Cooler Than Me

(Todd plays "Cooler Than Me" on his keyboard. Text appears reading: MIKE POSNER - "COOLER THAN ME" A pop song review)

Todd: Alright, let me get this part out of the way right now. This is a pretty nice synth thing going on here.

Video for "Cooler Than Me"

Todd (VO): It...it's pretty all right. Reminds me a little of ''[brief clip of...] "Call Me" by Blondie, and anything that reminds me of "Call Me" by Blondie is doing at least one thing right.

Todd: Okay, got that out of the way. Now, on to the important part. Who the hell is this guy, and why do I know he exists?!

Todd (VO): My instant reaction to this song has been the same each and every time—this man does not deserve to be famous. This song may as well be called "I Have No Star Qualities" by Nobody McLoser. The name of this song is "Cooler Than Me". The name of the guy is Mike Posner. Mike Posner, for crying out loud.

Todd: By contrast, take a look at this guy.

Brief clip of video of Taio Cruz - "Dynamite"

Todd (VO): This guy's name is Taio Cruz. He didn't even have a choice but to become a pop singer.

Todd: Taio Cruz is the name of a pop star, Mike Posner fixes your car.

Todd (VO): And you know that they're aware of this on some level because they're just trying so hard to convince me that Mike Posner is the hot new superstar of the future. Check out the video where he's rocking out in his awesome concert, or heading off to the awesome after-party.

In the video, Posner walks off as the crowd chants "Posner", and gets into the back of a car with several women

Todd: Posner, Posner P...P...yeah, I'm sure.

Clip from The Simpsons Scratchy: Poochie is one outrageous dude. Itchy: He's totally in my face!

Todd (VO): It's not just his name or the unfortunate title of his song. It's everything about the guy, especially his singing voice.

Mike Posner: But you don't know the way that you look...

Todd (VO): If you listen to him, he's not so much singing as he is failing to rap. The closest way I can describe his vocal styling is he sounds like that guy singing along to his headphones who doesn't realize that people around him can hear him.

Todd (in front of computer): [singing weakly] And I try, and I try, and I try I can't get no I can't get no

Mike Posner: You got your high brow shoes on your feet And you wear them around

Todd (VO): Breath control, dammit!

Todd: Sing from the [drawing it out] diaphragm!

Todd (VO): His voice is so weak that I just assume that he was one of those guys like [images of...] Kevin Rudolf or David Guetta—studio production people who got sick of making hits for other people and incorrectly decided that they had enough charisma to get in front of the camera. But I looked it up...

Todd: ...and apparently that's not the case at all.

Image of Mike Posner's Allmusic page

Todd (VO): Allmusic says he's a recent college grad who made hip-hop mix tapes in school, and that his only notable work is his [cover image of...] debut album entitled 31 Minutes to Takeoff, which is in itself a pretty optimistic guess for the length of his career.

Todd: In fact, Allmusic compares him to...

Video for Asher Roth - "I Love College"

Todd (VO): ...Asher Roth, the "I Love College" guy...which is already a harsher putdown than anything I'm gonna be able to come up with. Damn, Allmusic, what did Mike Posner do to you?

Todd: So, to sum up, he has no charisma, no presence, no particular talent for performance, and no notable behind-the-scenes accomplishments. Also, he looks a bit like Screech trying to pass himself off as Justin Timberlake. Now given that unimpressive rundown of this guy's meager talents, I think there's only one possible conclusion—he must be an excellent songwriter. So let's take a look at his lyrical stylings.

Mike Posner: If I could write you a song And make you fall in love, I would already have you up under my arm. I used up all of my tricks, I hope that you like this. But you probably won't, You think you're cooler than me.

Todd: Ah yes, the old lovelorn song from the poor guy who just can't melt the ice-cold heart of the popular girl. Yeah, I'm certainly familiar with this kind of song. Although, of course, I have no personal experience with it. [Quick shot of Todd crying with a guitar] But that kind of song could be dangerous. When you write a song like that, you run the risk of looking...sympathetic or likable. Well, fear not. Mike Posner has the solution.

Todd (VO): So he spends the rest of the song detailing the ways she's a total snob and how mean she is. Seriously dude, get over it. You struck out, move on.

Mike Posner: I hope that you like this. But you probably won't You think you're cooler than me. And you never say hey Or remember my name. It's probably cause you think you're cooler than me.

Todd: Okay, this is just me, but I think it may have been a mistake to write a chorus where every line ends with "you think you're cooler than me," 'cause it seems to me that he's set himself up for a very obvious rebuttal.

Mike Posner: And you never say hey Or remember my name. It's probably cause you think you're cooler than me.

(Y...E...S)

Todd: YES! Yes, I think I'm cooler than you! I think 12-year-olds who write gay Sonic the Hedgehog porn fiction are cooler than you!

Todd (VO): And I...I...I...I keep waiting for him to get to the part where he explains why I'm not cooler than him, and he just never gets there. Whenever I hear the chorus to this song, this is how it comes across to me.

Todd: Yeah, you think you're cooler than me? You think you're so much cooler than me? Yeah, yeah? Well let me tell you something. You are...[scene missing]...washing machine! Yeah, you heard me! I said it!

Todd (VO): Actually though, maybe he does get in a decent putdown in the verses. Let's see.

Mike Posner: You got designer shades Just to hide your face and You wear them around like...

Todd: Oh...burn! Yeah, I bet you think you look so cool in your stupid, trendy, overpriced sunglasses. Yeah, yeah, you don't even realize that all those things do is make you look like a complete...wait. [Pictures of Posner wearing those sunglasses] Oh, you're kidding me! Yeah, you know, the way these songs usually go is something like "you and your whole scene are a bunch of trendy asswipes," not "I'm a bigger, trendier asswipe than you'll ever be." Come on, you gotta really tear into her in the other verses, right?

Todd (VO): You know, I say things like "verses" and "chorus," but I'm not sure this song has either of those things. I just feel like I'm hearing the same four measures over and over again. Something I refer to as Coldplay syndrome. But anyway, let's see what else Posner has in his verbal arsenal.

Mike Posner: You got your highbrow Shoes on your feet And you wear them around Like they ain't shit. But you don't know The way that you look When your steps make that much noise.

Todd: That...that's what you're going with? That her footsteps are noisy? Okay, 1—where are you trying to pick this girl up where her footsteps, a violin recital? Was she wearing tap shoes? What? Secondly...

Todd (VO): it's still not much of a putdown. [Image of girl stretching by a truck] Look, I am way out of your league and I am so not interested. [Picture of Posner] Oh yeah?! Well you got loud shoes!

Todd: Seriously, you gotta try a lot harder than that if you wanna...

Mike Posner: Sssshhh...

Todd: Don't shush me, you snot-nosed little twerp!

Todd (VO): Oh, and another thing. It is totally not her fault she can't remember your name.

Mike Posner: And you never say hey Or remember my name.

Todd (VO): You want people to remember your name, get a better name, Mark!

Todd: So you can go by...I don't know, M-Dogg, M80, Mike In The Shadows, Dirk Diggler. I don't know, anything else! Just get a decent stage name, for God's sakes.

Mike Posner: You need everyone's eyes just to feel seen Behind your makeup nobody knows who you even are Who do you think that you are?

Todd: Dude, you suck at this. Songs like this are supposed to be vicious, not these limp little half-ass things. What did any of that even mean? You wanna call her a bitch, just call her a bitch, dude.

Video of "Sexy Bitch Akon: Damn, yous a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch

Todd: No...no, not like that.

Mike Posner: 'Cause it sure seems You got no doubt But we all see You got your head in the clouds

Todd: Yeah, "we all see." Yeah, yeah, sure. I love that, because Posner wrote the song, so he's perfectly free to say that the whole crowd doesn't like her.

Todd (VO): Yeah, yeah, sure. And they all high-five him for being so awesome, then he bagged three hotter girls and flew to Nicaragua to save the President's daughter.

Todd: Whatever, dude. I mean, it doesn't even matter what he puts there. He can say whatever he wants, because the way the song's written, he already lost!

Todd (VO): Dude, you hit on her, you got shot down. You were the one trying to impress her. She is, by definition, cooler than you. Obviously her designer shades and highbrow shoes are doing something for her, otherwise you wouldn't be whining like a bitch about it!

Mike Posner: If I could write you a song to make you fall in love I would already have you up under my arm

Todd: But you don't...'cause you can't...'cause you suck. You see how that works, right?

Todd (VO): Yeah, so remember, when you wanna make your anti-cool-kids anthem, but want to erase every speck of superiority you might've had, well...

Todd: Mike Posner has the solution. And it's not like I'm against judging people based on very superficial things like their shoes or their sunglasses. I basically do the same thing each and every single day with every person I meet. I am entirely comortable with the idea. Let me do it right now. [Image of typical douchebag--is he on Jersey Shore] This guy's a jerk, [sneering guy] this guy's a jerk, [poster of The Jerk] this guy's a jerk, [Tommy Wiseau] oh that guy's definitely a jerk. But see, the difference is I don't spend my day sucking up to people I am judging as lame, making me also cooler than you. And you wanna know the sad part, the really sad part? He's still hitting on her.

Mike Posner: I used up all of my tricks, I hope that you like this

Todd (VO): Yep, apparently this is his last trick—just being a colossal dickbag to the girl straight to her face.

Todd: Smooth, pal. I bet it works too.

Todd (VO): It's not like the song is terrible. It's more like the song doesn't even really exist. It's one of the biggest hits in the country right now, and I really doubt that even regular pop listeners could identify the song or the singer or any lyrics. It's not particularly catchy, it's just not something that anyone at all really cares about. I'm probably the only person in the universe who really cared enough to look closely and realize how pathetically insecure and unintentionally revealing this pissy load of sour grapes really is.

Todd: And at the end of the day, you've just gotta feel sorry for the poor guy. 'Cause after he doesn't have any more hits, this is going to be a particularly embarrassing song to sing at the state fair ten years from now.

Mike Posner: It's probably 'cause you think you're cooler than me.

Todd: Yeah.

(A SHORT LIST OF THINGS COOLER THAN MIKE POSNER: [Images accompany] 8-YEAR-OLD WITH MULLET; HAVING YOUR MOM DRIVE YOU TO WORK; THE BILL ENGVALL SHOW; FISH HEADS, FISH HEADS; THAT ONE WEIRD EPISODE OF TINY TOONS ABOUT BEER; [Todd at computer] CONSTANTLY SELF-GOOGLING, CORNBREAD: Ain't nothin' wrong with that)

Todd: Watch, I'm gonna be wrong and he's gonna have dozens more hits. That's always the way it works.

[Gets up and leaves]

Closing tag song: TLC - "No Scrubs"

Todd: Oh, by the way, what the hell are highbrow shoes? Are they like, shoes that watch a lot of foreign movies? Okay, I'm done.