With a stripped-down, infectious guitar lick and a hilariously overblown hook sung by Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, the Roots’ Birthday Girl” is so hot that it immediately begs the question Ben Mathis Lilley asked in his recent Slate piece, “Did The Roots just trick me into liking a lame emo band?” The answer, thank Anansi, is no. But ?uestlove’s self-admitted “easy pop song” does have all the qualities of a classic song of summer: It’s ridiculously catchy. It’s an attempt at crossover appeal. You can shake your two-step to it. And, perhaps most importantly, it comes on strong and fades away without a trace (in this case with an echoing Yo La Tengo-ish hum-along).
The funny thing is that, because of the Roots particular place in alt-hip pop culture, in creating this consummate piece of bubblegum summer fare they’ve managed to please just about no one. On his Status Ain’t Hood blog, Tom Breihan called “Birthday Girl” “quite possibly the worst thing the Roots have ever done,” comparing it unfavourably to Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop” On their own website, Okayplayer.com, first-year college lit pretentious fans so bemoaned the inclusion of the track that the Roots ultimately left it off the album.
So in defence of the fun-loving Roots of What They Do and the Seed 2.0, I nominate “Birthday Girl” as my song of the summer.
As an aside, the song has two videos. I prefer the handheld hipster party one above, but, with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, the other (apparently official) video hilariously features youthful pornstar Sasha Grey, whose Wikipedia page states that she originally considered using Anna Karina (the name of Godard’s ex-wife) as her porn name. Charming.
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