10 songs to not have sex to if you love Hudson Mohawke's 'Cbat'

11 years since its first release, the song is going viral because of some guy’s questionable sex playlist

Hudson Mohawke
Hudson Mohawke

11 years since its first release, the song is going viral because of some guy’s questionable sex playlist

By Team Woo08 Sep 2022
3 mins read time
3 mins read time

What's soundtracking your bedroom antics in 2022? Well, if you're an anonymous user from the 'Today I Fucked Up' subreddit, it's the – not particularly very sensual sexy or romantic – banger that is “Cbat” by Hudson Mohawke.

The Glasgow producer’s tune first came out in 2011, but has enjoyed a raunchy renaissance thanks to one Reddit user. A now viral post on the “Today I Fucked Up” subreddit (where users regularly share their mistakes and embarrassing moments) sees one 25-year-old man explain how his first foray into sex was “a little stiff”, and that he “pretty much had no idea” what he was doing. To rectify this, he made a sex playlist of his favourite songs to improve his performance – “Cbat” included. Throughout his relationship with his girlfriend, he played the song during sex every day for two years. In the post, the man details that his girlfriend revealed she hated the song so much, it put her off intercourse with him. When they agreed to bang with no music, he still found himself thrusting to the “Cbat” rhythm, which she clocked right away.

“I usually bust to this song and find it devastating she hates the song… it’s fucked up the relationship tbh because sex feels awkward now,” he wrote.

A quick listen of the tune from the producer – who has four acclaimed albums and has worked with the likes of Kanye West – shows “Cbat” to be driven by percolated drum machines and strung out rhythms. While an electronic banger, dulcet tones for getting down it is not.

The user was intensely mocked on Reddit (the post has over 5,000 comments), and of course, it got picked up by TikTok, to even more ridicule. The original audio has now been used in 96,000 TikTok videos and spawned a dance that recreates janky thrusting movements to the rhythm of the track.

One month prior to going viral, “Cbat” had 300,000 views on YouTube (as evidenced on the archive site, WayBack Machine). Now, it has over 4.1 million views, and it’s also bagged the number one spot on the "Viral 50" chart on Spotify.

Since all this, the original poster has followed up to say his girlfriend's family had now since the viral post, and their relationship had ended. Users continue to argue whether it was real or a one big joke.

Hudson Mohawke has told press he finds the virality “funny”, but he’d prefer not to have his career defined by a viral meme. He remains an incredibly influential musician, DJ, and producer, working with artists from Kanye West to Drake, and Pusha T, and collaborating with producer Lunice on the culture-shifting TNGHT. As one of the founding members of the Scottish label LuckyMe, he led a colourful and bombastic lens on music that defined what is sometimes referred to as the ‘wonky’ scene of the late 2000s. His contemporaries include the enigmatic Rustie, Jacques Greene, Machinedrum, and the late SOPHIE. HudMo’s recent album Cry Sugar has spun rave reviews too – it bursts with the ecstatic feelings and distorted, fizzing sounds that compound “Cbat”, and builds on his innovative techniques and vision of electronic music, with fitful happy hardcore-esque twists, gospel and soul samples, and movie-like soundscapes.

We don’t gatekeep here at Woo – especially 11 year old tunes that used to blast out of late night sessions on Radio 1 and uni halls in Glasgow – so here’s a brief aural primer to the innovative, mind-melting, and loads of fun tunes that define HudMo and friends’ era of the late 00s.