I have a confession to make: I am a huge fan of 3oh!3’s 2008 album WANT.
This is not something I'm proud of. In fact, I consider it a sort of moral and intellectual failing on my part. unfortunately no amount of shame has been able to rid me of the thrill i feel when i hear Sean Foreman spit objectively awful lines like “NEW WHIP, NEW HAT, NEW KICKS / BITCHES WITH THE HUGE TITS” or the infamous “NICE LEGS / DAISY DUKES / MAKES A MAN GO / [CATCALLING NOISES]”. I have no defense for this, nor will I attempt to conjure one up for the purposes of this essay. I come to bury WANT, not praise it.
It’s difficult to describe the appeal of it. When I try, the only thing I can think of is: it’s camp. I realize that’s a hard sell. On the surface, WANT is 40 minutes of crass misogyny screaming over electronic beats produced by the duo themselves. A deeper look reveals much of the same. In contrast, camp tends to have an air of exaggerated femininity to it and be more, well, gay (Many people much smarter than me have come up with much longer definitions of the term, but as this is a primal rather than academic association I’ve decided to stick to the layman’s understanding).
Dispersed among the objectification however lies a curious amount of introspection. In contrast to the pseudo-rap yelling that plagues most of the album, these sections tend to be softer and imply an interiority and emotional intelligence that’s at odds with their oblivious frat boy persona. The bridge of the aforementioned ‘RICHMAN’ features Sean Foreman contemplating the loyalty of his partner and apologizing for his transgressions, before promptly returning to the chorus where he sings about taking “three babies” for a ride in the backseat. ‘STILLAROUND’, a piano ballad that alludes to Orpheus and Eurydice, is followed by ‘HOLLATILLYOUPASSOUT’, a song that starts with the two screaming “IMMA HIT YOU FROM THE BACK” over and over again.
It’s hard to tell if this contrast is fully intentional. On one hand, it’s clear they aren’t meant to be seen as the cool ladies’ men they say they are. No album asking to be taken seriously opens with a line about how they’re going to get their ass kicked in the club. Despite their best efforts to embody hypermasculinity, they fail to live up to its standards.
On the other hand, as far as I know, this quirk in the album has never been acknowledged by either of them. Looking into it only turned up a Reddit AMA where they answer a question about whether they’re satirical with, essentially, “I know you are but what am I?”. Regardless of their intentions, while self-emasculation isn’t exactly effeminacy, it’s the type of gendered irony that’s right at home with the idea of camp.