12. "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me," "Weird Al" Yankovic (2011)
This week while scrolling Facebook I counted six articles or memes that were clearly fake news or urban legends that people posted as truth. Two of the sites linked to by the posts clearly declared themselves as either fake news or satire. It was right there. But, I honestly couldn't tell if the person sharing was in on the joke. Two others were memes spouting off false information in the name of confirmation bias. Two others were urban legends that have been floating around for over decade. Thirty seconds on Google would've debunked it and they could've saved themselves from spreading that stuff. They either don't know or don't care or both. These are the times in which we live.
Some will scoff at the inclusion of a comedy song on this list, but they can scoff away. "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me" is a near-perfect piece of humor in the way it parodies the music of Jim Steinman and skewers annoying internet behavior. The composition perfectly mimics Steinman's bombastic theatrical style and Weird Al sings it straight, which elevates the comedy. The choir of backup singers in the final moments are a masterstroke. Some of the references are dated since much of the stuff he sings about are related to email. The songs maintains satirical relevance, though, because we still do these things. An updated version might be called "Stop Sharing That Crap With Me."
All I know is this song speaks to me. It cuts to something deep inside me; an anger I never knew I had until I heard this one day driving to work. I played it on repeat after seeing someone post an long-ago debunked urban legend about Pepsi cans or Starbucks cup or something. The emotional release was cathartic and now "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me" is a kind of personal anthem.