1992 capped it. It was totally downhill from there. Not even the 1989 Milli Vanilli classic "Baby Don't Forget My Number" was as bad as Mix's ass anthem, and I'm glad one of the Vanilli boys are dead.
Freedom, as you should know by now, does not mean freedom from bad music. It only means you are free to ogle you neighbor's wife.
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