10 Annoyingly Catchy Pop Songs You Probably Love To Hate

7. Rednex - "Cotton Eye Joe"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOYZaiDZ7BM Holy hell does this thing have a strangely long shelf life for an electro-fiddle romp from the 90s that features about 30 words in total. There's a weird moment somewhere around the 1 minute mark of this song when, after I've registered my initial disgust with having to hear this goddamn song again and have begun actively trying to block it out of my headspace, it...it pulls me in. It pulls me in deep. The rational part of me knows I should hate every bit of what's happening: The obnoxious fiddling, painfully obvious attempt to cash in on the club music craze of the mid 90s, the extreme monotony of it all...but then the chorus kicks in a third time and I'm back in a Cotton Eye trance. And I am a Cotton Eye man once more. Everyone involved in the song sounds like they're just having a real nice time, if nothing else. And hey, I wouldn't mind being one of those people today. Hell, I may even put a piece of straw in my mouth (if I can find one on such short notice) and start slapping the hell out of my knees. And I won't even worry about the fact that they never once reveal where Cotton Eye Joe came from...or where he go.
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Jacob is a part-time contributor for WhatCulture, specializing in music, movies, and really, really dumb humor.