POP SONG REVIEW: "Earth" by Lil Dicky

um todd we need to talk about those mj segments i mean if you have time if you like we can debate about this

Have never heard of this one before. I'm such a lucky person.

I love that you brought back the Suit & Tie slide joke for the intro

air budd dwyer

Jim Davis has admitted several times he created Garfield with his background in marketing. He's pretty shameless, yet he appears to have more of a sense of humor about it than guys like Lil Dicky.

forestaysaIL

I found it telling the only other comedy musicians I recognized are more side projects than full careers, like The Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords. Even Weird Al nowadays does more TV and YouTube appearances than release music.

forestaysaIL

More confusing is the official site claiming the Katy Perry pony is meant to represent a Przewalski's horse. Which I can see, but doubt it was the intention after they recorded and animated everything. I don't know they even made Sia a kangaroo 'cause she's an Aussie.

forestaysaIL

I have a feeling if this wasn't a music video, it would come off as the most expensive Lion King/Sausage Party fan film ever.

forestaysaIL

The fact this is or was popular at all makes me feel very old, because that was some stupid shit that until now I'd managed to completely avoid (living under an academic rock as I do). Um. Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno was some ridic funny eco-friendly celebrity comedy. Hit for Hit by Jakob Schøyen Andersen and Fridtjof Stensæth Josefsen is very good musical comedy (Norwegian but still).

Cristina Youngren

It's a testament to how godlike Weird Al is that he's about the only comedy musician that doesn't make me want to gouge my ears out after a couple songs. It's far better to be somebody like Randy Newman, who sprinkles humor in his music in a way that feel natural and innate. Nothing gets the flopsweat going like "Are you ready to LAUGH?!"

Kristopher Bluth

Sort of weird that you point out how Lil Dicky has one joke, but don't mention how his cartoon self has a real big dick. The man officially has no jokes left, he lost his last one.

TJ Herriot

Anyone else bothered that they confused anus with butt with the baboon thing?

Raymond

Holy shit yes dude. This I cannot get from anyone else. This is solid shit right here.

matt

THAT'S A BAD ERROR. I don't know how I fucked that up but it'll be fixed before it goes on YouTube.

Todd in the Shadows

Wow, that song just sounds incredibly unpleasant to listen to and watch. And yeah, you have to wonder about such charity drives - when you subtract the production costs, how much do they actually donate? And what's the purpose of such donations?

Brett

Like Todd said, this single went down like the Titanic, so it's no surprise there's no real buzz around it.

Teddy Haines

I think the important take away here is that Baby Shark is at 62 on the music charts

waywardlaser

God I think this might be worst song of the year. I've been saying for months that 2019 will be the year of exceptional weirdness and this is continuing that trend.

Foxx Navarro

This song was produced by Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat.

Michael

I hate this crap so much - not your review, Todd, it's awesome as always, but the Lil' Dicky thing, ugh, it reeks of grossness to me. Story time - A couple years ago I took a marketing class by an indie author who now makes nearly 7 figures a year. Before he was an indie author, he was a marketing dude, same as Dicky. The class was fairly straight forward on how to advertise on FB and the like, but you had to take the class to be in a closed FB group, and that's what I really wanted because I wanted some advice. Thing is, the author would also post to this group regularly with new tips and tricks he used. One day, he posts this long story about a good friend of his who had stage four cancer. He's written a book, he says, and the proceeds are to go to his good friend. Again, sound familiar? All this crap might seem innocent, good cause type stuff. But here's the thing about doing a charity this way - by attaching a requirement to donating to a cause, specifically a requirement that directly aids the person doing the fundraising, it not only dilutes the effects of the charity, it draws focus away from the problem it purportedly is there to solve. The story is no longer about the guy with cancer, it's about the guy who selflessly wrote a book to save his friend. It's marketing genius. But it also goes deeper than just a surface level opportunistic act of charity. You see, by requiring people to buy his book, his book rises in the ranks on all the bestseller lists. One of the most important things for an indie author is getting exposure on these types of lists. The higher you are up on those lists, the more your books sell. Secondly, you now have all these people who've bought your book. In stores like Amazon, that means the algorithm that chooses what to recommend other buyers sees your book as being more popular. That means you'll sell more books. Not just the book you are selling for charity. All your books. How do I know this? This author taught it to all of us, in great detail. I've seen it work on my own stuff. Finally, aside from all this wash of money, you get sell through. People who read your work are the best people to sell more of your work to. Period. They have the highest percentage chance of buying more of your work. So you fill your book with "Also written by" and set your backlist ablaze. Which of course means those books go higher on the bestseller lists, which amounts to more sales. None of those sales are going to charity. It's just the extra you're gonna get for being "charitable." Okay, maybe you're fine with that. He is, after all, donating all this money and time to his friend. Except, here's more of the rub. His friend had a Gofundme. Nowhere in the post where the author talks about selling his book for his friend does he even mention this gofundme. No link, not even an aside. In fact, people in the group had no way of giving the friend with cancer funds directly, so they started paypalling the author money. The author then gave his friend the money to the gofundme. Not directly. He posted it on the gofundme as "donated by" and then would list a name. Additionally, he monetized the link he posted to all of us so we could buy his book. He used his associates code in the link. An Amazon Associate gets commission on every “referral” they send Amazon’s way through a special code you include in the link. This means he was not only making money off of his book sales - including the sales those sales would generate, the increased visibility he got through "also boughts", sales of his back catalog - he also gets a portion of whatever people who clicked his link purchased on Amazon for the next 24 hours as a reward for referring customers to Amazon (becoming an affiliate to get a little extra cash, btw, is another thing this author taught us about) None of this extra money was promised to go to his dying friend. It's an amazing amount of publicity and extra sales, all piggy backed on tragedy. Now, why is this the same as Lil' Dicky? Aside from the fact that I wouldn't be surprised if selling music is similar to selling books - youtube algorithms recommending his other songs, etc, etc. - I went to that link in Dicky’s youtube description. Guess what I didn't find? Any fucking links to actually donate to any environmental organization. What I did find? Aside from asinine advice about how I can help the planet by signing a petition (W.T.F.) and a link to register to vote which was the only useful thing there, I found a call to action to help share and support the song even more. Buy merch. Watch the video some more. Share the song. Fuck. This. Guy. This isn't even a vacuous attempt to do good. It's a manipulative attempt by a marketing genius to remain in the top 40 by capitalizing on a devastating problem. I'm glad Todd didn't pull punches on it. This song was never about charity.

Megan Johnson

Man I know I'm generally clueless about pop music, but it's probably a bad sign for the charity's sake that I have heard precisely zero buzz, positive *or* negative, about this song. (also, I don't want to be that guy, but my name is misspelled in the Patreon credits)

Michael Schrag

... that.... was... awful. Like, that song killed brain cells. The video was awesome, but lord, did I not need to know that song was a thing... ugh...

Charles Arthur

I've heard of them at least!

Jon Heiman

Have been avoiding this song so far; thanks for the summary. I would have guessed Doja Cat's "Mooo!" ("Bitch I'm a Cow!") for the stinger music, but ah well. :)

Jon Heiman

I thought the Kendall Jenner bit in Freaky Friday was fucking hilarious. Also Jackson is innocent.

LifeIsStrange

When I think "joke song about climate change" I'd hope for less We Are The World and more Flagpole Sitta. The premise would work better as a movie.

I'm getting that too... is it a problem with Vimeo I wonder?

Some sort of strange edit around 18:40

MJS

Rather than an editing hiccup, I'm getting a notice that the video does not exist.

Matthew

There seems to be an editing hiccup at about the 18:42 mark

Devin Brewer

Fantastic review! Also very unexpected to see you recognize that Boyzone was a thing despite their complete lack of Hot 100 hits.

Jacqueline Sailer

There's an editing hiccup at 18:40. Aside from that, fantastic video as always Todd. I think this is the best piece of critique you've put out since, well, the Lauryn Hill ep. Seriously, you've been on a roll lately.

Sam Frederich

Todd... why do you do this to yourself? You should know better by now.

ArthurCrane

When i watched rap critics video of this 'wow this looks REALLY expensive". Like why did you do music at all you could have done an animated short. Or even like, another "we are the world cover? This was made to gain money via streaming the animation could have carried it without him writing a song and he'd make MORE money.

Katastrophe

Can’t wait to drop “... as much star power as Woodstock, Live Aid, and the HBomberGuy Donkey Kong stream combined,” into casual conversation!

Gene Younkin

You just blew my mind calling Oprah the OG influencer.

Petty Officer No Class

Probably because it’s so clearly “Since U Been Gone” that we don’t need a poll.

Anthony Pierre Coco

The link to the poll doesn't seem to be working.

Tony Goldmark