Your Band Blows

I’m a firm believer in hero worship. I’m not one of those people that believe that every one is created equal and all of that kumbaya bullshit; there are certain individuals that are worthy of our respect and admiration and who belong on a pedestal. The majority of these outstanding human beings exist in a world of violence, soldiering for what they believe is defending their families and country (regardless of the reason they are sent to fight, the fact that they do is heroic). Some of these exalted personalities work in bringing food and shelter to those who have none or apply themselves to resolving disputes and saving lives. And occasionally, and this is very rare, does a person involved in entertainment do something so undeniably huge that they deserve the resulting hero worship that they receive. Not that I believe that entertaining people is in any way an altruistic pursuit, anyone from the kid who makes farting noises to get a few laughs in kindergarten to the comedian who just made 50 million off of his last writing/producing/acting gig has one thing in mind, getting their ego stroked. But there is that rare entertainer that creates something so gigantic, so far reaching and influential, that they deserve the fame and money that inevitably follows. James Cameron is a perfect and recent example. Say what you will about him, his personality, or his award acceptance speeches; but the creator of Avatar (who now holds the title of creating the two top grossing films of all time) has consistently changed the way that everyone who sees a movie views films. For his contributions Jim has amassed a godlike amount of power in the industry and an unholy amount of money. But he deserves it. In fact, if James Cameron were to say “I think I want to be the president of a small country” I would support his decision to the point of signing up to move to Cameronland (Cameronvania?) because: A. He has achieved unequaled success in his field. And B. He has already made more money that 90% of the world’s countries. But entertainers like Cameron are an extremely rare exception.

So lets talk about Lady Gaga.

Somehow in the last year (think, did you have any idea who she was in January of 2009?) this mediocre talent has become an icon in music, fashion and lifestyle circles. The popularity of her music is easy to understand. A catchy rehashing of pop hooks and early 90’s techno beats with whorish lyrics, Gaga’s contribution to music culture is much like the turkey sandwich you eat the day after thanksgiving. It’s a quick, unoriginal snack that you throw together out of laziness that satisfies but never comes close to the meal that came before it. Formulas like this exist in different areas of pop music, are successful often and there’s nothing special about it (think lil Wayne, Taylor Swift, the Jonas Brothers).

Her fashion influence is equally comprehendible. Trashy (no pants!) and out of the ordinary (bubbles?) will get you attention if there are cameras pointed at you. On any given day, Lady Gaga can be seen strutting around looking like Bjork turned cheap hooker. There’s nothing original about her fashion sense, spend five minutes on the internet and you can find someone who wore her outfits years ago, but the fact that she has so many paparazzi up her ass that she could open a camera store in her colon makes her iconic. “Wow, did you see what Lady Gaga did? She painted a lightening bolt on her face! She is so groundbreaking that I want to give her my money and model my life after her!!!” Sound ridiculous? Read her fan pages.

When it comes to lifestyle what is she really saying? How should I, the average Lady Gaga fan, act according to her example and music? Philosophically, Gaga has identified Rilke as her biggest influence. Barely an also-ran in the world of philosophy, Rilke was a Bohemian poet who wrote blurry verses about processes of art without actually saying anything; the equivalent of a painter painting an image of a paintbrush. What this says about Lady Gaga is that she is drawn towards other vacuous “creators” of easily digested content that has no vision or purpose, and this shows in her lyrics. “Just Dance” is an ode to finding oneself in a situation that one does not know the origin of. She finds herself trashed and in a strange place with no idea how she got there or how to get out and the only course of action is to dance. Seems like a reasonable thing to do in her mind but personally I would be looking for my keys and cell phone and drinking water. “Poker Face” comes across as a love of the game of dishonesty in relationships. This shows Lady Gaga’s preoccupation with the process of lying to a love interest with no concern over the consequences or the fact that a relationship based in dishonesty is doomed to fail. So based on her music and influences, it would appear that Gaga is living in the moment, oblivious to any goal or course of action. Sounds like fun but it’s similar to living on a hamster wheel, you’re moving but you never get anywhere.

So we’ve got an icon who surfaced a year ago, propped up on a pedestal supported by her unoriginal music, sleazy derivative fashion, and dubious philosophical intake and excretion. She’s made a ton of money and has been named as the most influential artist of 2009. Her stock and the appraisal of her abilities is set so high that some idiot at Poloroid even made her the “creative director and inventor of specialty projects” for imaging projects (read:cameras); as if she knows anything about making a camera, ridiculous. What’s happened due to the hype that Lady Gaga has amassed is nothing but a brain liquefying death ray to everyone who views her. What she’s done is nothing special or deserving of the acclaim that she’s received. It’s all been done before and better, but because the idiot quotient in the world is so high right now and Gaga makes a good figurehead for retards, she has become a hero to millions. If she continues at the same rate that she has been going, I predict that Lady Gaga will be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics by the end of 2010 and will be elected Empress of the Universe on May 1st, 2011. So people of the world, enjoy your pants wearing ways because soon they will be outlawed. In the future being puh-puh-puh-planned for us by your musical messiah, we will all wear matching vinyl leotards and have surgery to make us hermaphrodites. Well you will anyway. I plan on being a ten foot tall, blue, tree-hugging alien Cameronland Resistance Fighter.

 words: Scott Jenson

 

We all know that it’s not a party without music. Whether you’re sitting on your front porch with a couple of friends, guzzling cheap wine and coming up with alternate plots for Land of the Lost, or in a dark, seedy club shaking your ass, there should always be something to listen to. American Indians knew it; whenever the tribe would gather, drums would be pulled out and beaten on all day and through the night. Cowboys knew it; the best backdrop to a night of warm liquor, cards and gunfightin’ was a scared piano player, hoping that he wouldn’t play the wrong song and get a bullet in his back. Church social groups, satanic rituals, funerals, bar mitzvahs, christenings, NASCAR, Superbowls, silent films, battles and, of course, procreation: all events that are not quite the same without music. From this great human need emerged a vocation for a person that wields great power, that of being a DJ.

Now most garden variety DJs, like the sad bastard playing “The Electric Slide” at another ridiculous wedding or the Friday-night host of your local “urban” radio station, follow a simple formula: Collect music, push PLAY. I’m not saying that this type of DJ is not without skills, but those skills are similar to being able to sew the fastest Reebok in a Malaysian sweatshop - yeah, you CAN do it, but why the hell would you want to? It seems other-dimensional to spend the time necessary to download the newest Flo Rida or Beyonce tune, and THEN have to play it three times a night to the same group of retards who are “in da club” blowing off steam from their mindless workweeks. I applaud these troopers for their patience and lack of irony, but I still don’t get the allure of hearing the same crap night after night like 90% of the populace, or of being the conductor of that lame-ass party.

There are some DJs that blow my mind. Recently I saw A-Trac (Kanye’s DJ) hold a crowd of progressive-music snobs with mouths agape for two and a half hours, completely entranced. I saw what this freak of nature was doing behind the turntables (and a CDJ and some weird sampler pad) and it blew my teeth out through the back of my head. He was somehow making a continuous, coherent mix of hip-hop, electro, soul, house and some crazy beeping noises work, and for a diverse crowd. It was amazing, and made me know, deep within my heart, that I could never do that.

So it’s very apparent that there are different levels of talent within the DJ pack, like most artistic (I just vomited in my shoe after typing that) pursuits. There are some who are meant to crank out shitty landscapes and sunrises, and there are Picassos. But why are there so many damn landscapes and sunrises?!? I would be completely happy with rounding up every person who has ever painted a landscape or a sunrise and walking them slowly into an active volcano. Look, it’s really cool and all that you like making little oil mountains and beachy scenes, but you really aren’t good at it and you should probably quit because bad art is basically masturbation.

That’s right: bad art is masturbation. Masturbation is self-gratification born of the lust for something else. Making bad art is much the same. But why would you masturbate if you can find someone to get down with? When you have a conversation with someone that you’re attracted to, you want them to like you, because you’re probably trying to jungle-rules wrestle with them. In order to get someone to get in the ring with you, it is imperative that you follow certain guidelines that can only be learned through years of applied practice. Talk sweet, initiate physical contact and make them laugh so they are comfortable. You can do that, or go home and wank. Either way, it’s your choice. But the difference between having a satisfying sex life and rubbing your palms raw is not flaunting your self-pleasuring ways. It’s OK to make out with someone in a club, people see it and they’re cool with the fact that you’re getting close. But if you whip out your naughty bits and start working them in front of a group of people, things can get ugly. What I’m saying is, if you need to gratify yourself, do it in private. If you’re an artist, chances are that nobody wants to see your attempt at recreating the Ozarks, or hear your crappy poems. But if you practice, study diligently and put some effort into your self-gratifying craving, you can GET EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT. People can gaze wistfully at your paintings, applaud your haikus, and actually sit through your DJ set without having to shotgun whiskey to dull the pain in their ears. You can be the guy that can floor a crowd of frat boys mixed with hipsters and goth kids.

But chances are you’re not. Instead of taking the time to learn the basics and history behind DJing and sift through music trying to find that one measure that you’ll be able to juggle around enough to make a new song, you spent that time downloading a quick playlist from another club night or went to an indie dance party to see what songs you should plug into Traktor. You make sure you mix the ironic tracks (Lady Gaga, LMFAO?) with scene tracks (Crystal Castles, Daft Punk). You play songs front to back because “that’s what people want to hear.” You take cheap, evanescent attention over respect and adulation. You take the fastest route to self-fulfillment.

Well guess what? You’ve become the kid who gets caught whacking off at a Christian summer camp. Everyone knows you, but you’re still a joke. If you would’ve just waited and hung around girls enough to get to know what makes them work, you could’ve been the manly stud who got LAID at Christian summer camp. In that case, everyone knows you, and WANTS to know you.

So the next time you lay down a sweet mix of “Day and Night” I want you to think long and hard, Mr./Ms./Mrs. Point And Click DJ. Do you really feel like you’re doing something of any skill or substance? Do you think you look cool? Do you think that anybody really wants to hear that “hip” indie dance song from 2004? Maybe the drunk girl spinning in circles on the stage with her dress pulled up over her head is really digging your mix, but she’s wasted and probably mildly retarded. That douchebag giving you the nod, he just took his 12th Jager Bomb and is only in the club looking for strange. Step up your game, you lazy fuck. You hold in your grasp a mantle of power that has been with our species since the dawn of man. You are the bringer of tunes to rock out to, and it is a sacred honor to bring the party to people. Disgrace yourself no further by DJing with your iPods or Virtual DJ, go and buy some fucking records or learn how to use Serato immediately and don’t show your face AGAIN UNTIL YOU KNOW HOW TO FUCKING MIX AND LEARN TO PLAY SOMETHING INTERESTING FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!!

Thanks.

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Words: Scott Harrell


There’s a line in the song “Showdown” from the Black Eyed Peas’ new album The E.N.D. that goes, “Go ahead and hate us/it only makes us greater.” It’s an apt statement; after all, the worse this tired cartoon about four talentless refugees from an alternate universe where everyone’s a character from PG-rated Japanimation gets, the more popular it becomes. But the Peas’ desire to be the focus of our aggression doesn’t come from bravado. It comes from desperation - the Peas know that it takes energy and effort to feel so strongly about something, and they know that at the end of the day, they’re too superficial to be worthy of such emotional investment.

The only correct way to feel about the Black Eyed Peas, if anything, is just a bit sad.

When Metallica sold out in blatant fashion during the first half of the ‘90s, it signaled the last time such crass commercialization would ever be outrageous. By the time the Black Eyed Peas swapped their credibility as a socially conscious underground hip-hop outfit for Kids Incorporated alumnus Fergie, hook-thieving productions that would make Diddy himself think twice and an open-door policy regarding any product looking for a blandly bouncy commercial soundtrack a decade later, the most that could be conjured was a knowing sigh. It was just a sign of the times, nothing more. The pop-urban industry needed an act to cater towards those Disney-fied teens too old for boy bands but too young for a coked-up club-bathroom three-way, and will.i.am - who should’ve called himself i.will.b, because he’ll be whatever the hell you want him to if the check clears - and his cohorts were more than happy to, ahem, bridge the gap.

Sad, really.

Since then, they’ve cranked out vapid hit after vapid hit, all big, familiar beats and ridiculous visuals and repetitive lyrical refrains that contain all the subtlety, heart and originality of a first-grade reading lesson. In fact, the Peas’ entire aesthetic of bright, fast-moving objects, assaultive simple grooves and redundant, barely literate wordplay is purposely, forcefully reminiscent of an engaging but pointless children’s show - or of some well-known psychological-warfare scenarios. It’s as if they all know that there’s nothing behind the shiny, undulating curtain, so they do it faster and louder and dumber, hoping that if just half a million more 17-year-olds are brainwashed into buying the single, it’ll all mean something, somehow.

Wow. Pretty sad, huh?

The group’s members have all claimed that The E.N.D.’s title is short for The Energy Never Dies, and not any proclamation that it’s, you know, the end. But hopefully it will mean the end of the Peas’ pop-cultural dominance, because the frantic scrambling to define what’s next in mainstream urban music on display throughout the album is truly pathetic.

If first single “Boom Boom Pow” and a majority of the CD are to be believed, Fergie and company have found the future in the past; specifically, the worst, most insubstantial dance-floor filler that European discos and American gay clubs were pumping decades ago, because there wasn’t a whole weekend’s worth of good dance music to be found. But worse, the album also showcases the Peas’ forays into nominal indie-rock (the Target-whoring “I Gotta Feeling”), acoustic guitar-isms (“Now Generation”), and powerless dub (“Electric City”). All are inconsequential experiments in styles often lauded for their personal or political substance, and all immediately devolve into the kind of mugging and monosyllabic sloganeering for which the Peas are known. If anything, The E.N.D.’s vibe and lyrics present an even broader pointlessness than before, focusing on the kind of forget-your-troubles-come-spend-your-paycheck-at-the-club-and-let’s-party themes that young Americans just entering a decimated economy really don’t need to hear right now, thanks. They’re not advocating the coked-up club-bathroom three-way yet, but they’re certainly implying that listeners are as entitled to their pretentious nightlife and “where’s the party at, yo” Twittering and ignorance as any celebutard.

And if that’s not the saddest thing ever, I don’t know what is.

Oh, wait, yes I do. It’s that whole thing about Fergie maybe peeing herself onstage. That shit’s like Ozzy, and seriously, what’s sadder than New Millennium Ozzy?

Nothing.

Not. A. Damn. Thing.

Words: Scott Jenson

Ever since the first music journalist took coal to the wall of his clan’s cave to draw a crudely formed stick-figure Cro-Magnon banging two rocks together, people who study music have been trying to answer several questions. Some of these questions, like “how much side ass can I get from hanging around rock bands?” or “should I really use a blowjob reference in this piece about Yanni?” aren’t as applicable to the music, but are still very important to the function of the writer. There are, however, certain questions that frequently come up when appraising music that are ultimately important in evaluating an artist's value. Influences, writing process, life experience and memes can be brought out through pointed questions such as “how does your life experience influence your writing process, and the themes of your current album?” that can tell you a lot about whether or not the artist is making a relevant statement. It’s somewhat amazing to hear what goes on behind the scenes when someone is making music, and on occasion, such as when a band rents an 18th-century church and writes in it for three months while taking various and copious amounts of mind-twisting hallucinogens, it can result in an interesting story, and a greater understanding of the artist and their work.

I started researching Peaches because I’d of course heard her putrid, low-fidelity porno-electro in quite a few places and through various media outlets, and I was also trying to figure out if she was, in fact, a she. Peaches’ gender-bending persona and horse face had me scouring hi-res images for an adam’s apple. Seriously. But what really interested me about her, after I found some pretty compelling evidence that she is attached to a vagina, was finding out what kind of background would compel someone to make such blatantly erotic-for-shock-value-only pap.

It turns out that this is Peaches' second career - after spending some time as an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MUSIC TEACHER. Really, I can't make this up. Can you imagine the girl who wrote “Fuck the Pain Away” teaching children? Picture the horrified look on a fresh first grader when he walks into his first music class and has a bearded lady wearing nothing but panties and black electrical tape tell him to shove a recorder in his mouth. That little guy is going to end up cutting up prostitutes and eating them when he gets older. Of course, it could explain a few things. Maybe the day-to-day stress of having to listen to the most inexperienced musicians of any caliber drove her to the point of insanity, where it makes sense to badly rap and wail blatantly out of tune over beats that sound like they were made with a mid-'90s cell phone, some dental tape and a hubcap from a Chevy Nova.

If you ever feel the need to cringe at a real travesty of human development I HIGHLY recommend that you watch Peaches' mini-documentary, which is conveniently located at her site on the interwebs. In it, she repeatedly states how she “doesn’t care what she looks like or how bad she smells” and tells the documentarian in several ways about how much of an individual she is.

Wow, congrats … you’re disgusting AND pretentious.

When asked about her writing process, she states that she has production equipment next to her bed and she will lie around smoking dope and masturbating for days on end. Somehow this inspires her. Not that I have anything against smoking dope and masturbating - I think they are both very worthwhile pursuits - but the fact that some nasty, high skank diddling herself and crapping out lines like “Eat a cookie/a big dick/everyday/what?” and “Suck/Suck it up/Suck it all, Suck and let go” is actually getting deep serious reviews proves once and for all that there is no God, and the human race is actually less evolved then rhesus monkeys. There is actually a review on a site I'll call Bitchspork that speaks grandly about her “fully formed, distinct aesthetic” and “expression of complicated, conflicted emotions.” Really? The bitch gets stoned and plays with herself. The only thing that she’s fully forming while writing music is what amounts to the indie equivalent of Riskay’s “Smell Yo’ Dick,” which in my opinion is a much more well-crafted song about catching your significant other cheating. At least Riskay is drawing from life experiences of conflicted emotions that aren’t deciding whether to get high and THEN play with your dildo, or the other way around.

So when it comes down to it, and you really want to see what kind of cred an artist should have, go to the source. Just because some trust-fund kid who had his parents pay for him to get a blog and a bloated writing education throws a bunch of $100 words at something doesn’t make it good. Take a look at the people behind the music and you'll know if you’re attaching yourself to something relevant or just falling into the hype machine built to draw attention and dollars to someone who can’t even get out of bed to have some experiences outside of cheap drugs and even cheaper orgasms.

Words: Scott Jenson

Right off the bat, you can personally deliver any death threats to the new REAX Space if you’re in the Tampa area. There’s a good chance that I’ll be there during the afternoon most days, so you may get to tell me to go to hell to my face. However, if I happen to be out on an errand or just hiding at one of Ybor City’s fine watering holes there will be someone there to take a message, and you may just find an awesome graphic tee or print from one of our hand-picked artists. I’m letting you know this not because I want to wheedle you into checking out our gallery, but am in fact so sure that talking badly about The Decemberists is going to make me music journalism’s first martyr, and I want to speed up the process. Like many fine men before me such as Malcolm X, Gandhi and Jesus, I’m aware that my views will most likely result in my death at the hands of some unenlightened fool. But I don’t want to wait for a hipster who most likely is partial to wearing empty horn-rimmed frames and espousing the merits of Animal Collective as a musical “movement” and not just a band to jump out from behind the bushes at New World Brewery and stab me in the heart with his iPhone knife app. I'd rather get it over with quickly … so come see me.

If you were to take a survey about what makes a good band among people who study music, particularly rock and roll, you would invariably get a somewhat homogenous list citing technical proficiency, storytelling or lyrical ability, connection to an audience and a compelling live show as being essential. All of these things are great, and most bands that have success in music will display some of these traits, if not all. But the question that I’m positing today is what happens when you have a band that fulfills all of the above qualifications, but they still suck? How are positive traits outweighed by negatives? I would like to introduce everyone to my patented method of measuring band suckage or ruleage: the Active Dynamics In Creativity and Kocknballz as It Applies to Music scale, or A.D.I.C.K.I.A.M. For the purpose of this demonstration I will be assessing my most hated purveyors of twee, pseudo-intellectual folk trash, the Decemberists.

Let’s talk technical proficiency. It’s very easy to see, even on a low-grade YouTube vid, that the musicianship of The Decemberists is for the most part solid. Lead twit Colin Meloy is an apt guitar player, and manages to hit his notes while singing, and the back-up “whatever the hell he’s playing at the time” guy Chris Funk is good with whatever kitschy little noisemaker he has in his hand. But the rest of the band is pretty much average at what they do, and incredibly boring to watch. All of this adds up to a technical level of skill that is adequate enough to be considered “good.” However, when applied to the A.D.I.C.K.I.A.M. scale, there are a few major issues that outweigh the Decemberists’ level of playing ability. This equation can be expressed in the following scientific formula:
               

“MM+NGD÷FBA+BUB=R-WLC”

In layman's terms, what I’ve just described is that “Mediocre Musicianship plus No Guitar Dance divided by Fake British Accent and Butt Ugly Band equals Really? Who Likes this Crap?”

It’s been well addressed that the Decemberists are good storytellers. The almighty Pitchfork itself has been a huge proponent of the weaving of whatever obscure literary pap Colin Meloy is reading Cliff's Notes for at the time into the band’s albums. And even I’ll be the first to admit the majority of their music is very conceptual, and lyrically addresses the content in a manner that expresses their meme. However, there is a unique paradox created when the subject matter of music is such that no matter what lyrical devices are used to advance the topic, the topic itself is so ridiculously boring that there is no point in writing about it. The latest outing from The Decemberists is based on “a woman named Margaret who is ravaged by a shape-shifting animal; her lover, William; a forest queen; and a cold-blooded, lascivious rake.” (Artist Bio Page, 4/20/08). What I can take from that is, it’s a concept album about a gangbang. That would make for an interesting video directed by the same guy who did Manorgy #17, but really doesn’t show the depth that a concept album requires. At least when Mastodon does a concept piece it’s about a paraplegic who travels through time and has his spirit sucked into the body of Rasputin, the immortal Russian tyrant. The A.D.I.C.K.I.A.M. formula for the storytelling/lyrical category as applied to the Decemberists is as thus:
               
“WCxGS=RLPR”

Of course this means “Weak Concept times Good Storytelling equals Rather Listen to Papa Roach.”

Finally, let's talk connection to an audience and a compelling live show. This is a fairly simple category to define and chart via the A.D.I.C.K.I.A.M. scale. Basically, what we’re talking about here is that connection with people, and the wow factor at a live show. Somehow, The Decemberists have managed to connect with an audience. I don’t see how, considering the fact that the band is a foppish group of throwbacks fronted by a trilling, pseudo-English Stephen King lookalike who appears to be trapped somewhere in the late 1800s. If you’re connecting with that, you seriously need to pull yourself out of the library and have a few shots of whiskey, get laid, dance to bad techno, jump out of a plane, take a drive in a foreign country, ride a bull … do SOMETHING!!! I haven’t seen a group with less to say, and less balls, since ABBA. At least ABBA was a bunch of raging cocaine abusers who wrote about club whores. And a quick mention of The Decemberists live: if they’re not backed up by a full orchestra, it’s about as much fun as watching the line at the DMV. Scratch that, at least there’s always one drooling freak at the DMV who can hold your interest for more than five minutes. One final equation:
               
“IYLD+STTL=PSV”

One of the amazing qualities of the A.D.I.C.K.I.A.M. scale is its ability to sum musical capabilities as it applies to fans as well. As you can see from the above statistical formula, “If You Listen to the Decemberists plus can Sit Through Them Live it means that you’re Probably Still a Virgin.” See you at the Space!

I really didn’t want to write this column.

I’ve been avoiding tackling a band so obviously terrible as Seether for the entire run of my writing YBB, because: A) there’s no challenge to it - I could just post up tabs and lyrics to all of their material and anyone with half a brain and/or musical skill will see what a joke they are - and they aren’t getting significant enough positive buzz to warrant a backlash - there’s really no press. Where Seether is concerned, it would appear that the only ones who “get” what they’re doing, and want to see it succeed, are record company execs, radio program directors, and the hordes of semi-goth mall kids that still think bands like Disturbed and Slipknot are speaking to their lack of self-esteem and stunted musical taste.

All of this really turns me off of spending the time writing about a band when it’s not really necessary. Seether’s fans are a joke, their music is akin to the audio equivalent of generic vanilla ice cream (you know, the stuff that’s $1.50 a gallon) and the only reason that they continue to thrive is thanks to a bunch of backward-thinking promoters and mass-media gatekeepers. But the other day, something happened that brought forth the rage of my entire limbic system. Driving through Miami with a dead iPod and no CDs and looking for something to listen to, I happened to hit the scan button on the FM radio. I’d hoped that maybe I could land on some oasis of obscure salsa in the desert of latin smooth jazz that dominates the airwaves in the area, but instead I ended up sitting on an Active Rock-formatted channel after hearing the last verse of Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody.”

After suffering through a couple of tunes by forgettable acts, the DJ announced a “new” song by Seether called “Careless Whisper.” Something deep inside of me twinged; I started rapidly cycling through the five stages of grief:

1. Denial and Isolation - “They wouldn’t, would they? Am I the only one who thinks this isn’t possible?”
2. Anger - “Who the fuck covers a Wham! song? Someone is getting stabbed in the eye!!!”
3. Bargaining - “Please tell me this isn’t a cover, and they just stole the title ... PLEASE!!!”
4. Depression - “Oh my God, this is really happening. F my L.”
5. Acceptance - “They did it. I don’t know why, but they actually did it.”

The song, of course, was a word-for-word and basically note-for-note cover of the aforementioned Wham! song from 1984. A worldwide hit at the time, “Careless Whisper” was a ballad of love lost due to some unmentioned betrayal (most likely a hummer received from a stranger in a park bathroom, knowing George Michael’s penchant for semi-anonymous public encounters) that results in the inability to dance again. Appropriate subject matter for a time during which the world was still recovering from the disco era and New Wave backlash that followed it, but without relevance to today’s current music culture. Given that, a sloppy nu-metal rehash seems even more odd. The only possible justification for releasing such a wobbly attempt at a cover is that perhaps Shaun Morgan is finally lamenting the loss of former girlfriend Amy Lee (of Evanescence fame), and has decided to express his despair by remaking a ballad written by a forgettable homoerotic ‘80s act. Wow, I’m sure Amy is touched at this very moment. Touched by the fact that Shaun is definitely back on the booze, because from this humble journalist’s perspective it would take copious amounts of alcohol to think that covering this song was a good idea. Brain damage amounts. So much booze that the guy sifting through the trash in downtown St. Petersburg pouring the remnants of tossed beer cans into a dirty Styrofoam cup so he can get his drink on would probably say, “Shaun, you really need to slow down, you’re ruining your life.”

At this point, what’s done is done. The song is receiving heavy radio play and I’m sure that there are several thousand kids running around in bondage pants and black eye makeup playing this moldy piece of ear trash over and over and thinking about that girl or guy that they shared a moment head-banging with at the last Ozzfest. Unfortunately, it’s too late to stop this crap from being disseminated, but hopefully it will disappear as quickly as Limp Bizkit’s cover of “Behind Blue Eyes” (anyone remember that?), and will have a similar effect on Seether’s career: turning a gradual decline into a nosedive of epic proportions.

2009. A new year for terrible music.

With the proliferation of DIY methods of producing and distributing recorded material, this year promises to one of the worst in history. The start of a new year also brings the close of the year gone by, and awards shows “honoring” the “best” music of the preceding 12 months. I've always found it humorous and distressing that a group of people can come together and judge what was the best of any art form to come out of a particular period of time. In the case of the Grammys, the voting parties are people within the industry that stand to profit from the eventual bump in sales that results from an artist or a song receiving an award. It’s an incestuous, antiquated system that has no validity, and really makes no sense in today’s industry. Aside from the few relevant and original artists like MIA and Kings of Leon that get thrown a bone, the majority of nominees have done nothing to drive music culture in any way. So in honor of this dinosauric daisy chain of a backslapping session, I've decided to put out my own list of awards: The Blowies. All of the “winners” had to have been released in 2008, and charted in a big way on one of Billboard’s 3,678 lists … and they had to have distinguished themselves among their peers as glowing examples of what happens when bad music becomes popular.

Worst Pop Single of the Year (single track by an artist, duo or group)

Lady Gaga, “Just Dance”
This syrupy piece of crap sounds like just another ridiculous dance song meant to be played at “da club” so hootchies can get their dance on while being ogled by douchebags waiting in the wings to pull a little roofie-and-grind action on their unsuspecting asses. Ironically, the lyrical content has Lady Gaga so shitfaced that she’s lost her keys and phone in a club that she doesn’t even know the name of, with her shirt on inside-out. It’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the majority of the girls that will be listening to and enjoying this song will eventually find themselves in the predicament that she’s describing. I love irony, but the inevitable situation bound to be caused by this song, if it already hasn’t, is that girls will take “Just Dance” as a validation that it's cool to get so wasted that you’re fucking lost and losing all of your valuables. What’s next, a song about the STD that you got after blacking out and fucking a group of predatory bros?

Worst Rap Single of the Year (single track by an artist, duo or group)

Kevin Rudolf Feat. Lil Wayne, “Let it Rock”
Really, all I need to do to trash this song is quote some lyrics. “Because when I arrive I bring the fire/Make you come alive, I can take you higher/What is this, forgot/I must now remind you/ let it rock let it rock …” I’m a huge fan of Weezy, and it really crushes my heart to know that he was involved with this steaming pile of hippopotamus dung. The fact that someone who completely changed the rap game and released one of the best rap albums of the year did a guest spot on what amounts to a bad house version of “Eye of the Tiger” makes me physically ill. With all of the lyrical skill that Lil Wayne possesses, he couldn’t come up with a better chorus? Dr. Carter, the medical board is rescinding your certification.

Worst Metal Single of the Year (single track by an artist, duo or group)

Disturbed, “Indestructible”
Will someone please tell these guys that the '90s are over, and that they’ve been writing the same song for the past decade? OK, we get it. You bark like a monkey over drop-tuned guitars. At least when you were whining about how sick you were and that your mommy beat you, you were connecting with every angsty kid with low self-esteem that couldn’t resolve their issues through therapy and had to listen to your crappy nu-metal rehash over and over to feel better about themselves. But now that you’re throwing down some pseudo-social commentary about soldiering, you’re just embarrassing yourself and any military members who are probably listening to this as they go out to kill. Please overdose and die and stop creating fodder for kids to gear up for war to.

Worst Rock Single of the Year (single track by an artist, duo or group)

Nickelback, “Something in Your Mouth”
Nickelback, the masters of the formatted rock song, gifted us this year with yet another track about strippers. As if this topic hadn’t been beat to death in the '90s by much more relevant groups like Motley Crue (God, I can't believe I just called the Crue relevant, shoot me). “Something in Your Mouth” sounds like just another attempt by the rumored-to-be-closeted Chad Kroeger to inject some hetero swagger into his music. You’re trying too hard, and frankly, at this point a song about gag-fucking a male partner would be more compelling than this offering. No thanks. At least it finally got “How You Remind Me” out of my head.

Worst R&B Single of the Year (single track by an artist, duo or group)

Ne-Yo, “Closer”
Everything about this song is just wrong. From the hokey intro and played-out techno beat to Brown’s repetitive stale chorus, there is so much to hate. I'm sure that Jerry Wexler, the man who coined the term R&B to replace the outdated moniker of Race Music, is rolling around in his gold coffin to know that his words are being used to describe this bit of aural dookie. R&B has gone through many changes since its inception as a genre, from jazz to soul to funk, and it really is a travesty of the highest order that a poppy pseudo-love song like this can wear the title. Rhythm and Blues has become Retch and Barf in my eyes (and ears) if this poorly constructed vehicle for a third-rate singer can be classified as such. Turn the lights off in this place, raise the gun to your mouth (closer … closer) and paint the walls with your brains Chris.

Worst Record of the Year (single track by an artist, duo or group, not genre specific)

Britney Spears, “Womanizer”
2008 was the year of the comeback for this one. After years of popping out babies and self-destructing, this once wildly popular pop princess returned with a new album that made all of the garbage that she’s released in the past sound like the voices of a heavenly choir in comparison. At her best, Britney was the perfect pop construction of post-adolescent sex appeal, well-structured songs that peaked with semi-interesting hooks, and danceable beats. Currently, it would seem that Ms. Spears is working out her issues with men and the superstar life via boring, repetitive tracks that showcase her love of AutoTune over instrumentals that would only be danceable to a 12-year-old on half a vial of ketamine. I hope that she spends the next year counting the money made from this vacuous piece of garbage instead of continuing to make narcissistic, masturbatory albums chronicling her descent into obscurity.

Worst Album of the Year (long-play album by an artist, duo or group, not genre specific)

Beyonce, I Am … Sasha Fierce
Ever since the Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines debacle of the late '90s, I’ve been waiting for another mega-successful artist to try and reinvent him- or herself when they run out of viable material. So I was jubilant when I heard about Beyonce’s attempt to remake her current image as a strong sassy black woman into a completely new concept image of a strong … sassy … black woman. I wonder if she really understands what it means to reinvent yourself. It doesn’t mean just changing your name and recycling the same format that you’ve been using for years. Maybe it was that Beyonce was thinking more along the lines of a Diddy (P Diddy, Puff Daddy, Diddley Doo or whatever he’s calling himself these days) reinvention than a true Bowie-style change where your personality, stage show and overall concept are transformed into something completely different. Please just get your career over with and pose for Playboy, or just go live on Jay-Z’s boat in the middle of the Mediterranean somewhere, you're no longer relevant to anything except urban Miss Independent clones and your own gigantic ego.

Worst New Artist of the Year (artist, duo or group)

Jonas Brothers
There’s really not much I can say that can hack away any more at these guys' credibility. “But they play their own instruments,” you say? Last time I checked, every “band” that wasn’t created in an office plays its own instruments. “But they write their own songs,” you say? If you honestly believe that a 14-year-old has enough pop sensibility to write hit records, then you are probably one of those people that still believes that the Monkees wrote “Daydream Believer” and that the Partridge Family was really a family AND a band. “But they’re sooooooo cute,” you say? I'll give them that. Cute enough to sell albums to both 14-year-old girls and 50-year-old pedophiles, and that’s their gimmick. Other than that, the only thing they have going for them is some of the most repugnant pop music created in decades. Look for them to be in contention for the Blowie for Worst Record of 2009.

In the information age, it’s relatively easy to nationalize an act if you get enough people talking about you, positively or negatively. It's an interesting phenomenon when it happens to a band, but it’s even more fascinating when it happens to a geographic region - the ability to push bands into mainstream consciousness not on their own merits, but just because they're from a certain place.
 
It’s not always the case that buzz about a scene is bad or misused. But when a hype machine gets moving and there’s little or no substance behind the majority of the bands coming out of that area, it’s a pretty disgusting sight to behold. Unfortunately for you and I, there is currently a “cultural happening” taking place in a quickly gentrifying warehouse district in Brooklyn called Williamsburg that is exposing the world to some egregious music. Some apparently groundbreaking things are happening there due to the dense population of musicians and artists who gravitated to the spot for its low rents and reputation for collectives of creative people. But through my eyes, the majority of the "groundbreaking" things coming out of the ‘Burg are just pomp and hyperbolic flatulence, and are only breaking ground on a buried megaton of shit.

There have been a few bands that evolved in the area that have made it big; MGMT is a good example. And until recently, the area was one of the only places within spitting distance of Manhattan that you could get a studio apartment for less than two grand. But the majority of what's coming out of the area’s music scene now is really terrible. It’s easy to see why groups like Dreamburger or Alexcalibur aren’t doing much. One is an all-girl electro-noise band with an upside down cross and a cheeseburger for a logo, and the other is a huge buff guy that straps bicycle wheels to his back and does interpretive dance while singing songs about relying on “the rock.” And there are bands like Bunny Rabbit + Black Cracker, a gender bending duo that makes some of the most boring ambient music ever created (and that's saying something), and has the most heinous Myspace page that I've ever seen. It's really disturbing; I recommend checking it out if you’re into retinal masochism.

The bands I've just mentioned are bad, and hopefully won’t see the light of day past a blog post here and there, but there are some that for no good reason are HUGELY popular.

I recently saw one of the successful ‘Burg bands play to a packed house. I won’t name names (we recently covered them and the interview was very interesting), but know that the lead singer is a huge fat hairy guy who gets naked and makes out with random people in the audience. Fair enough? The show was mildly entertaining because of the wookie flopping around onstage and tongue-kissing unwilling guys and girls in the front row, but the music was like something from a tone-deaf punk band of 10-year-olds. I can appreciate a spectacle - Gil Mantera's Party Dream are an amazing live act that make their mediocre music enjoyable due to their ridiculous costumes - but the band I was watching was seriously overcompensating for a lack of musical talent. It was like that skinny five-foot-three redneck down the road that drives a truck the size of an earthmover - you know he's not packing much heat downstairs (or upstairs for that matter) if he needs to present himself in that way. After the show I asked several people about what they'd just seen. They were very enthusiastic about the creepiness, but I couldn’t even get them to comment on the music. It was almost as if they were tuned out.

This is just one particularly bad example. There are so many it's impossible for me to go into every shitty band from Williamsburg. The majority seem to be groups more into creating a display of how edgy they are than making palatable songs. Last I checked, the word music was the first part of musician. If you don’t get that part down first, you're nothing but an overblown performance artist. I fucking hate performance artists. Unfortunately for Williamsburg and us, however, the shit-ton of people living there are currently having mind-meld sessions and taking their ridiculous concepts to newer, stranger and more sonically revolting heights, all in the name of being cool or becoming famous. With acts like these coming out of a so-called hot music scene, I fear for our future. Not just because things like song structure or audience connection or just plain sanity are going out the window, but also because we as music consumers will be further pressured to accept this crap as good. And as far as I'm concerned, we don’t need any more people telling us that the ludicrous sounds they've made in their basement with a homemade banjo and an overinflated ego are art. We already have Pitchfork.

Ask anyone who thinks that the early '80s were a good time for music, culture or anything in general besides conservative politics if they were actually alive during that era, and the answer will without a doubt be "no." Anyone who remembers the '80s remembers it as having created a lot of badly produced, ridiculous music, fashion and visual art.

That’s why the recent resurgence of rehashed lo-fi new wave dance-pop really mystifies me. As a dedicated student of history and an '80s child I’ve studied as much as possible about the period of time best known for pop art, bad pop, Pop Rocks, soda pop wars, poppers and a drug commonly referred to by the nickname "cola." As far as I can tell, the majority of people running around during the '80s were a bunch of coked-up narcissists fueled by greed and lacking in any aesthetic value whatsoever. Why we, as a society, would want to relive those times through such a powerful medium as music makes no sense. Maybe it’s fitting that a lot of the most buzzed-about music these days sounds derivative of, if not identical to, the new wave movement of the early '80s, because I seem to be meeting a lot of coked-0up narcissists fueled by greed and … you get the picture.

Now that we have a context, let’s talk about Crystal Castles. Packed with enough lo-fi blips and retro dance beats to put any early-'80s band to shame, CC manages to separate themselves from the herd of bands riding this trend (Empire of the Sun, Ladyhawke) by having “vocalist” Alice Glass scream incoherently through heavily effect-laden vocals. The result is something like a rave-mashup nightmare. With no thought given to song structure, melody or even a pervasive use of tone, the majority of Crystal Castles' music seems accidental, and dependent on AutoTune and bad Casio backing beats. As aurally heinous as the result is, I can’t help but relate it to bands like the Human League and Kajagoogoo; both terrible in their own right, but popular in their time. The only real contribution that any of the aforementioned bands made to music in general was to have a sound that was slightly off-center, and incorporate some new synth sound that probably took about two minutes to patch up on a Moog. The same applies to Crystal Castles, but what would you expect from a band that took their name from She-Ra, Princess of Power?

I do have to give it to Alice Glass though - she’s hot, in that “my parents didn’t hug me enough so I'm going to wear dark eye makeup and dance around like a monkey while gargling gravel” way. It’s interesting to see her crawl around on the hordes of hipster idiots who think that a Crystal Castles show is good performance art. I recently saw them perform, and the entire show consisted of Ethan Kath standing behind a row of electronics making semi-comprehensible noise on a black stage while Ms. Glass ran around with a strobe light screaming like her hair was on fire. The amount of thought that they put into their live show is akin to that of a drunk getting a Tasmanian devil tattoo at 2 a.m. from a seedy parlor with no sterilization; it might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but the next day you've got regret, a terrible hangover and hepatitis. In this case, the regret was the 20 bucks you spent to go to the show, the hangover is from all of the acid you had to take to enjoy the performance, and the hepatitis is actually tinnitus from having your ears assaulted with loud, terrible music. Performances in the '80s were similar. If you doubt me, pull up some old Kraftwerk live shows and revel in the four guys standing behind rows of electronics making semi-comprehensible noise on a black stage. It’s actually a little more palatable without the screaming monkey woman, and at least the guys in Kraftwerk had a sense of irony.

So I guess if you’re one of those people that feels the need to outcool your friends by picking up on the most recent buzz “band,” then I guess you might want to download “Crimewave,” and force everyone to listen to it over and over again while talking about how “original” Crystal Castles is. However, if you have any sense of the cyclical nature of music and culture, you may just want to keep your interest in this band a secret. I don’t know many people that were alive in the '80s are still talking about how innovative Flock of Seagulls were - and chances are, no one will admit to liking Crystal Castles in a few years, let alone a couple of decades.

Words: Scott Jenson

When I started writing this column I really wanted to focus on emergent acts that have little or no artistic, emotional or just straight rockin’ value. I saw a hole in music reporting where, once an act had received a little bit of street cred via blogs or Falling Gravel (you might know it as Rolling Stone), nearly every media outlet was on board and sucking the band off like an 18-year-old ecstasy-addicted porn star with an abusive past family life. I find trends like this in the industry to be abhorrent, and the acts, the majority of whom have nothing to offer besides a repackaging of things that have already been done and which need not bear repeating, largely undeserving.

Unfortunately, I recently wasted 74 minutes and 41 seconds of my life listening to one of the worst aural shit-storms ever perpetrated by biped mammals since the early days of rock and roll. And by the early days of rock and roll, I mean thousands of years ago, when what humans considered to be music was pounding on rocks with other rocks and screaming in a guttural non-language. I wanted this month’s column to be about Crystal Castles, but after hearing Metallica’s Death Magnetic and managing to resist the urge to gouge out my own ears with a melon baller for an hour and 15, I feel the need to warn the world.

Do not buy this album.

Do not download it (legally or illegally); do not order it at a discounted rate from Amazon.com; do not add it on Imeem or Rhapsody; do not let your friend burn it for you; do not accept any sort of mix that has any song from this album on it; do not listen to radio stations that playlist it on the off chance that you may hear their single; do not walk into any store that might be playing it over the loudspeaker; and (this one may hurt) do not play Death Magnetic on Guitar Hero. It’s really that bad.

Once upon a time that only exists in VH1 specials, Metallica was a proud group of alcoholics who managed to play harder, faster and more intensely than the majority of their peers. This earned them enough fame to make a crossover record that firmly implanted the band in American culture, and filled their bank accounts with enough looch to keep that self-absorbed little prick of a leprechaun drummer in Basquiat paintings and models twice his height for the rest of eternity. But this is where their journey as musicians should have stopped. Metallica could have walked away after their huge commercial success and subsequent release of a decent covers album, but they chose to soldier on and attempt to maintain relevancy even though they were clearly far removed from what made them a decent band in the '80s, and carrying egos the size of Boeing’s Everett Factory. This is the point in a band’s career where you should either A) start the cycle of retirement/reunion tours where you play your old songs and make unhealthy amounts of money, or buy a castle somewhere, become a hermit and get really weird. The worst thing that you can do at this juncture is try to make music out of some sick need to relive the times when what you did was fresh and exciting.

Metallica has done it for seven years and two horrible albums.

The worst part about Death Magnetic is not the production values, which brought it to the top of a Worst Offenders List compiled by audio engineers, and sparked a petition among fans demanding a remix. The more saddening and pathetic aspect of a release that's the auditory equivalent of Beverly Hills Chihuahua is that Metallica just doesn’t seem to get it. It’s over, guys. You had a good run. Stop living on past accolades and trying to go harder, faster and more intense, because your bones are probably getting brittle and there’s now a band built around a cartoon that makes better metal than you.

It’s disheartening to see a once-strong band come to the point that Metallica has reached. It’s one thing to suck coming out of the gates, to have one semi-popular hit and then fade into obscurity; at least there is a sense of dignity when you try, fail and accept it. But Metallica seems like that 40-year-old man who still hangs out at his alma mater's football games in his old jersey, talking to the new quarterback about his glory days. Yeah, they may be physically there, and everyone knows about them because they’ve been there so long. But it’s creepy, and deeply depressing, and no one in the game today really gives a shit if they can still hurl a wobbly spiral.