Picture it: you’re in the car or hanging out around the house by yourself for hours on end. To kill some time, you put on some cringy songs that you’ve loved singing along to since your impressionable teen years. Is this music you would ever put on the aux if you were the DJ at an adult social gathering? That isn’t ironically nostalgic? No. Because you keep the fact that you still know every word, guitar riff, and drum fill to those songs under wraps. That’s for you and you alone, and that’s your right.
Videos by American Songwriter
And today, dear reader, I’m stripping away my own rights to private guilty pleasures and sharing six of the absolute cringiest songs I used to bop hard to when I was a teenager for your entertainment.
Sure, some of my enjoyment of these songs was ironic even then. But the older I get, the cringier these songs become—and you know what, I think it’s making me love them even more.
Just remember that this is a safe space, okay?
“You’re So Last Summer” by Taking Back Sunday
Kicking off this list of cringy songs from my teen years that I absolutely love is “You’re So Last Summer” by Taking Back Sunday. (There will be a lot of 90s and noughties in here because I’m in my 30s, so bear with me.) I feel like this one needs no explanation. Anyone, and especially Taking Back Sunday fans, should be able to recognize how hilariously Dramatic with a capital D these lyrics are: “The truth is you could slit my throat, and with my one last gasping breath I’d apologize for bleeding on your shirt.” Come on. I get it, but come on.
“Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!” by Vengaboys
The fact that Vengaboys’ “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!” is on this list is entirely the fault of four (I think?) random dudes who posted a ridiculous video on YouTube of them dancing to this song sometime in the mid-2000s. I don’t know who they were, and my very shallow dive into the matter didn’t produce any videos that looked like the one my friends and I all laughed at every time we did a YouTube video swap night. All I know is it showed up when I was an impressionable youth, and now I have no choice but to sing along to “boom, boom, boom, boom, I want you in my room.”
“It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy
Instrumentally speaking, “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy is an undeniable bop. The beat and RikRok’s ultra-smooth voice would make this song a staple in any Y2K nostalgia playlist, but the lyrics are inarguably cringe. Or maybe what’s cringe is the idea of me singing and rapping along to this as a teenager. To be fair, I can’t blame a 15-year-old for thinking it’s funny to sing a song that has the word “butt naked” in it. Reading the lyrics back now as a 30-something, though, makes me want to roll my eyes permanently into the back of my head.
“Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” by Trace Adkins
Speaking of rolling my eyes permanently into the back of my head, let’s move on to the next cringy song from my high school days: “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” by Trace Adkins. If I seriously put this over the speakers while I was hanging out with my friends—and I wasn’t doing a bit—I think they might disown me forever. Or they would at least look at me very, very differently. But in my defense, it was in the Top 40. So, at some point, all of us collectively decided it was a catchy enough song to ignore the lines about slapping grandmas and Donkey Kong. (Because if you’re already at badonkadonk, why not go full Donkey Kong?)
“One Last Breath” by Creed
I apologize to any Creed fans, but the collective experience of the melodramatic lyrics, Scott Stapp’s distinct vocal tone, and the air-guitar-able riffs makes Creed a cringey memory of my youth. If they’re an unironic Top 10 band for you, just remember that I also listen to Aqua (more on that later), and you’re allowed to judge me for that if you want. I have such visceral memories of scream-singing, “Hold me down, I’m six feet from the edge, and I’m thinking maybe six feet isn’t so far down” with my friends that it’s hard not to cringe at how annoying we were.
“That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania Twain
Shania Twain is my girl, but “That Don’t Impress Me Much” is certainly one of her cheesier musical offerings. It’s a hit, don’t get me wrong, but it’s definitely camp. (A camp that is made all the more campier by her walking around the desert in a leopard-print two-piece fit with matching duster and hat box.) But I still love this cringey song to this day and play it with my cover bands, and getting to create all that sass from scratch makes the song that much more satisfying.
“Roses Are Red” by Aqua
Rounding out my list of cringy songs from my high school days that I still love is a song that’s even cringier than “Barbie Girl” by Aqua because it’s an Aqua deep cut from that same album. I don’t know what it was about my childhood that put me in touch with so much European dance pop, but Aquarium was in my regular rotation. “Roses Are Red” is one of the most intensely electronic, bordering on the absurd, call-and-response songs on their entire album. (Also, what is that YouTube cover photo?!) Anyway, I still sing every part of this song (when I’m alone in the car) and love it.
Photo by James Crump/WireImage
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