Your Band Sucks (annie's previous job-obviously)

[obiwankobe]

http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=3307


t just so happens that today is the two-year anniversary of the venerable institution that is Your Band Sucks. It also just so happens that it’s my birthday, and I don’t feel like doing any actual work. Under these circumstances, most lazy internet hacks would leave you with some kind of boring retrospective of stuff you’ve already read. However, since I’m generous and charitable and I love my readers, I am going to indulge you with something weightier than that. I’m going to give you a non-boring retrospective of stuff you’ve probably never read!



Wow, I found a cake that says "David" AND "2"! I'm a genius. Also, check out that radical duck, he'll fuck your sister.
Long before my genius was discovered by Zack Parsons and his amazing web-A&R skills, I spent most of my free time being a jerk. After I graduated high school, I couldn’t get away with being a jerk in person anymore, so I resorted to being a jerk on the Internet. The Something Awful Forums are probably the best place on the Internet to be a jerk, so I honed my asshole-craft there, along with thousands of other sarcastic nerds.

The thing that actually landed me my job as a professional Internet asshole was a thread on the Something Awful Forums titled “Post any popular band/musician and I will snobbishly tear them down.” It worked just how the title implied: people named bands, I made fun of them. The thread went on for ages, and I finally had a use for my only two defining features: the fact that I know more about music trivia than anyone should, and the fact that I’m a huge jerk.

I recently delved into the Something Awful archives and had a look at that thread, and I thought it might be fun for you guys to see my humble beginnings. What follows is a few of the better reviews I did. I edited some of them a little, because I had spelled some things wrong, and because I occasionally swore too much and wound up sounding like a trembling, red-faced teenage troll. I have preserved the names of the forum members who requested the bands for me to mock, so that they may relive their brief brush with an Internet legend (me).

I realize that this is incredibly long, but I don’t want to split it into two updates, because that would mean not writing anything new for a month, and Lowtax would cut off my thumbs. Please notice that unlike any of my other articles, this one has page breaks!

teethgrinder requested:
Enya

Enya reminds me of the feeling of pissing in your pants. Its all warm and nice, but at the same time it's fucking disgusting on so many levels.

mrgimp15 requested:
Moby, Bauhaus

Calling Moby a sellout or a self-important little bald vegan dork would be too easy. That doesn't mean I won't do it though, obviously: Moby is a huge sellout, and he's also a self-important little bald vegan dork. Also, what the fuck was with his folksy blues direction on Play? It stank of desperation and forced musical "experimentation" and "diversity." I think he was trying to pull a Graceland and failed miserably. Luckily his next album was better. Oh wait, no it fucking wasn't, it contained "We Are All Made Of Stars," which was his worst soulless Joy Division impostor song to date, and he's made a lot of really bad ones. Even his old material, which is revered by similarly bald and vegan twats with pupils the size of dimes, is aging terribly. If you listen to "Go" right now, you'll note that it sounds like it should be on the Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 soundtrack alongside "Gonna Take You For a Ride."

Here's my impression of me listening to a Bauhaus song: Okay, here's the intro, it's pretty good guitar playing and drumming, hey, maybe this'll be a good song. Oh shit, who's this kid singing? Why is he singing in that funny voice? Did someone kick him in the nuts? Wait, what the fuck, why is he singing about bell towers and grim wilderness and shit? Is this a joke? This must be a joke! Ha! How wickedly hilarious! I bought Bauhaus's greatest hits album. It's true, I went in a record store and actually bought it. You know why? Because I regard it as a comedy album. One of the funniest comedy albums ever produced. They are just so fucking laughably gothic that I'm sure they can even make goths crack a smile.

Der Alexander Welt requested:
Tom Waits.

I don't care how good his lyrics are, he sounds like a buffalo coughing up a lung. As was demonstrated by Downtown Train, even fucking Rod Stewart can sing one of his songs better than he can. Aside from that, for every decent song he writes he's got a ton of shitty gimmicky songs. Try listening to "I'm Big In Japan" or whatever. Hilarious. Take an old, stupid cliché and write a mumbling shit-heap of musical rubble over it! Genius!

Toecutter requested:
Led Zeppelin

If there's anything more soulless and boring than blues-rock, it's heavy metal. And these hapless bastards managed to practically create both. May God have mercy on their souls. They're permanently filed away in my brain in the "CLASSIC ROCK - DO NOT LISTEN" category.

Winter Warlock requested:
papa roach

Who are they again? Are they the nu-metal band who sings vaguely about how unfairly the world has treated them and how depressed they are with it all? Are they the one with the hideously compressed pro-tools production that sounds like ass soup? Hmm... you'll have to narrow it down further. Are they unattractive losers who resorted to making hard rock because they didn't have enough charm to coast through life on limited wits? Nope, still not ringing a bell.

Holy Jesus! requested:
the smiths

I should track down and kill every member for inspiring the hideous wave of nauseating British loser fucking vagina rock that's currently washing over us. Sorry Coldplay, I don't want to take any advice on love from a scrawny lovelorn little pussy like you.

The Smiths are definitely “where are they now” material at this point. Morrissey? Oh, he's floundering around going on tours wherever he can find a big enough population of gay Hispanics to buy tickets. Johnny Marr? He made a record that sounds like Oasis with Steve Miller singing. The other guys? Who the hell are they?

Dante requested:
Massive Attack, Incubus and Muse.

Massive Attack? The only interesting thing 3D has done since Tricky and the other guys who were carrying his ass left was get busted for child porn. Too bad that didn't pan out.

Incubus? Oh boy, more tuneless semi-metal pussy crap for drunk frat-boys who can't tell the difference between right and wrong. The only way these pretty-boy dorks look hard is if you put them next to the rest of the frat-boy record collection. Yeah, they could probably kick Dave Matthew's ass, but so could my cat.

As for Muse, they need to fucking lighten up. You can't make a whole record of nothing but off-the-wall guitar mumbo-jumbo and madman screaming without all the songs sounding the same, no matter how much of a fucking musical genius you think you are. You hear me, Muse? Try making a record an actual human being can listen to, then we'll talk.

Bob_teh_fish requested:
Beck

They say that Pavement turned into a lame bluesy-rock band by Terror Twilight, but at least they still had some good lyrics and original ideas left in them by that time. As for Beck, when he got to the Serious-Nigel-Godrich-Album phase, he managed to create easily the most boring alt-country piece of trash ever put on record. What happened to OUR Beck? The one who was going to go back to Houston and do the hot-dog-dance? The with the shit-kicking speed-taking truck driving neighbors downstairs? Hopefully he'll be back someday, and he won't feel the need to make a record that's already been made A THOUSAND FUCKING TIMES ALREADY.

Bagmonkey requested:
Placebo, do Placebo, Dave!

Brian Molko is the most hilarious transvestite since Eddie Izzard. But at least Eddie Izzard's comedy is intentional.


schnarf requested:
Rammstein, Wesley Willis

Industrial music is for fat pimply dudes who mistakenly think black trench coats are slimming. And you know a band is insecure about their tiny penises and lack of interesting ideas when they have to resort of 40-foot walls of flame and shit like that in their stage shows. See also: Pink Floyd.

As for Wesley Willis, if I wanted to listen to music written by a retard, I'd put on a Good Charlotte record.

Cromulent Being requested:
Fucking Nirvana.

Let's look on the bright side, at least they inspired some truly worthless human beings to commit suicide. Unfortunately, they inspired twice as many worthless human beings to start worthless bands and make worthless music and destroy modern rock radio forever.

Harry Potter requested:
Ben Lee

I always get him confused with Ben Kweller, who is a similarly unoriginal curly-topped indie poseur. They're probably about equally ugly, too. I think Ben Kweller is the one who thinks it's cool to rip of Weezer ripping off Pavement, but I'm not sure, could be either one. All I know is that when my radio station gives away shitty CDs that nobody will even listen to for free twice a year, I'm not taking either of them home.

solarjetman requested:
Soul Coughing

Jesus, these guys wore out their welcome faster than Poochie on the Itchy and Scratchy show. Yeah, you're wry hipsters, we get it. Now pack up your one low-charting hit single and get the fuck out.

IRQ requested:
Do Rush, I can't want to hear this.

You know, I'd love to rip into Rush, but I can't think of anything bad to say about them that hasn't been said a thousand times already by any of the sane people who tried to listen to them.

I'm Crap requested:
I see you're studiously fucking ignoring the guy who said "My Bloody Valentine".

I figured I'd follow in the footsteps of Kevin Shields and simply ignore all the people who wanted me to do it, and instead just fucking sit on my lazy ass all day and get enormously fat.



El Tim requested:
NIN, and pre-load metallica

I wonder if Trent Reznor has such a tortured existence because of damage done to him as a child. For example, I wonder if his mother only cooked dinner once every 6 years or so, and in between he had to eat leftovers or hideous new dishes made from the scraps of the old dinners.

And sorry, I don't have a long enough mullet to know the names of any Metallica records.

Nomad requested:
Joy Division

Well the band can't play their instruments, the singer can't sing, and the lyrics are about the crushing pain of life. Sounds like a recipe for the most revered post-punk band ever, all right! Too bad Ian Curtis is dead so we didn't get to see his long, Robert Smith-like spiral into mediocrity and irrelevance.

teethgrinder requested:
Stone Roses, The Fall

The Stone Roses are maybe the most comically miserable failure of all time. Jesus, think about how much hope was tacked on to those guys. It's almost like John Squire somehow took all that hope, ran it through some kind of drug lab and produced something 10 times stronger than cocaine, then snorted it all and created the most disappointing sophomore record in the history of the world, quit the band, and faded happily into obscurity. I bet he's still got huge fucking crates of hope-caine lying around his house that he snorts at his leisure. Also, what's with the fact that Ian Brown and Mani, the ones that we all thought were the untalented half, are the only ones who've made decent post-Stone-Roses material? Weird.

As for The Fall, you could either go to a record store and buy all 400 Fall records or just go to the .99 cents bargain bin and pick out 400 records from that. The latter would be cheaper and would almost certainly yield more listenable music.


halcy0n requested:
How about Squarepusher? Aphex Twin?

Twiddly beep beep beep squonk GENIUS

Clever-Name requested:
Sublime

Now, there are a lot of shitty frat-boy bands, but Sublime is the band for those who would be frat-boys if they had actually made it into college instead of being too stoned to finish high school. I remember when they were semi-amusing, then the lead singer died, then the popular press elevated them to the status of tragically-cut-short-rock gods, apparently on the basis of their mediocre self-titled record, which even for them was a step backward.

Go Plastic requested:
do the velvet underground!

You have to give credit to the band who basically started the "not good enough for very many people to like, but just good enough that the few people who DO like them will rabidly shove them down the throats of the people who don't" scene, which has today blossomed into the putrid flower we know as indie rock.

Locus Spwaning requested:
Spirtualized

Oh boy, another album dripping with heroin-soaked melancholy. Let me just tuck these away in a corner and maybe someday when I'm contemplating suicide I'll bring them out and use them to push me over the edge. Oh, but I'll skip all the songs about Jesus, because they'd just distract me.

Bradb requested:
Dave Matthews Band

If you're a fan of getting into fat girls' pants, Dave Matthews Band CDs are the greatest invention since a ham on a fishing pole.

KappaTI requested:
Primal Scream, please.

Primal Scream is a beast with many faces, all of them affected, stolen, co-opted, and plundered from better bands. In fact, even their band members are plundered from better bands. Kevin Shields and Mani... even Bobby G himself was from the Jesus and Mary Chain.

BigDaddySeany requested:
Crazy Town, Limp Biskit/Fred Durst, 311

Crazy Town? What a fucking non-entity. I can't believe anyone even remembered that shit enough to post it in this thread. My friend just told me their lead singer's name is "shifty shellshock" or some shit like that. If you need a name that fucking stupid just to assert your masculinity, then your masculinity is in serious fucking trouble. Remember that video where the dude was wearing a DARE shirt? Even if that was ironic, that's gay as hell. Also, that song took a sample from a Red Hot Chili Peppers song, didn't it? You're in dire fucking straits if you have to sample such a weak band just to get a hit song. You might as well sample... Dire fucking Straits.

And motherfucker, if you even NEED me to rip apart Limp Bizkit for you, you've got issues. If you can't just look at Fred Durst for 10 seconds yourself and decide that he's a pansy-ass dipshit in a hat, then you need some help getting through life. Better hire some aides to tell you when someone is a retard, because if you can't see it in Fred Durst then you can't see it in anyone.

Did you ever hear that 311 song Amber? That was probably some of the most ridiculous hippy dippy shit I've ever heard in my life. "Amber is the color of your energy..." Did he steal that directly out of some Feng Shui manual about chakras and shit?

Wacky Iraqi requested:
I’ll request both my favorite bands... Ben Folds Five and Coldplay

I see you like bands from the "giant pussies with pianos" category. Can I recommend some Billy Joel?

robotic requested:
Bela Fleck, Mozart, John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker. Or are you sticking to making fun of bland pop? These should be a good challenge for you.

Oh what the fuck, you're one of those bitches, are you? Take your fucking jazz phrasing and shove it up your trumpet. I don't even know what to say about John Coltrane and Charlie Parker. I have this sneaking suspicion that anyone who says they like that shit is just pretending so he can look cool to old people.

As for Mozart, that's not music, that's some fucking "art" or something.


Ecc! requested:
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Paul McCartney (this is gonna hurt.)

God, if you want to sound a little bit cool to the average person and yet you have no fucking hope over ever in your life understanding music even a little bit, then your best bet is to like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They've got something for everyone! Guitars, and drums, and a bass player who's ugly and in movies, and, uh, some kinda-rapping with the same rhyme pattern over and over in every song. They're simple enough that you'd have to be a huge goddamned moron not to understand them, so if you ARE a huge goddamned moron, it's not too much of a mental stretch to just choose them as your favorite band.

Paul McCartney: Now, we all like to pick on Ringo for being the worthless Beatle, but the tide is fucking turning against you, Paul. First there was letting your tone-deaf wife sing with you. Then there was fucking Wings. Then there was your constant bitching about not being listed over John Lennon on the songs that you wrote. Well listen here, champ, John Lennon fucking carried you, and you should be thanking God every goddamn day that you're even mentioned in the same breath as him. Just go back to banging out Hey Jude on your piano 365 days a year and getting richer and richer and releasing stupid rockabilly records for fat old women who don't know what music is. You're rich, you're stupid, you used to be kind of cute. So QUIT FUCKING WHINING.



chumpchous requested:
Porcupine Tree

Oh waaaaah, I'm tired of living under the shadow of Pink Floyd, waaaahhh, stop comparing me to Pink Floyd. Yeah, maybe we'll stop comparing you to Pink Floyd when you stop fucking trying to be Pink Floyd, you long haired hippie dorks. I don't know quite by what fluke you wound up with the biggest fan base of nerds since Star Trek, but enjoy it while it lasts. And stop trying to fucking experiment with new sounds and go back to being the poor man's Pink Floyd, because that's what brings home the bacon, idiots.

Pissflaps requested:
New Order, Siouxsie and the Banshees

New Order. You sucked so bad the first time around that your singer killed himself. Why keep trying? Going from a gothy band to writing fucking club music and soccer anthems? Way to stick by your convictions, boys. Maybe you were just poseurs all along. Oh shit, wait, I take that back, I can't make fun of you or else the hipster mafia will burn down my house.

Siouxsie Sioux is like a terrifying version of Cher for younger and creepier people. I shudder to think what she'd look like without the makeup; maybe if she took it off we'd find out she's been Robert Smith all along (note: photograph below is a clever fake).


Justin requested:
Vanessa Carlton, Michelle Branch.

Oh shit, I hadn't realized there were two of them until you posted their names side-by-side!

Justin requested:
Wu Tang Clan, Eminem

Yeah, way to go Wu Tang Clan, if I get 9000 rappers in a room together at least a couple of them are bound to have some talent, right? Too bad it's fucking ODB who still makes headlines with his filthy messes.

Eminem is the biggest pussy in all of music history. More of a pussy than Dave Matthews. More of a pussy than Jack Johnson. You stupid little bitch, you have to have a posse to protect you from a fucking cartoon dog on national TV. You pick fights with Moby, the smallest and meekest man on earth. Maybe all those beatings you took in grade school didn't sink in. I pray that someone dishes you out a beating that sticks someday soon. Oh, and you can make fun of people and parody them in your videos all you want, but Weird Al tries to do it to you and you say some shit about your legacy? A legacy of being a wimpy little shit who can dish it out but can't take it.

Damo requested:
Frank Zappa

I'm glad not all musicians are "geniuses," or else I wouldn't listen to music at all.

amputee requested:
atari teenage riot

Atari Teenage Riot is the musical equivalent of putting a metal pot over your head and banging it with a big metal spoon whilst getting yelled at by your mom. In fact, they don't even have to be the musical equivalent of that, they practically ARE that.

toybux requested:
Belle and Sebastian

It must be hard to play guitar with wrists that limp. I have to say that they went from being incredibly popular with indie types to fading into irrelevance and obscurity amazinly fast for a band of their popularity. It's really quite a feat. Also, why the fuck did they let that "other" guy sing? I know he sings on only a couple songs, but just those few songs are enough to make me want to amputate his vocal cords with my shoe.

GreenDream requested:
Silverchair

They're one of those bands who's sort of like Oasis. Everyone in their home country, for some unexplainable reason, loved them even though they clearly sucked balls. And then, long after they stopped being even remotely popular in the states, their home country kept buying their records and pretending they still existed. No, Silverchair, you don’t still exist, the USA is done with you and you're fucking gone forever. Stop trying to come back, you worthless little skinny twat, you can cut your hair all you want but we'll still know who you are.


Impper requested:
Do Creed, just for laughs, since I haven't seen it yet.

Here is a brief list of things that ROCK HARDER than Creed:

1. Sunday brunch.
2. Spending a lovely evening with your grandmother.
3. Henry Mancini.
4. An ice-cold Shirley Temple with a cherry on top.

Finx requested:
Do Jack Johnson.

The man's songs are about as interesting as a mayonnaise sandwich. He's got that fucking acoustic guitar, that fucking put-on accent from god-knows-where, and not a single shred of talent to back them up. If I hear anyone else say he's a genius acoustic guitar player I'll slit their throats. Firstly, all of his songs sound the same. That's not the mark of a genius. Secondly, he's just banging out the same fucking rhythm guitar bullshit on every one, he might as well be playing a fucking washboard. Yes, he's a great acoustic guitar player if you're a tin-eared stoned frat-boy who loves to pick up a guitar and woo some fat girls at shitty keggers.

AquaVita requested:
Dredg. You simply cannot possibly tear this band apart. Believe me, I'm better at snobbishly tearing up bands then you are, and I can't find anything wrong with them

Okay. Right. You're better at snobbishly tearing down bands than me, but you can't think of ANYTHING wrong? I find that pretty fucking hard to believe. I've never even heard of this band, but you presented an interesting challenge, so I looked them up on The All Music Guide.

Now, I've never even heard them, but just by reading the info on one fucking album I hate them already. Check out this tracklist:

1. Movement I: @45ºN. 180ºW (Dredg) - 4:23
2. Lechium (Dredg) - 1:01
3. Movement II: Crosswind Minuet (Dredg) - 6:24
4. Traversing Through the Arctic Cold, We... (Dredg) - 1:32
5. Intermission (Dredg) - 6:37
6. Movement III: Lyndon (Dredg) - 3:07
7. Penguins in the Desert (Dredg) - 4:13
8. Movement IV: RR (Dredg) - 2:59
9. Yatahaee (Dredg) - 3:44
10. Movement V: 90 Hour Sleep (Dredg) - 20:20

Okay, who do these dumb motherfuckers think they are? Album fucking divided up into movements? With an intermission? And a fucking 20 minute jam session at the end? Okay, either they're the greatest geniuses in the history of rock music or this record is totally laughably pretentious. Since I've never even heard their name mentioned by anyone in my life, I'm assuming that they're not the greatest geniuses in the history of rock, because if someone actually pulled that bullshit off they'd be fucking gods. Since the record got 3 stars and the review contains this quote: "...singer Gavin Hayes outlines a story of a wanderer's search for and attainment of redemption," maybe they’re not gods. Ooh, so it's a grunge-metal concept album! Sounds just absolutely fucking peachy. I'll be sure to go out and buy all their insane bullshit right away.

BBAB requested:
Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode has always been like New Order except with more money for slick studio production but far less actual ideas or talent. They're just a bunch of homosexual heroin addicts singing about how gloomy their lives are. Guess what, kids, stop doing heroin and being in a shitty band and maybe things will get a whole lot better! Poor bastards though, they never get a clue. This is evidenced by the fact that their albums still sound like sort of a watered down version of something you vaguely remember from the 80s.



robotic requested:
The Vines

Seriously, I want to know, is the lead singer retarded? I have never seen any evidence at all to the contrary. If you read a fucking interview with him, which is a monumental chore in itself, you will notice that he speaks as if he had been kicked in the head by a horse as a child. I'd have to chalk it up to something more than coincidence that he also happens to look exactly like he got kicked in the head by a horse as a child. The disturbing trend continues when you hear him singing and inevitably come to the conclusion that the kick to the head also severely damaged his teeth and tongue, resulting in him singing in an outrageous mongoloid mumbling drawl. The fact that he's an Australian of ill breeding is no excuse. That Crocodile Dundee guy manages to be pretty well spoken despite his mentally crippling nationality. Hey, I have an idea! Let's get a horse and have it fucking kick him in the head again. Either it'll work out like in cartoons where he goes back to normal or he'll die or go into a coma or something and we'll stop having to put up with his horrid Nirvana-ripoff whiny retarded bullshit. Next!


Dreadneck requested:
Big Star, Whiskeytown/Ryan Adams, Wilco, Uncle Tupelo

Okay, I see by your taste in music that you're a tremendous fag. So, you like country music but are too much of a pussy to admit it? Let's listen to some trendy bullshit instead. First of all, name 5 good Big Star songs. Yeah, that's right, they're legends and all, but they have maybe 2 or 3 decent songs tops, and if you name any more than that you're stretching it and lying to yourself. Ryan Adams? He's one letter and one album away from being Bryan Adams. Just because you wear blue jeans and have ironic hair and a guitar doesn't mean you're not a cunt. Oh wait, in fact, it practically guarantees that you're a cunt! Wilco! Oh boy, more fucking critical darlings. I don't care how much NPR likes them, their lyrics still read like they're written by a 10 year old and their songs are the height of all boring crap. Uncle Tupelo, of course, is just a primitive version of Wilco, so upon them I lay thrice the scorn.

Wayfinder reqested:
Lenny Kravitz, Sigur Ros, Garbage, The Cardigans, Fat Boy Slim

Remember when I said earlier that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were a band who was easily accessible to people who had absolutely no taste in music and no concept of what art is? Well, Lenny Kravitz does them one better by being exclusively for people with no taste and no appreciation for art. It's simple enough when a band has a million songs that all sound the same but all suck, but Lenny manages to have shitty songs that cover a wide variety of styles and sounds. He's like some kind of Bizarro David Bowie; he manages to absolutely shit all over every genre he can find.

Sigur Ros are so fucking overblown that when I listen to them I feel like going into the studio where they record and taking my boot to their console in hopes of knocking out some tracks from their capabilities. I thought the days where every shitty indie band had to hire a massive fruity orchestra were mercifully over. How wrong I apparently was.

Garbage are pioneers of shitty soulless girl-techno-rock, which is one of the most hideous abominations that the 90s shat out. I don't want to hear lame mechanical beats and the addled crooning of some dumb-as-shit walleyed Scottish high-school dropout. At least the Cardigans managed to only have one hit, mercifully, and then were put out of their misery by the sword of total obscurity. We should finish the job and burn every copy of Lovefool that's ever been pressed.

As for Fatboy Slim, I reserve a special kind of scorn for him. The fucking smug piece of shit makes some of the most hideous "music" that has ever fallen upon my unappreciative ears. Even in terms of shitty DJ crap, he makes the bottom of the barrel. He has no concept of structure. In every song he does he just lays out his hilariously amusing sample at the beginning, puts a beat to it, plays it over and over again, and layers more and more lame effects on it until you want to curse God for inventing sound. He also used to be in the Housemartins, the pitiful bastard.

dcsmrgun requested:
Tragically Hip

They may be big fish over in Canada, but here in America we have real rock bands who aren't fronted by skinny, shrieking fruitcakes with bad clothes. So, you know, we don't have to settle for that kind of shit.

StoneRose requested:
Oasis

Man, Oasis. They just constantly seem to reach new heights of laughable lameness. Their first album was just mediocre rock that took everything from the Stone Roses except charm and talent. The second record of course spawned massively lame hits like Champagne Supernova, Wonderwall, and Don't Look Back in Anger, which certainly take the triple crown of stupidest song titles of all time. Of course, the lyrics were even stupider, if you could hear them through the clumsy Bonehead rhythm guitar and soupy orchestration. "Slowly walking down the hall/Faster than a cannonball/Where were you while we were getting high?" Well I for one am fucking glad I wasn't there while you were getting high, you smug little ogre, because I managed to avoid watching your drug-addled brain pen such remarkable couplets of crap. And of course Be Here Now was even worse. "D'you Know What I Mean" managed to rip off Ride, but without the good guitar playing or majestic sound. In its place was reversed-sounds bullshit, aimless and shitty guitar noise, and more stupid, stupid lyrics. Thank god America stopped paying attention after that album, because if "Go Let It Out" had invaded our airwaves I would have fucking crashed my car just to destroy the radio thoroughly enough to satisfy me. And then of course they lost half their band by being assholes and who did they hire on bass? Andy Bell from Ride, that little sellout shit, he could be playing guitar like a maniac but instead he's playing fucking bass with fucking Oasis. Shame on you, Andy Bell, shame on your annoying Gallagher Moron Twins, shame on you England (note: photo below is the other Andy Bell, because he's funnier).


Magnum Force requested:
Bjork

I don't even think she's a human. People (99% girls, the occasional effeminate man) like to insist that she's cute, but if you ask me she's s freaky little elf who should be dissected in some government laboratory. She started out "different" and then veered sharply into "weird for the sake of weird" territory. I'd venture to say that if you're not already on the Bjork train now, you probably never will be.

Various people requested:
Smashing Pumpkins, Hot Hot Heat

The Smashing Pumpkins got popular by ripping off My Bloody Valentine, and then made a hideous, sprawling, boring double-disc set where they ripped off pretty much everyone else who they hadn't already ripped off. And, Christ, how the hell did Billy Corgan decide that he should be a rock star? He looked in the mirror and said "Hey! I look like a cross between Nosferatu and a penis, and I sing like Rod Stewart with a severe case of mumps doing a Peter Lorre impression! I've got what it takes!" As for the other members of the band (not that they actually play on the albums), what a bunch of ugly drugged-up losers. And that fucking James Iha dude, remember his solo album? He released some kind of earnest lo-fi bullshit in the vein of Graham Coxon, except that even less people bought it than buy Graham Coxon albums, amazingly.

Hot Hot Heat: How can I rip on a band who's only been around for two weeks (and will probably be around for maybe two more)? Like everyone else in the country, I've only heard that one wildly irritating song of theirs, "Bandages." Oh boy, more indie new-wave copyists. Just what I wanted to hear. Oh, no thank you, I don't want innovation or songs with tunes! I just want another band with shaggy hair and skinny ties to sing their (hold on while I get into Rolling Stone critic mode) "fractured, irreverent pop songs!"

The Yellow Yell requested:
Super Furry Animals, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci (please ensure the band-specific trashing outweighs the blanket 'Welsh' comments), Cornelius, James, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Cocteau Twins.

SFA have been pulling out the wacky Brian Wilson card on their new record, haven't they? It's been the downfall of a lot of bands. You see, what happens is they release their Brian Wilsoney record, and people think it's genius for about three months and then realize it's absolute bullshit and never listen to it again. See also: Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev. Also, they're fucking WELSH.

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, also, are fucking WELSH. Don't tell me what to do, punk, I'll call them Welsh if I want to fucking call them Welsh.

Is Cornelius that horrible Japanese noisy shoegaze bullshit fiesta? The only good band ever to come from Japan was Guitar Wolf, and they're only good because you can snort derisively at their shitty music. I don't need to buy Cornelius records, I have a guitar and I can lean it up facing my amp and turn it up to full volume and get ear-splitting, neighbor-infuriating guitar noise for free.

Now, James is ironic in that one of their biggest hits was "Laid," which was sung by a man who is more obviously a virgin than anyone else in the music industry. He makes Weird Al look like fucking Don Juan. Yeah, "Laid?" No fucking way. "Born of Frustration" probably hits closer to the mark. Oh, and his fucking ninny shrieking in that song is unbearable, it sounds like he's screaming in terror because he's being chased around the studio by a bee.

Sorry, don't know much about Neutral Milk Hotel except that they might be on that shitty Elephant 6 label which seems to be the basis of some scene involving really anemic sounding lo-fi bullshit listened to by weak, skinny nerds. Remember that dude Barry from High Fidelity, who was all quiet and frail? He's the kind of kid who would listen to that shit. That movie would have been a lot better if he'd been beaten up at the end.

Cocteau Twins: writing lyrics is easier when you just fucking make up words, huh? Oh and writing music is a LOT easier when all of your songs sound exactly fucking the same. This band had it made, they could just sit back and relax. Too bad nobody liked them, or their plan would have been perfect.



Scratch2k requested:
Van Halen.

Oh, go ahead, pitch me a nice slow one. Okay, I'm sure I'm not alone in the fact that when I'm listening to the Shitty Classic Rock station and I hear the opening notes of the hideous masturbatory solo that inexplicably precedes their retardedly bombastic cover of that Kinks song, my hand shoots to the radio dial faster than Eddie Van Halen's masterful hands spastically stroke his tiny, ultra-overcompensated dick. If I do manage to make it past the guitar solo, of course I'm rewarded with the uncharismatic hollering of Diamond fucking Dave, the spandex-jumpsuited king of overblown rock ego. And that's just what I have to say about fucking ORIGINAL Van Halen. If you want me to talk about the later singers you'll have to pay for the outrageous fucking therapy bills that will be required after I unearth that concrete-lined file from my memory bank.

KappaTI requested:
Underworld, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Sebadoh, The Strokes

Well, I'd be derelict in my duties if I didn't point out that Underworld used to be the shittiest (and that's not my opinion, that's concrete empirical fact) 80's synth-pop band ever to exist. Yes, I have the records. I'm not talking about Freur, who were marginally good, I'm talking about Underworld Mark I. Same guys. You'll find their records at any used record store that never throws anything away, because these things won't be flying off the shelves without the assistance of high explosives. I'll give these dudes one thing: their comeback was a massive fucking miracle, I don't know how they pulled it off. They certainly wouldn't have been able to if anyone had actually remembered how crappy their old records were, that's for sure. Of course, since that big two-album comeback they've been slowly but surely waning in influence in popularity and sounding more and more like their shitty 80s selves with each new project.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks: Old Steve was scraping the bottom of the barrel with Terror Twilight, and now he's back, and he's apparently found a new layer of scum down there. When you listen to his records you can practically hear the other members of Pavement rejecting the songs one by one. In fact, if you buy the Pavement DVD, you can see him with an acoustic guitar demoing Discretion Grove to his bandmates, who look about as excited about the song as a dog is about a stick of celery. Oh well, without the shackles of a band, now he can fulfill of his self-parodying comedy dreams overblown classic rock fantasies. Oh look, it's a ballad about Greek gods! Oh hey, there's a wacky little number about Yul Brenner! Oh Stephen, it's as if you never went away at all. By the way, here's a leather-bound copy of your legacy, if you'd like to take a steaming shit all over it.

Sebadoh had Lou Barlow. He seems alright when you hear his songs, but actually the man is borderline retarded. How can I tell? Because he lets Jason Lowenstein and whoever the hell else is in his little festival of fools write all the songs they want and drag down the quality of the albums. He's probably still mad at J. Mascis for not letting him write any songs in Dinosaur Jr, so now he's overcompensating by letting the worst songwriters in the history of song rape all of his records. Maybe if you put all of the material he wrote together and released it as a single Sebadoh album it would be halfway decent, but you'd get a weird feeling that the Lou Barlow songs weren't as good as you recalled. Why? Because he didn't have those other fucking clowns around to make his songs sound like musical genius by comparison.

The Strokes are what you'd get if you took Television and stripped them of all their technical ability, put a ton of overdrive on Tom Verlaine's voice so it disguised the fact that he couldn't sing, time-warped them to about 30 years after they were even remotely innovative, and maybe gave them about 10 million dollars to spend on whores and publicity.

toolboi requested:
Toad the Wet Sprocket, Leonard Cohen, Santana

Toad The Wet Sprocket! Oh boy! They were basically the kings of the mid-90s "rock for people who are too frail and timid for grunge" movement. The Goo Goo Dolls, the Gin Blossoms, Better Than Ezra, Dishwalla, all those boring bastards. I have this theory that you could replace any member of any one of those bands with any member of any other one and nobody, not even their die-hard fans would be able to tell. Maybe they could if it was the singer, but that's still doubtful. They'd sort of squint into the stage lights and say "Oh, well, he has that sort of mid-length brown hair and that plaintive voice... I guess it must be him." Too bad Empire Records was just a place in a movie, or lovesick flannel-clad white kids might still be buying those records.

Leonard Cohen, you need to start just releasing books of poetry exclusively, because the music thing is just not for you. Your grim monotone makes every song you do sound the same. They're all pretty much just tuneless and depressing, so quit pestering music fans and go bug those losers who read poetry instead.

Hey Carlos Santana, I'll give you a million dollars if you do a an artless, phoned-in collaboration with my dog's wrinkled anus. Oh, hold on, my phone's ringing. Mr. Santana? Oh shit! Sorry dude, I wasn't serious! Just back off, okay? I don't have any fucking money for you.

ramirez requested:
Craig David

Who the fuck does this woman think she's fooling with the name "Craig" and her little penciled-on goatee thing?

foolam55 requested:
Do Aaron Carter.

I think the chicken-hawks who manage and promote the little pink-bottomed sexpot have been doing him quite enough already.

DougDrafto requested:
I haven't seen Nick Drake.

Neither have any of us, because he's a fucking dead recluse. Nick Drake is what you'd get if you took Donovan and then blanded him down about 75% until he was boring enough to stick in a car commercial and catch the attention of some hip college boys who could buy his records and then pretend that they'd always known about him. Oh, and just for the record, I had all of his albums before that Pink Moon Volkswagen commercial came out, because I actually am hip and with it and beyond all criticism.

Damien requested:
Eh, still didn't see Mindless Self Indulgence. C'mon, that's an easy one too. Another easy one for you would be Andrew WK. Also please do American Hi-Fi.

One of the reasons why I pity all the stupid Jhonen Vasquez-worshipping black-trench-coat fags in this world is because they've totally resigned themselves to the fact that nobody likes them. Another reason I pity them is because they listen to Mindless Self Indulgence, which is a band so terrible that it seems like they're not intended to be listened to at all. I guess they have a lot in common with the contemptible dorks who listen to them: nobody likes them, nobody ever will, and the average person stays far, far away from them because they suck and have absolutely nothing to offer anyone who isn't a total social reject.

Andrew WK is what you'd get if you took the idea of rock and roll music and then dumbed it down as much as you possibly could without totally destroying it, and then you took that dumb and you put it in a pan and boiled away all the water so you were left with just a thin black film of pure stupidity. Then maybe you fed that to a Chihuahua and let him shit it out. And of course, the public's response to this stupid shit was to buy thousands of copies and proclaim it as great ironic genius. Then of course after hearing some interviews, people realized that he wasn't being ironic, he really was just a retard. After that, only the people who aren't ashamed of total and complete stupidity managed to hang on.

As for American Hi-Fi... Jesus. Imagine that you sort of wanted to listen to Blink 182, but you found them just a little too rowdy for your taste. American Hi-Fi is the kind of shit you'd have to fall back on. There is absolutely nothing you can do to rock music to make it any lamer than American Hi-Fi. Everything that possibly could be weak and lame about it is right there. The rock and roll dream is dead, and in its place is American Hi-Fi.

You know what’s funny about this? I have no idea who American Hi-Fi were. It’s only been two years and I’ve totally forgotten about them. I guess they didn’t manage to kill rock and roll after all, but judging by how much I used to hate them, I reckon they gave it their best shot.

Thanks for the two marvelous years of support! As usually, I can be reached for comment and abuse at davidthorpe@somethingawful.com. I’d also like to thank the beautiful Yannick Denzer for continually e-mail bombing me for the past couple of weeks. Apparently he’s never heard of “filters,” so he is unaware that his messages are automatically deleted before they get to my inbox. If you’d like to speak with Yannick, you can reach him at the following delicious address:

heavyraptor@yahoo.com