Let’s face it: There’s a lot of bad music out there. But The A.V. Club is not content to judge a book by its cover. Which is why we’re willing to give anything a try, no matter what our instincts might tell us.
Who is this: California rapper T. Mills came up through the Vans Warped tour circuit, releasing The Finders Keepers EP in 2009 and his full-length debut, Ready, Fire, Aim!, in 2010. The single “Fuck Em (With My Vans On)” originally came out that same year, but Mills re-released that track (now called simply “Vans On”) in 2011 after he was signed by Columbia Records and put out the recent Leaving Home EP.
What inspired us to play this once: Los Angeles Times music critic Randall Roberts recently called Mills “the male Kreayshawn” and posited “Vans On” as a possible “worst song of the year” candidate. Sounds like something we’d want to hear exactly once!
Our opinion after one listen: Obviously our knowledge of T. Mills is limited. But based solely on “Vans On,” this self-professed “bad motherfucker” who hugs curves like a new Camaro appears to be a massive, meddlesome, misogynistic turd that nobody has had the decency to flush yet. Sadly, he is not the male Kreayshawn, whose “Gucci Gucci” sounds like Illmatic next to lines like this: “I can be your drill sergeant, you know, give you Major Payne / we could make magic and then I could pull a David Blaine.” Nothing else on Leaving Home is as gross or memorable; “The Boom” and “LA It Down” are generic pop-rap songs rounded out by come-ons (“I wanna hit it like a baseball bat”) so witless and unimaginative they aren’t even unintentionally funny.
Saving grace: “Vans On” is like “Gucci Gucci” in one respect, at least: It won’t leave our goddamn heads.
Will we play it twice? Considering how catchy “Vans On” is, we won’t have to.