For the past few months, Top40 radio has been a battleground. Two vengeful musicians have conquered the airwaves, lashing out at each other in song. First, Eamon's single, "F-ck It (I Don't Want You Back)," a jilted lover's tune, quickly won over the airwaves, but then an MC named Frankee utilized Eamon's own melodic formula to fashion a revenge-track of her own, "FU Right Back." The theatrics have progressed since then with Eamon first claiming and then denying that he was involved in the song's production in order to promote his original song. Frankee, for her part, says that not only did she create the song, but that she is also Eamon's ex-girlfriend, which he in turn denies.
Frankee's musical response is typical of the "dis-track" genre. This unique facet of the pop music world demonstrates that any hit can be flipped on its head and re-recorded in a new way with the result manifesting itself as a biting put-down to an artist. Think Sporty Thievz's "No Pigeons," which inverted TLC's feminist rant, "No Scrubs." The lines, "If you don't have a car and you're walking / Oh yes son I'm talkin' to you" are replaced by "If you got more than one baby father/ oh yes girl we's talkin' to you."
Often "dis tracks" like the Frankee and Eamon affair will have a few wrinkles with respect to the identity of the adversaries. When Christina Aguilera seemingly spoofed Eminem with "Will the Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up?" the singer wasn't our favorite X-tina, but an unknown artist named Emily Ellis posing as her. Even then, verbal quips like "You all act like you never heard a white person before" and "And Dr. Dre (laugh) did everything, you idiot" are some of the most memorable pop tidbits in years.
While the disses usually manifest as responses to expendable radio songs, they do make pop just a little more interesting. They perform two contradictory functions: While they seemingly degrade an artist's music and reputation, the tracks also pay ironic tribute to the musical artistry of the musician or band behind the original song.
Then again, the most heinous "dis tracks" can just be badly performed cover songs like Britney Spears' rendition of The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction." Britney botching classic rock-and-roll: Now that's just mean.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.