Throwback Thursday: "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" Soulja Boy Tell'em

Before PSY, there was Soulja Boy Tell'em, another goofy rapper with incomprehensible lyrics and a ridiculous dance craze. His breakthrough hit—amazingly, other successes followed—was "Crank That (Soulja Boy)," a seven-week #1 in the fall of 2007 thanks to a viral video and the questionable purchasing habits of teenagers. (Sound familiar?) Composed entirely of stock loops from a music-editing program for PCs, "Crank That" almost feels like the work of an idiot savant. Its spare steel-drum-and-snaps instrumental offers a surprisingly catchy hook—which is then buried under Soulja Boy's drawling, tuneless drivel. Worse songs have hit the top of Billboard charts, but for mind-numbing stupidity, "Crank That" is a real winner. C-

Five years ago this week, "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" was the #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100.