Don’t call it a comeback—instead, hit me on my Sidekick with that news, please.
LL Cool J’s 2006 album Todd Smith was one of those “throw cameos at the wall and see if something sticks” projects that seems to come off as more humiliating to read about and listen to than to game-facedly promote. The record, which was named after LL’s then-incipient clothing line, had guest spots on 12 of its 13 tracks, including assists by the likes of Mary J. Blige, Pharrell, Juelz Santana, and someone from City High. And featured on the album’s lead single, no doubt because the folks at Def Jam were trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was the 2002 chart-topper “All I Have”: Jennifer Lopez, who herself was trying to fight back from the sales disappointment that was her 2005 album Rebirth.
“Control Myself” may epitomize the boomtime genre that was banal songs about “the club,” with LL smirking through lines like “She said her name Shayeeda / I could tell her mama feed her” while Lopez tries to make as little of an impact as possible, cooing about possibly leaving her man and getting in touch with LL via Sidekick. (Jermaine Dupri manages to wiggle his way in there too.) The lyrics don’t even reach new heights of inanity, although there’s one point where they come awfully, almost blissfully close—let’s just say that while rhyming “desire” and “fire” is a bit overrated as far as Cardinal Lyrical Sins go, using that pairing as an excuse to set up a pairing between “inferno” and “Cuervo” is a no-no. By the time the whole thing fizzles out in a pile of “zuh zuh zuh zuh, zuh zuh zuh”-ing, you feel like you’ve spent the last three minutes in bottle-service hell, surrounded by people who are flaunting little more than their ability to stick out their chests and peacock, and wondering why on earth you spent $19 for the equivalent of well whiskey mixed into flat Coke.
LL Cool J & J-Lo-Control Myself [Dailymotion]
LL Cool J [Island Def Jam]
F2K: Idolator Counts Down The 50 Worst Songs Of The ’00s, One By Ear-Splitting One
Oh, fuck, remember when every Hype Williams video had that horrible split-screen/bracketing thing going on? I had forgotten about that particular crime spree against human retinas until just now.
Yeah, but as I look up at the galley copy of LL Cool J’s Platinum Workout book that inexplicably landed on my desk earlier this year and hasn’t left, I gotta say, that is one def tummy.
Odd that you don’t even mention the classic that this (perhaps desperately) samples to get its perfect beat, or the fact that the “zuh zuh zuh-ing” is actually “zen zen zen-ing.”
i always thought it was funny that Common basically did the same thing like two years later. I figured no one would want to touch a Bam sample after this disaster.
I love this song but hate myself for enjoying it as much as I do.
“You got, you got, you got what it takes to make me leave my man!” - amazing! It doesn’t even scan quite right!
@pdfreeman: Ugh, that was so much the worst! And it even got worstest (?) when stupid Hype was all like ‘this is groundbreaking video-making y’all’ in interviews. Dude was really trying to compare himself with the true greats, like Gondry.
To be honest I always kinda liked Hype’s action letterboxing. Probably I actually loved it in “Snap Yo Fingers” and I also enjoy the drowning-in-Tinkerbell-nail-polish feel it lends to that Beyonce video from the Pink Panther soundtrack.
Another thing I always liked was how I could never remember what LL was actually saying in the line I heard as “I feel my body urinate”
That is, surely, a terrible song. In fact, I kinda hate you for reminding me that it exists, Maura. But at the same time, I’m not sure it’s that bad (that is, on average, one of the five worst songs of its year).
…Or maybe it is.
I really like “Respect My Conglomerate” except for the godawful chorus sung by that no-name British woman- it is a truly vomit-inducing verse. “Control Myself” reminds me of that chorus, but for 3.5 straight minutes.
Control Myself > My Humps