Butterfly

Todd plays "Butterfly" on the piano

CRAZY TOWN - BUTTERFLY A one-hit wonder retrospective

Todd: Hello, and welcome back to One Hit Wonderland, where we take a look at bands and artists known for only one song. And today, we're taking a look back to the vat of toxic gunk that was early-2000s rap metal.


 * Clips of Limp Bizkit - "My Generation", Korn - "Falling Away from Me", and Staind - "Mudshovel"
 * Fred Durst: Take my advice
 * You don't wanna step into a big pile of shit
 * The captain's drunk...

Todd (VO): Now, nu metal was, by any measure, an ugly genre. It intentionally sounded ugly, and its practitioners were also ugly, and they sang and rapped about ugly things. And that's why, even though it dominated the cultural landscape in a way that rock music hasn't since, nu metal tended to not have very much play on the pop charts. The pop audience did not have any time to spend with these grody, pierced metal guys. There are, of course,...

Todd: ...exceptions.


 * Video for "Butterfly"
 * Shifty Shellshock: Come, my lady
 * Come, come, my lady
 * You're my butterfly

Todd: Sugar, baby


 * Shifty: Come, my lady
 * You're my pretty baby
 * Yo, make your legs shake
 * You make me go crazy

Todd (VO): This, as every single one of you definitely already knows, is "Butterfly" by Crazy Town. And while I have bent the rules for this show in the past, let it be known that today, I am covering a band with indisputably one hit and no more. Even fans of this song had to know that this had "fluke" written all over it.

Todd: They were these tattooed rap metal guys rapping about how much they love you, girl. Like, most nu metal guys were [still shot from Limp Bizkit - "Nookie"] angry at girls, if they ever even mentioned 'em.

Todd (VO): And here are these guys trying to be romantic. They were the boy-bandification of nu metal.


 * Epic: Hey, sugar mama, come and dance with me

Todd (VO): So it's no wonder that they couldn't sustain a career. Even for a genre as instantly mockable as nu metal, "Butterfly" destroyed its band's cred nearly instantly. If you make a Crazy Town station on Spotify, you get a lot of [picture of...] Smash Mouth, and not a lot of Disturbed, which...

Todd: ...is not a good sign. I even remember a [poster and clip from Orange County] Jack Black movie that used this song as a symbol of everything vapid and worthless in the world. That movie only came out a year or two later. That's how instantly dated and lame they were. I mean, the name of the song was "Butterfly". [Brief clip from opening to Reading Rainbow] "Butterfly".


 * Shifty: Butterflies in her eyes and looks to kill

Todd (VO): Mariah Carey named songs "Butterfly". For the love of God, the name of the band was Crazy Town.

Todd: [posturing] Yeah, come at me, bro. Just try it, 'cause I'm about ready to take you to Crazy Town.

Todd (VO): But were they so bad, really? Well, I mean, they had to have been, right? Surely, a band like this couldn't be worth a second listen.

Todd: Could they? No, they couldn't. But they could get us a few cheap laughs, so let's check it out.


 * Shifty: Life is precious
 * Then I guess it's true
 * But to tell truth, I really never knew 'til I met you

Before the hit

Transcript in progress