It’s a shame when one group of home-schooled Christian pop stars can’t find it in their hearts to support a fellow home-schooled Christian pop star, but that’s where we find ourselves in the tense political and cultural climate of 2017. Hanson has insulted Justin Bieber.
You likely remember Hanson as the group of musically inclined brothers with long cornsilk hair who seized the radio waves of 1997 with their infectious and repetitive hit “MMMBop,” along with millions of tween girls’ hearts (even if some of us were mocked for looking exactly like the youngest brother, Zac. No hard feelings!). But those days are over. All three Hanson brothers are married and have children with very intense and long names along the lines of Isaiah Ezekiel Phinnaeus Theodore Ark Prince and the musical trio—still together and touring—have morphed into a group of Very Serious Musicians with nothing but disdain for contemporary pop music.
Interviewed recently by Adelaide, Australia’s Hit107 FM, the brothers were asked to play a song guessing game called “Whose Song Is It Anyway?” When it came to guessing the title of Luis Fonsi’s number one hit “Despacito,” which features Daddy Yankee and Bieber, the group floundered.
“Can I just say I’m glad I didn’t now what that was?” said one of the brothers (who no publication—from US Weekly to Page Six to the Daily Mail—has been able to identify individually, though, based on voice alone, I’m going to say Zac). “I prefer not to get any venereal diseases, so whenever Justin Bieber gets near me or near my ears, it’s just ear infections. [His songs are] terrible.”
Referencing an earlier conversation about the number of koalas that carry chlamydia, he reiterated, “[It’s] chlamydia of the ear. It sucks.”
What Hanson doesn’t know is that “Despacito” is the biggest reggaeton crossover hit in years and the first Spanish-language song to land at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 since “Macarena” was released in 1996. One of the Hanson brothers (…Isaac?) admits that the band is out of touch, something that’s evident in their dated dislike for Bieber, who—though indeed an awful person—has been making pretty fantastic music for years now.
Hard to blame the Hanson brothers for sticking both together and to their guns. You have so many relationships in this life. Only one or two will last. You go through all the pain and strife. Then you turn your back and they’re gone so fast. And they’re gone so fast. Yeah.
