If you were in middle school in that odd time between the downfall of Myspace and Limewire and the rise of Facebook and streaming services, there's definitely three songs that you had on your iPod Nano: "I'm Yours' by Jason Mraz, "Right Now" by Akon, and "Trouble" by Nevershoutnever. All of these there songs are certified bangers, however there's something special about "Trouble" that makes it the middle school bop to rule all middle school bops.
First and foremost, there were few things in middle school that brought pre-teen girls together quite like Nevershoutnever. Christofer Drew Ingle was the ultimate heartthrob and all of my friends and I had matching anchor necklaces to pay tribute to his infamous hand tattoo that we wore religiously. We used to tape pictures of him up in our lockers, write "Live Free" on our knuckles, and daydream about the day that some boy would would write a track like "Hummingbird" about us. There was not a single person that could have convinced me that he shouldn't have been voted People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in 2009. (I'm also pretty sure that this song inspired an entire generation to learn how to play the ukulele, but that's not the most important aspect of its success)
"Trouble" was the perfect song to appeal to those aged 12-14: it was innocent, catchy, and it was about having a desperate crush. At this strange time in our lives it was an anthem because all that Christofer Drew was doing was hoping that this person he thought was so beautiful was not out of his league, which is something we were all doing at the same time. It helped that the song was catchy and had a cute melody.
The song began to spread like wildfire throughout my middle school as kids began to put it on their Myspace playlists and others began to listen to it. Boys were constantly sending it to their crushes and everyone would play it at the long, wooden lunch tables at lunchtime. It came as no surprise that there was literally a petition at the end of our middle school career to make it the theme song to our 8th grade dance.
"Trouble" didn't become the best song of my middle school career because it was musically complex or lyrically deep. It became the best song of our youth because it was cute and easily relatable and I think that 8 years later I would still swoon if a man put it on a mix CD for me.
