By Drew Wilson
This review covers the pop track The Bloodhound Gang – The Bad Touch.
This particular track was released in 1999 on the album Hooray for Boobies.
This particular track was meant to be have a satiricle edge to it, but with no immediately obvious tracks I can tell that it is satirizing, this track seems to be relegated to the pop genre as it is more pop than rock.
For me, this is one of those tracks that is more about shock value than attempting to produce something that has long lasting quality. When it was released, it’s most effective, well, effect, was to shock more conservative parents whenever their kids listened to the radio and this track came on. By it’s very nature, it is simply juvenile.
Besides shocking people and possibly going in satirical videos, I struggle to think of how this track is useful or enjoyable in any way.
The main vocals didn’t exactly exhibit vocal talent. In fact, it almost seemed to be the point that there was seemingly untalented vocals because it was accessible to people who take great joy in irritating others. Probably the only thing that I felt added some quality to the track was the talking in the beginning. It does set this track up very well. Whether it was actually taken from an old black and white film or if it was simply produced and mixed down to sound old is unclear to me.
The brass that was supposed to add a certain melody to this track ended up sounding like a canned instrument and, ultimately, lowered the quality to sound cheap. There is some 303 synth effects added part way through, but it sounded like it was just dropped in with minimal mixing effort. The synthetic chords were about the only decent instrument that I could hear in this track.
The lyrics themselves, in my opinion, aren’t that great. It’s not because it was dirty. It was because it was wall to wall advertising for trademarked products. While the attempted effect seems to be to make the lyrics sound clever, this simply made the verse lyrics simply forgettable, the lyrics meaning also became muddied, and it gave the impression that the lyrics was simply a form of cheap advertising. Before anyone suggests that I didn’t like the track simply because the lyrics were dirty, I would point out that I gave Hey Baby a positive review.
Overall, this track was more about shock value than producing something of quality. I’m really glad that this track died out by the mid 2000’s because it ended up being simply irritating.
Score
3/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85
