NEW SONG VS SONG POLL

Battle of the 90s rap song that sample vastly superior sources

Doctor Starky

ice ice is okay, but it gets a little monotonous - I mean, so does hammer's, but I feel like there's enough there to keep it fresh enough to make it through the whole track without your finger itching towards the 'skip' button

matt

I've loved "Ice Ice Baby" since it was actually cool to do so, but it's basically four minutes of Van Winkle boasting about how great he is, where Hammer's song is kind of an ode to how happy music makes him, and that has aged better.

Rish Outfield

while i like ice more as a person i still use the HAMMER TIME joke

It's been awhile since I'd heard either song, I didn't remember Ice Ice Baby at all and only a bit of Can't Touch This, so I listened to both. I found both songs a chore to sit through the whole thing, but at least Can't Touch This is fun and peppy before it gets old, while listening to Ice Ice Baby is just tedious yet simultaneously one long "what the fuuuuu--".

SweetAgnostis

"U Can't Touch This" gets my vote. At least Hammer isn't sneering and nasally like Vanilla Ice is.

Thomas Carmody

I love Rick James too much to be able to properly enjoy Can’t Touch This 🤷‍♂️

In either 2nd or 3rd grade, this question came up on the playground. If I recall, I was the only kid who picked Hammer and got made fun of for it. It is oddly satisfying nearly 30 years later to see Hammer decisively winning the vote. I backed the right horse this whole time!

Ford Diem

I love Queen too much to give Ice Ice Baby the vote

I like both. But i am going with Can’t Touch This. Ice ice baby is The Room compared to Can’t Touch This.

Yvette

U Can't Touch this was so ubiquitous on the radio that I had a woman tell me her baby's first words were "Stop! Hammer time!"

I'm pretty sure "Ice Ice Baby" only got popular because of its title and because the tweens listening to it were too young to have grown up with "Under Pressure". The song may not be nearly as lousy as Ice's "Play That Funky Music", but even for its era, it's very Maroon 5. I can understand why white-influenced mainstream radio stations would be reluctant to play anything from Fear of a Black Planet or Amerikkka's Most Wanted, but LL Cool J released "The Boomin' System" around the same time, and that song is exponentially superior to "Ice Ice Baby". Hammer, on the other hand, may not have been any more complex than Ice, but he at least sounded like he had SOME degree of fun performing his music, and "U Can't Touch This" is way more upbeat.

Jacqueline Sailer

I'm voting for Can't Touch This because it's by Lostprophets.

Tommy Wimmer

I like the Ninja Rap better than both of these songs.

Kyle Brackman

I distinctly remember an R.E.M. interview with a British rock magazine around the time of "New Adventures", when they were given this exact choice during a barrage of small and short questions, and one of them (I think it was Stipe) said: "Hammer.", and another one (I think it was Mills) said, wisely: "No. There is no winner."

Daniel Bickermann

They're both bad, but Ice Ice Baby is bad and catchy in a more interesting way. U Can't Touch This is only notable because it was the first pop rap song that a generation of people listened to. Had it come out a year later no one would have cared. IIB on the other hand would have been notable no matter when it came out. Also, it recontextualizes its sample in an more interesting way, UCTT is basically just Super Freak but with rapping over it.

MJS

Ice Ice Baby's lyrics are admittedly more fun, memorable, and quotable, but if you ask me U Can't Touch This can't be beat in sheer catchiness.

Natalie Koppen

I will say that I've never found Ice Ice Baby to be as bad as everyone says it is - yes, the flow and rhymes are mediocre, but that's just early 90s hip-hop for you, it's nothing unusual. And while Vanilla's delivery is more obnoxious than the norm, his whiteness doesn't come through as strongly as other white rappers I could name. That said, U Can't Touch This is a rightful classic, and anyone who votes for Ice Ice Baby over it should seriously reexamine their music tastes.

Gordon Stearns

Simply put, I can dance to it.

apocalypsethen

This is a one sided slaughter.

It’s ok to be wrong. You do you.

Matthew Abbott

Honestly I'm kind of getting tired of the whining over IIB's sampling, for me it's getting very old.

LifeIsStrange

I think the verse sare well done actually.

LifeIsStrange

Not me.

LifeIsStrange

Ice Ice Baby is a better song, way catchier and more impressive in terms of rhyme and flow.

LifeIsStrange

U Can’t Touch This isn’t even about anything, but it’s still better than any of Ice’s painful rhymes. And while I am a bit bothered by the lazy sampling, at least one of them didn’t try to deny it.

Ethan Michael Thomas

U Can't Touch This, because every time I hear Ice Ice Baby, I'm angry that I'm not listening to Under Pressure.

Alina

I can actually listen to and enjoy the verses of u can't touch this. Ice ice baby has nothing going for it but the chorus

HAS to be U can't touch this, Hammer actually gives due credit to Rick James, unlike Ice's infamous "no there's another 'dun' in the bassline so it's a completely different song" BS. Also I think Hammer is much more talented than Vanilla Ice, even if he's just as corny.

At the very least 'U Can't Touch This' doesn't still from better artists.

Nir revel