Fat Bottom Girls by Queen

 

All of my hated songs so far have been low-hanging fruit, in the sense that they are by musical acts which I also hate, so I figured it was time to do a song I hate from a band that I love. In fact I ain't too wild about half of Queen's songs. They took a lot of risks, which paid off big when it worked, so I can even appreciate that some of their experiments failed. But I cannot so easily justify Fat Bottomed Girls, a completely unredeemable stinker.

First of all we have some extremely blatant misogyny. Freddie channels his best Robert Plant impersonation and talks about women as sex objects, even using the word 'floozy' in an embarrassingly casual manner. This song would probably have been cancelled if Mercury had not been gay. But gay men carry around a lot of misogyny, express it often, and should be called out on it. At least when being objectified by heterosexual men, a woman knows she is being appreciated in some way, and not just opportunistically used to sell a sub par song.

I also hate it for its mention of a dominate physical trait. Like another song I hate, Brown Eyed Girl, the trick here is to reference a common physical attribute so that you have the highest possible amount of people who will identify with the song. It is lazy, cynical and lacks integrity and authenticity.

Finally there is the music. It is as if Queen are trying to write the most boring version of an AC/DC song and still failing. There are no mind boggling riffs or soaring melodies. Just some cliche blues rock progressions. Even the lead parts, which appear in the 2nd verse and in the bridge and outro, feel dialed in. And as low as they are buried in the mix I would guess Brian May agreed when he made this album. The rhythm section is also unspectacular, if not tight as always, and the arrangement is the predictable verse/chorus/verse cookie cutter pop song formula.

I don't get the feeling hearing this song that Queen even believed in it. I think they were just pandering to the arena audiences. They may have even been trying to parody other arena rock bands to take the piss out of them, but if so they never showed their hand. Most of all I hate that a band as talented as Queen would stoop to this sort of soulless, cynical songwriting.