"Addams Groove" by MC Hammer

Song 14:

"Addams Groove” by MC Hammer

Peak: 7

Year: 1991

Year end position: 76

Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/5

Chronological Songs by Artist: 5/5

Video?: Yes

Wikipedia?:  Yes:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addams_Groove

Spotify?:  Yes

Lyrics:  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mchammer/addamsgroove.html

Yesterday we had a song by the glam rock band Sweet.  The day before that, we had a song by the 60's act Freddy Cannon.  Today we have a song by MC Hammer.  What do these acts have in common other than that they show up with consecutive songs alphabetically in the blog?  Each of them had exactly 5 songs hit the top 20.  Yesterday, I made the comparison between Sweet and Freddy Cannon, saying that they had remarkably similar chart runs.  MC Hammer had a much more successful and more compact productive chart career.

The “Addams Groove” is the 5^th and final entry MC Hammer had in the top 20.  It is also the first movie song we’ve had on the blog (unsurprisingly, from the “Addams Family”).  I feel that this song crystallizes a lot of criticisms that more or less ended MC Hammer’s career, although a strong case can be made that MC Hammer was also the victim of the times.  I’ll have more on that topic later.

It seemed like MC Hammer was around for longer than 2 years, but that was not the case.  He certainly put out songs after 1991, but his productive chart career was essentially over after that.  Every so often in pop music, an act like MC Hammer jumps up seemingly from nowhere, burns bright for a short amount of time and then fades quickly.  There are 11 acts who had at least 5 top 20 hits whose last song hit the top 20 after 1980 – and had more than 2.5 songs hit the top 20 per year in which they were active.  Some of these acts had very short life cycles (Think Color Me Badd, Glee Cast, Milli Vanilli, Spice Girls).  MC Hammer certainly fits into this category.

Anyone who has watched the old VH1 series “Behind the Music” certainly must know the story of MC Hammer.  The popular criticism of “Addam’s Groove” was that it solidified MC Hammer as a sell-out.  The criticism goes like this:  MC Hammer broke through onto the pop charts when rap acts rarely (or never) charted before.  Once he had established himself, corporations started offering him lots of money to endorse products and write songs such as the “Addam’s Groove”.  Critics took that as a sign of inauthenticity and his reputation suffered. 

I would also argue that the times MC Hammer was working in also played a factor in his downfall.  I often think of the 1990-1992 time frame as just an extension of the 1980s sound.  The music seemed a little more peppy and fun.  I’ve mentioned that there are times in music history where there was a cultural shift (1964 with the Beatles being the most prominent of them).  I believe that the release of “Nevermind” by Nirvana in late 1991 is another such time.  Almost overnight, it seemed like all the acts left over from the 80s and early 90s were totally swept aside and a new aesthetic had taken over.  I believe that MC Hammer was swept up partially by this change almost as much as the sell-out stigma.  People just didn’t want to buy what MC Hammer was selling.

Let’s get into the actual song.  This song has been widely pilloried in so much as anyone even remembers it.  It had the ignominy of “winning” a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song at the 1991 Raspberry Awards.  There is not much to recommend this song unless you are a big fan of the “Addam’s Family” movie franchise.  There are some interesting lyrics and song construction going on here.  MC Hammer more or less name checks all the members of the Addams family, which must have delighted the producers of the movie to no end.  He says something at the end of the chorus which I have never understood.  The last line of the chorus is “They kick and they slap a friend”.  Do they do that in the movie?  I hope so, because out of context, this is a very strange lyric.  Another feature of the song is MC Hammer adding in some background commentary in every verse.  He says things outside the normal verse that add to line you just heard.  MC Hammer says things like “I ain’t with that” and “I’m outta here” after a line about some scary member of the Addams family he had just met.  It’s a convention you don’t hear too often in songs.

There is a video for this song, and most of it is what you expect from a movie song.  There are a lot of clips of the movie, but there’s a lot of MC Hammer as well.  He is doing largely the things that made him wildly popular over the previous year and a half.  He’s doing some fancy dancing in front of a group of colorfully dressed background dancers.  He interacts with the members of the cast of the movie.  I will give MC Hammer credit.  He really sells the “Addams’ Groove”.  I doubt he could have known how quickly his productive career would have been over shortly after this song.

A lot of people will bash this song, but I will say that this song did reach #7 and was the 76^th biggest hit of 1991.  People must have liked this song at the time.  Even if you hate this song, you have to admit that MC Hammer must have been amazingly popular at the time to propel a song like this all the way to the top 10.