In the last Pop Pick, I covered “I Took A Pill In Ibiza,” a song on which I made a complete 180 between first hearing it and today. With “Hey Ya,” I made a full 360.
Don’t worry. I know trigonometry. Or at least well enough to write for a music blog. But Outkast has always been an interesting case to me. Since I was still years away from developing my own taste in music when the legendary rap duo was at the height of their popularity, I was introduced to Outkast via Top 40 radio. And I loved them. “Ms. Jackson,” ''Roses,” and “The Way You Move” were always more fun to hear than whatever dad rock or contemporary country my parents would usually put on. “Hey Ya,” of course, was the most fun of them all. At the tender age of seven, I missed the sobering message within Andre 3000’s gleefully delivered vocals. I just enjoyed all the clapping and the Polaroid picture shaking.
But surprisingly, my taste in music did not stop developing at seven years old. And with the advent of the iPod, my listening shifted further and further away from pop radio. I started getting into rock, hip hop, and other standard teen boy genres. Paradoxically, I even found my way back to Outkast through their incredible early albums. I never wrote “Hey Ya” off, but I certainly wasn’t putting it into rotation very often. It just wasn’t the type of thing I chose to listen to.
Here’s where the back half of that 360 comes into play. My taste in music also didn’t stop developing at the age of seventeen. As I expanded the range of music I listened to and cultivated a deeper appreciation of pop songwriting, I wound up revisiting some of the pop classics of my youth. This more recent time around, I think I got it a little better. First of all, the genre-blending in “Hey Ya” is genius. It’s not often that you see a rapper build a pop song around an acoustic guitar loop and a funk bassline. Also, not to get too into music theory (mainly because I do not know music theory), but “Hey Ya” hits an E major chord where it should hit an E minor. It might be “against the rules,” but an all-major chord progression fits the vibe of the song so much better.
Andre 3000 was right about seven-year-old Lyle: I didn’t want to hear him, I just wanted to dance. But once I started listening, I understood why this song deserves such reverence. I’ve jokingly referred to me and my fellow late 90s birthday-havers as the “‘Hey Ya’ Generation,” because so many of us have a similar experience with Outkast (also because we don’t really fit in as Millennials or Gen Z, but that’s another article). That’s a lot of importance to assign to one song. I get it. But hey, there are worse songs to base a generational identity on. Might as well make it a classic.
Lyle B.
P.S. I would also accept being the “‘Yeah!’ Generation.” Either one is fine.