Content warning: playlist contains explicit and sexual language.
I usually go through phases where I listen to a genre or artist excessively until it gets old, then rotate to the next style. It can help keep the music fresh for me, however, it means I sometimes go through phases of admittedly bad music. This playlist is not from one of those phases. I fully stand by this playlist for literally any situation.
The beginning of this playlist gives a fantastic taste of the era when autotune was blossoming, and artists like T-Pain and Akon were showing how much further their voices could go with some digital assistance. Crossing these singers with the blunt and ignorant Plies assured club bangers that almost sound romantic if it weren’t for the rapper announcing he’s “yiked up and ho’ny.”
Temperature and Gasolina give everyone a chance to dance and shout unintelligibly because no one knows the actual words. Beautiful Girls follows to give everyone a nice, basic, terrible song. Arts and Entertainment Reporter Angel Ortega desperately wanted me to remove this song from the playlist, but I refused because the media doesn’t control me.
The back end of the playlist gets hot and heavy, starting with Lil Wayne accompanied by Bobby Valentino imitating a police siren. The songs only get more and more sexual as The Dream and Ray J each sing about their semi-romantic affairs.
The playlist ends with two songs that are sex in the form of soundwaves, absolute classics and titans of the explicitly-raunchy sex music: My Neck, My Back and Fuck the Pain Away. Music really doesn’t get more human than a low-sound quality live performance over a beat that is made up of a lone, blown-out bassline and a monotonous Canadian repeating “Fuck the pain away.”
The original theme of this playlist was “Back to School,” however when I thought about how few school-themed songs there are that aren’t about being high or blatantly titled “I Love College,” I decided it was my responsibility to give the people the playlist they really want. I hope everyone enjoys listening to my playlist as much as I enjoyed creating it.
Mitchell Kret can be reached at [email protected] or @mkret222 on Twitter.