I had a dream when I was like 6 or 7 that 1967-era Davy Jones sang "I Wanna Be Free" to me personally and presented me with flowers in a very non-gay manner. The instrumentation of the song started playing out of nowhere which was completely normal for some reason. My reaction throughout the song was something along the lines of "Ohh Davy!" repeated over and over along with fake-crying, in a tone that suggested "now stop it, you shouldnt have!" Davy ignored my reaction and continued singing as if we were trapped in an episode of the show, which also seemed very normal within the dream.
Davy with Neil Young on guitar...
Now realizing that Davy did not sing on any of my favorite Monkeees songs, and he was probably my least favorite overall. But he was my mom's favorite so yeah...
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
i am the cosmos b/w you and your sister (1978)
we're fully prepared to label this as the greatest double-sided 7-inch record that's ever existed... and yes, we've posted this here before, and we'll probably post it again at some point....
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
T.Scene Newsletter: Feb 2012
Time for our monthly t-scene newsletter... Our top stories at this hour, covering the news of 1/23/12 through 2/23/12:
The news we're most excited for right now is the announcement of our first NEW COMPILATION release in nearly 10 YEARS.
Over the past 2 years, Taste My Kids has been posting various T.Scene releases on mediafire, mostly comps of re-packaged material, as well as newer releases from Ovlov, Dead Wives and Quilty. However, for the first time since Trumbull Scene Volume 2 (compiled during the summer of 2002), a new actual physical release is coming to fruition.
Its title is SLUT LIFE, and its line-up of artists is currently set to include JEFF PECK, GRAPH, POOLS ARE NICE, TWO INCH ASTRONAUT, THE SMOOTH HANDS, LORD CANTI (featuring ex-members of OVLOV), ELVES, JAMIE FOUND OUT, NATIVE MODE, SPEEDY ORTIZ, DOWCET, DEAD WIVES, LOWT IDE and a few more artists that are currently unconfirmed. It's initially set to be a cassette-only release (with no initial digital release on Bandcamp or other various forums).
As of right now, we can only guarantee that Slut Life will be available at the shows of all the bands who appear on it. More information, including a full tracklisting and artwork should be available here in our next T.Scene Newsletter. In the meantime, check out the recent redux version of Trumbull Scene: The Big Hits:
Now officially a 4-piece band, SPEEDY ORTIZ continued their reign of terror with a couple weekend-long mini-tours in early February. A few more of these should continue throughout the remainder of February and March as they prepare for Sports EP, their first official release as a full-band and the follow-up to The Death Of Speedy Ortiz from late last year. To help promote their forthcoming shows and Sports EP, Speedy launched a livejournal account as their first official website a few days ago. Recording is scheduled to begin in mid-March. In the meantime, catch Speedy rockin-the-fuck-out at these dates:
Friday, Feb 24: Big Snow, Brooklyn NY (PERSONALITY CRISIS)
Saturday, Feb 25: Alternate White Haus, Brooklyn NY (with KRILL, LOST BOY & CINDY LOU GOODEN)
Sunday, Feb 26: Arlene's Grocery, Manhattan NY (with SLOTHRUST)
Thursday, March 1: Great Scott, Boston Mass (GRASS IS GREEN's release party for the long-awaited Ronson LP -- we've heard there will be cassettes available in limited numbers! As well as CD's obviously.. Also featuring ARVID NOE and SNEEZE!)
Friday, March 2: Poland St, Portland, ME (with Grass Is Green, THE WALDOS, FALLS OF RAUROS, CORRESPONDENCES)
Sunday, March 4: Pianos, Manhattan, NY (with Grass Is Green, REDDWARF, MAGNETIC ISLAND, and SLOTHBEAR)
Wednesday, March 7: Western CT State University Student Center, Danbury CT (with FAT HISTORY MONTH, FLORIDA=DEATH and POOLS ARE NICE)
Thursday, March 8: Starlab, Boston Mass
Sunday, March 11: Midway (with Fucktrots)
Thursday, March 22: Sierra Grille, Northampton, Mass (with PILE and Fat History Month)
Wednesday, March 28: Flying Object, Northampton, Mass (with Grass is Green)
Thursday, March 29: Shea Stadium, Brooklyn NY (with DIEHARD, SHARK? and Grass Is Green)
The 8th annual BERFEST - held throughout the last weekend of Jan 2012 - was a huge success once again, with its sold-out 2nd night in Boston (on January 28th) meeting expectations as one of the best shows of 2012 so far, including a strong headlining set from PILE, a set comprised of nearly all-new material from GRASS IS GREEN, a farewell-set from OVLOV with first-time appearances from two covers (Dinosaur Jr's "Feel The Pain" and CKY's "To All Of You"), and brilliant opening sets from Boston favorites FAT HISTORY MONTH and SCOUTER.
However, the slightly-less-publicized 1st and 3rd nights of BERFEST were surprisingly just as eventful. The Sunday-show in Danbury included the next in a series of reunion sets from HOME MOVIES, as well as the debut performance from NATIVE MODE, a new project featuring ex-members of THANK YOU MR. KEATING who had previously performed in a few various shows to support their last LP The Baxter Special (one of our favorite unsigned albums of 2010).
Native Mode's new website can be found here: http://nativemodemusic.com/
HOVERAL's reunion set at Berfest was also full of surprises, with the set list including 2 Smooth Hands songs, a Bernie song, and - probably the biggest surprises of all - a NEW Hoveral song, tentatively titled on their setlist as "Why Bother." No comment from Hoveral regarding this signaling the band reforming in a more permanent setting, but the set is available in full on Youtube for anyone who missed it. Here's a link to Part 2 of their set, which begins with the new song:
Various news from DEAD WIVES was announced throughout February:
On February 1st, a new remixed version of their compilation Crud (originally released in October 2011) was uploaded to their Bandcamp page, marking their 2nd official release...
On February 8th, they announced on their facebook page that Crud would also be available on cassette, alongside another cassette-only split-release with LOWT IDE. The split-release is titled Alanis More-Cassette / Jomo Coffin. Both will be available at a series of Dead Wives shows planned for late-April and throughout May of 2012.
Plans for a Dead Wives Live EP has been scrapped. Instead, they have begun preparing the official follow-up to 2011's Scuz Bucket EP, which should be finished in time for their shows in April and May. More info on this coming soon.
No huge news from Lowt Ide at the moment, although they have been continuing recording of their long-awaited 5th LP Tag Sale, with one new song appearing soon on the Slut Life comp.
That's our news for this hour. More coming in March, or possibly even sooner. Leave us comments! Later.
The news we're most excited for right now is the announcement of our first NEW COMPILATION release in nearly 10 YEARS.
Over the past 2 years, Taste My Kids has been posting various T.Scene releases on mediafire, mostly comps of re-packaged material, as well as newer releases from Ovlov, Dead Wives and Quilty. However, for the first time since Trumbull Scene Volume 2 (compiled during the summer of 2002), a new actual physical release is coming to fruition.
Its title is SLUT LIFE, and its line-up of artists is currently set to include JEFF PECK, GRAPH, POOLS ARE NICE, TWO INCH ASTRONAUT, THE SMOOTH HANDS, LORD CANTI (featuring ex-members of OVLOV), ELVES, JAMIE FOUND OUT, NATIVE MODE, SPEEDY ORTIZ, DOWCET, DEAD WIVES, LOWT IDE and a few more artists that are currently unconfirmed. It's initially set to be a cassette-only release (with no initial digital release on Bandcamp or other various forums).
As of right now, we can only guarantee that Slut Life will be available at the shows of all the bands who appear on it. More information, including a full tracklisting and artwork should be available here in our next T.Scene Newsletter. In the meantime, check out the recent redux version of Trumbull Scene: The Big Hits:
Now officially a 4-piece band, SPEEDY ORTIZ continued their reign of terror with a couple weekend-long mini-tours in early February. A few more of these should continue throughout the remainder of February and March as they prepare for Sports EP, their first official release as a full-band and the follow-up to The Death Of Speedy Ortiz from late last year. To help promote their forthcoming shows and Sports EP, Speedy launched a livejournal account as their first official website a few days ago. Recording is scheduled to begin in mid-March. In the meantime, catch Speedy rockin-the-fuck-out at these dates:
The 8th annual BERFEST - held throughout the last weekend of Jan 2012 - was a huge success once again, with its sold-out 2nd night in Boston (on January 28th) meeting expectations as one of the best shows of 2012 so far, including a strong headlining set from PILE, a set comprised of nearly all-new material from GRASS IS GREEN, a farewell-set from OVLOV with first-time appearances from two covers (Dinosaur Jr's "Feel The Pain" and CKY's "To All Of You"), and brilliant opening sets from Boston favorites FAT HISTORY MONTH and SCOUTER.
However, the slightly-less-publicized 1st and 3rd nights of BERFEST were surprisingly just as eventful. The Sunday-show in Danbury included the next in a series of reunion sets from HOME MOVIES, as well as the debut performance from NATIVE MODE, a new project featuring ex-members of THANK YOU MR. KEATING who had previously performed in a few various shows to support their last LP The Baxter Special (one of our favorite unsigned albums of 2010).
Native Mode's new website can be found here: http://nativemodemusic.com/
HOVERAL's reunion set at Berfest was also full of surprises, with the set list including 2 Smooth Hands songs, a Bernie song, and - probably the biggest surprises of all - a NEW Hoveral song, tentatively titled on their setlist as "Why Bother." No comment from Hoveral regarding this signaling the band reforming in a more permanent setting, but the set is available in full on Youtube for anyone who missed it. Here's a link to Part 2 of their set, which begins with the new song:
Various news from DEAD WIVES was announced throughout February:
No huge news from Lowt Ide at the moment, although they have been continuing recording of their long-awaited 5th LP Tag Sale, with one new song appearing soon on the Slut Life comp.
That's our news for this hour. More coming in March, or possibly even sooner. Leave us comments! Later.
"Habit"
more from the same tour that was posted yesterday... Mike Watt on bass, Grohl on drums, Vedder on guitar/vox
"Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing"
wtf This actually happened??
May 1995.. Mike Watt on bass, Dave Grohl on drums, Pat Smear on guitar, Eddie Vedder on guitar and vocals
Pretty fucking awesome, although the original version is infinitely better, and we're pretty sure everyone who played on this would agree....
Man, people get so down on Pearl Jam for not being punk rock enough, but if there was a second-place band throughout the 90's (after Nirvana) who had a huge effect on exposing teenagers to some of the best underground punk rock of the 70's and 80's... Pearl Jam were those dudes, without question.
May 1995.. Mike Watt on bass, Dave Grohl on drums, Pat Smear on guitar, Eddie Vedder on guitar and vocals
Pretty fucking awesome, although the original version is infinitely better, and we're pretty sure everyone who played on this would agree....
Man, people get so down on Pearl Jam for not being punk rock enough, but if there was a second-place band throughout the 90's (after Nirvana) who had a huge effect on exposing teenagers to some of the best underground punk rock of the 70's and 80's... Pearl Jam were those dudes, without question.
Monday, February 20, 2012
fuck dem 90's
There's a possibility that somewhere between 3 and 4 people may have actually read through our "Hot Mix 2011" commentary.... And we are infinitely grateful that anyone cares what we have to say, and so we thank you...
And so this article emerged on Pitchfork earlier today... Here's dat link:
http://pitchfork.com/features/why-we-fight/8775-embarrassment-rock/
It's one of the first public statements we've noticed that criticizes the anti-rockism era, and possibly noting the start of a new movement, into a new direction of criticism where any specific mindset may be considered equally blinding or narrow-minded... We don't really think there's any way to view criticism that's any more narrowing than anything else.
The short definition of "Rockism" mentioned in this article seems decent enough, but it requires at least 10 pages in order to start to fully understand what it's all about... The example listed in this article regards the common argument that "Britney Spears doesn't even write her own songs," which rockists view as a negative, even though back in the 60's there was this label called Motown which did the exact same thing and created some of the most gorgeous-sounding pop music that might ever exist.
Another common rockist critique not mentioned here regards the question of how people will regard a given artist in 2 years, or in 5 years, or in 20 years, or in 50 years... People often look back on The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc etc, with a rose-colored perception, as of music never got any better, and that there is no possible way that with 30 years hindsight from 2012 that current artists will ever be nearly as highly regarded as the multi-million sellers of the 60's and 70's. The popist-version of this is to say, "who cares how this music will be regarded in the future... the only thing that matters is how I feel about new music right now, at this exact moment." Which is why dummies exist who actually placed Beyonce, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga into their best albums of 2011... Decent albums that are nowhere as good as the stuff they released previously. But simply because they're decent and didn't contain any significant duds, pop-fans go apeshit for them. For example, obvious bandwagon jumpers SPIN Magazine included all three artists in their best of 2011 albums list.
This brings us to our point... The article says that "rockism" lessens the impact of critique, because rockists are quick to use statements such as "rock is back!" or "this album rocks!" in order to describe why something contains merit, without including any actual critique.
This is probably the same reason why we simply can't stand people using "90's-sounding" shit as a critique regarding bands who simply want to record rock music in the style of Pixies or Nirvana or Dinosaur Jr or Yo La Tengo or etc etc etc...
The first time we noticed this was in 2007 with Silversun Pickups. We initially enjoyed them as just another one of those new kickass bands and didn't put much thought into any actual critique. But then a few months later when they started to gain more attention, a few kids are like "yeah these guys are pretty cool... sounds WAY 90's tho..." And our reaction was one of surprise, since the loud-guitar style of Queens of the Stone Age, Deftones, and A Perfect Circle (among dozens of others) throughout the early-2000's had never really disappeared. The label occurred with a few newer bands on and off since Silversun, most notably in 2009 with Japandroids, and then especially last year with Yuck.
Isn't this a similar rockist critique? And why has no one called out Pitchfork on this? (The only time we DIDN'T see P4k refer to Yuck as 90's was in their blurb on the single "Get Away" in December.) Just because they "sound 90's," how does this matter? Why does that make it good or bad? It's such an easy cop-out form of labeling. It doesn't really make a difference in either direction, and plus it's not even accurate: Dinosaur, Yo La Tengo, Nirvana and Pixies ALL debuted in the 80's. Do yo homework, bro.
In our estimation, the "90's sound" (in terms of rock music) should only relate to "dated" production sounds or songwriting aspects that are no longer used, or that haven't been used since the 90's themselves...
In our opinion, THIS is only a small portion of what constitutes "the 90's sound"....
Early 90's: The Madchester sound, specifically the 1990 LP Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches by The Happy Mondays or the Stereo MC's album from 1992. (Based on our estimation, nothing that anyone is releasing in 2012 sounds anything like this. It's a very DATED 90's sound, and if anyone tried to release a Madchester-sounding thing in 2012, labelling it as "90's sounding" would absolutely make sense.)
Combining rock with techno beats: This started with the Madchester thing, but was also later used in singles like U2's "Mysterious Ways" or on Moby's Everything Is Wrong LP.
Rap/rock hybrids: Referring to the Judgement Night soundtrack, Faith No More's "Epic," Rage Against the Machine's first LP and Public Enemy's collaboration with Anthrax. In this respect, it makes just as much sense to label any Lil Wayne single that features guitar as "90's sounding." Lil Wayne has just as much to do with the aforementioned artists as Yuck has to do with Dinosaur Jr, although Lil Wayne still doesn't know how to play more than 4 chords and he's been holding that guitar for over 5 years. (Less than 1 chord per year at this point. Not a good sign.) Was Eminem's "Lose Yourself" secretly a homage to the 90's and no one ever bothered to pick up on it?
The horrible super-digitally-enhanced production heard on albums such as Alanis Morrisette's Jagged Little Pill. Huge albums rarely sound as bad as Jagged Little Pill these days, but if they did, the would sound 90's. Not to mention, JLP contains at least 4 rock songs ("All I Really Want," "You Oughtta Know," "Hand In My Pocket," "You Learn") that contain the EXACT SAME drum pattern performed over multiple guitar tracks that are so digitally processed that they nearly end up sounding like pure fuzz. If any new bands released something that remotely resembled this and Pitchfork was like "yo, it sounds 90s," we would have no complaints.
A common 90's rock production technique was to include copious digital-reverb, often heard from bands such as Belly, Afghan Whigs, and on REM's Automatic For the People. So with this in mind, anyone using the horrible "reverb" trend set in place back in 2007 (used as a crutch by bands such as Fleet Foxes) deserve to be labelled as "90's" just as much as a band like Yuck or Japandroids.
There are tons of awesome loud-guitar bands right now... And there have been tons of bands playing this kind of music since the punk days in the late 70's... It really makes no sense to lump all of them together as "90's sounding" just because of Nirvana's effect on the modern rock radio format. We're tired of seeing "90's" overused by critics who are clearly just as narrow-minded as rockists. Can we please work on this?
Whatever... Who cares, no ones gonna listen to us...
And so this article emerged on Pitchfork earlier today... Here's dat link:
http://pitchfork.com/features/why-we-fight/8775-embarrassment-rock/
It's one of the first public statements we've noticed that criticizes the anti-rockism era, and possibly noting the start of a new movement, into a new direction of criticism where any specific mindset may be considered equally blinding or narrow-minded... We don't really think there's any way to view criticism that's any more narrowing than anything else.
The short definition of "Rockism" mentioned in this article seems decent enough, but it requires at least 10 pages in order to start to fully understand what it's all about... The example listed in this article regards the common argument that "Britney Spears doesn't even write her own songs," which rockists view as a negative, even though back in the 60's there was this label called Motown which did the exact same thing and created some of the most gorgeous-sounding pop music that might ever exist.
Another common rockist critique not mentioned here regards the question of how people will regard a given artist in 2 years, or in 5 years, or in 20 years, or in 50 years... People often look back on The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc etc, with a rose-colored perception, as of music never got any better, and that there is no possible way that with 30 years hindsight from 2012 that current artists will ever be nearly as highly regarded as the multi-million sellers of the 60's and 70's. The popist-version of this is to say, "who cares how this music will be regarded in the future... the only thing that matters is how I feel about new music right now, at this exact moment." Which is why dummies exist who actually placed Beyonce, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga into their best albums of 2011... Decent albums that are nowhere as good as the stuff they released previously. But simply because they're decent and didn't contain any significant duds, pop-fans go apeshit for them. For example, obvious bandwagon jumpers SPIN Magazine included all three artists in their best of 2011 albums list.
This brings us to our point... The article says that "rockism" lessens the impact of critique, because rockists are quick to use statements such as "rock is back!" or "this album rocks!" in order to describe why something contains merit, without including any actual critique.
This is probably the same reason why we simply can't stand people using "90's-sounding" shit as a critique regarding bands who simply want to record rock music in the style of Pixies or Nirvana or Dinosaur Jr or Yo La Tengo or etc etc etc...
The first time we noticed this was in 2007 with Silversun Pickups. We initially enjoyed them as just another one of those new kickass bands and didn't put much thought into any actual critique. But then a few months later when they started to gain more attention, a few kids are like "yeah these guys are pretty cool... sounds WAY 90's tho..." And our reaction was one of surprise, since the loud-guitar style of Queens of the Stone Age, Deftones, and A Perfect Circle (among dozens of others) throughout the early-2000's had never really disappeared. The label occurred with a few newer bands on and off since Silversun, most notably in 2009 with Japandroids, and then especially last year with Yuck.
Isn't this a similar rockist critique? And why has no one called out Pitchfork on this? (The only time we DIDN'T see P4k refer to Yuck as 90's was in their blurb on the single "Get Away" in December.) Just because they "sound 90's," how does this matter? Why does that make it good or bad? It's such an easy cop-out form of labeling. It doesn't really make a difference in either direction, and plus it's not even accurate: Dinosaur, Yo La Tengo, Nirvana and Pixies ALL debuted in the 80's. Do yo homework, bro.
In our estimation, the "90's sound" (in terms of rock music) should only relate to "dated" production sounds or songwriting aspects that are no longer used, or that haven't been used since the 90's themselves...
In our opinion, THIS is only a small portion of what constitutes "the 90's sound"....
There are tons of awesome loud-guitar bands right now... And there have been tons of bands playing this kind of music since the punk days in the late 70's... It really makes no sense to lump all of them together as "90's sounding" just because of Nirvana's effect on the modern rock radio format. We're tired of seeing "90's" overused by critics who are clearly just as narrow-minded as rockists. Can we please work on this?
Whatever... Who cares, no ones gonna listen to us...
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Ultra-Vomit of 2011
Guess we should finally get around to posting this... It's been laying around for a while unfinished... Top 40 in 2011 was an abortion, blah blah blah.....
20 Heart2Heart “Facebook Official”
Heart2Heart’s winning combination of poor production value, crabcore haircuts, slightly-off-time/slightly-flat vocals and gigantic lolz made us hugely nostalgic for 2Gether, MTV’s “joke but also not a joke” boyband (with Chris Farley’s brother) which became one of our favorite shows of the early 2000’s. The huge obvious difference is that “Facebook Official” doesn’t seem intended as a joke. Like a mini-Rebecca Black of sorts, except Rebecca’s song/video exudes endless joy even after 50 views, whereas Heart2Heart is really only funny for the first minute or so... (Gym Class Heroes tried to do something similar back in the MySpace days with the huge bummer single "New Friend Request." Rule #1: Pop songs that refer to social technology will always suck dem dix.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt4AWNui9bg
19 Rich Hil “City Lights”
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOs7YWJ1Kud-UE3fo5yZipzUsOR-cUI4xekbFZl5Wyo6DtrhZX-4Rb9jt3583QNd86dMFsk8a-16723qKRPCEcboNhVrl7m1ti52VbosXAjan6I_0zukIzGgU7Hv397UNJhaTi9c97CoU/s1600/IMG05501-20110329-1600.jpeg")
Aww, isn’t that sweet? Tommy Hilfiger’s son wants to be a rap star. How endearing... You know when you pinch the end of a balloon and release the air really slowly and the balloon makes that stupid/annoying sound? That’s what Rich Hil's voice sounds like. It’s also what his face looks like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXnhx2PvECY
18 Matt Nathanson “Faster”
Fun Fact: Spotify purposely chooses horseshit like Matt Nathanson to play in their ads, because the commercials might seem enjoyable if they actually chose to promote good artists, and then no one would ever upgrade to premium. And yes, it worked on us, but at least our ears are free of the frat-boy sub-Dave Matthews posturing. This guy probably has probably paid to see Dane Cook’s stand-up at least twice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyjQFdeFox8
17 Insane Clown Posse featuring Jack White & JEFF The Brotherhood “Lech Mich Im Arcsh”
Fuckin toothbrushes... How do they work?
Completing the ICP meme-trifecta that launched with the incredible Gathering Of The Juggalos infomercial series (one of our favorite June rituals!) and 2010’s “Miracles” video. Fellow Detroit-dude Jack White’s sense of humor normally averages at a zero out of ten, so this project is somewhat perplexing to us, although he can totally get away with silly one-off projects since his cred-arsenal is fully loaded. And plus, he didn’t even have to play on it... Strangely enough, JEFF The Brotherhood might be the only other garage band with an even worse sense of humor than Jack White. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR0MUiRDrP4
16 Nicki Minaj featuring Rihanna “Fly”
We’re positive that she STILL hasn’t learned her lesson about flooding her albums with bullshit like “Fly” or “Right Thru Me.” More repetitive assey 1-5-6-4 shit. Hard to believe this song is actually shorter than 4 minutes. It feels closer to 9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n71KUiWn1I&ob=av2e
15 Jessie J “Who’s Laughing Now”
In the tradition of Lady Sovereign, Joss Stone and Lily Allen comes yet another completely nondescript UK popstar desperate to break into the US market. Seemingly out of nowhere, MTV-U started spinning 5 of her videos all at once not long after she landed a coveted TV appearance singing prior to EVERY commercial break during the VMA’s. And STILL nobody cared, probably because she doesn’t have much to offer the US; neither her mediocre music nor her nondescript presence fills any specific void within the world of pop. We don’t expect her to stick around much longer, despite that she’s apparently cracked the top 10 with a song called “Domino” which has yet to get stuck in our heads. While Jessie J’s breakthrough single “Price Tag” barely missed out on our worst songs of the year, we were unable to forgive the malignant drudgery of “Who’s Laughing Now.” Just FYI, shallow descriptions of revenge almost always resemble the opposite of fun, and this is no exception. (She's so nondescript, she didn't even have a good meme for us to post.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsxSxF3JKeU
14 Toby Keith “Red Solo Cup”
TK’s attitude just doesn’t sit well with us, as if he’s singing on behalf of all “true Americans,” and anyone who doesn’t hang onto his every word with a sincere smile-and-nod can GTFO. He claims that anyone drinking beer out of a glass must not have male reproductive organs, even though glasses are what every bar in the Western hemisphere uses to serve beer. “Not in MY country they don’t.” Fuck you Toby. The old-people-party in your video looks about as fun as waiting in line at Walmart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKZqGJONH68
13 Kate Miller-Heidke “Are You Ready”
New York Lottery advertising can be thanked for drilling this one into our collective cerebellum. Indie-pop’s equivalent of Chinese water-torture. And it just keeps getting louder and more obnoxious as the song progresses. God help us. (Fair warning: The video is fucking CREEPY.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scckwzeyzMo
12 will.i.am featuring Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger “THE”
“I woke up in the morning / Hard like morning wood in the morning.” “Imma go hard like a mothafuckin’ boner.” These are the actual lyrics, people. Shortly after Ke$ha scored a huge hit where she figured out that “swagger” rhymes with “Mick Jagger,” Mick’s already inflated confidence shot through the roof, enough that he became once again convinced that he contains any modern relevance whatsoever. Not long afterwards, his guest-vocals were awkwardly inserted into the afterthought coda of will.i.am’s latest track, literally titled “THE.” Somewhere, Jann Wenner from Rolling Stone magazine is furiously masturbating. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjIwmJMqrco
11 The Black Eyed Peas “Just Can’t Get Enough”
This reminds us of being forced to sit through little sister’s dance recitals, year after year, specifically the parts where 9-year-old girls were forced to sing solos. They usually sang Paula Abdul or Michael Bolton, or various awful showtunes, or something from a Disney movie. There was one chubby girl trying to “act cute” who sang “I love you, a bushel and a peck...” This is what Fergie’s vocal performance on “Just Can’t Get Enough” has brought to mind. Nothin’ but bad memories on this end... We know Stacy Ferg takes it to heart whenever people negatively judge her vocals. And we know she’s talented enough to do better than this. And yet, bullshit is all she ever delivers. Why on Earth would she choose to sing the hook like an untrained 4th-grader, and then expect people to take her seriously? Makes no fucking sense. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrTyD7rjBpw
10 Hot Chelle Rae “Tonight Tonight” / All Time Low “I Feel Like Dancing”
Both of these basically sound like watered-down clones of All-American Rejects' "Hope It Gives You Hell." Even if you've never seen either video before, trust us, you definitely have... "Tonight Tonight" opts for the overused "bound by the shackles of the workforce environment" premise, while "I Feel Like Dancing" uses the stale "record exec sits the band down in his office and gives them tips on how to become more marketable" thing previously seen in videos by Dr. Dre and Sum 41. Keep it fresh, guys...
HCR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzlNFcT2aOE
ATL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTJkE8Ki3Gg
09 Porcelain Black featuring Lil Wayne “This Is What Rock N Roll Looks Like”
Beavis & Butthead's return included some unexpected odd changes to story-structure, and a Jersey Shore clip in virtually every fucking episode (which was only funny the first 2 times). Predictably, the new season's only truly consistent moments took place while they were ripping a new asshole into a few modern music videos. And thank God this finally happened... While they didn't rip apart every aspect of the shit-music-spectrum as we were hoping, their choices of "suck" were fucking spot-on...
Earl Greyhound: Sounds like third-tier Lenny Kravitz to our ears, and worked just as well as any bluesy/jammy Black Keys/My Morning Jacket bullshit.
Avi Buffalo: Painfully boring, fluffy, suburban indie-rock with extra reverb on everything. "I think this is music for white people who have never had anything bad happen to them." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZlgVE5sORo
3Oh!3: Arguably the best moment of the entire season. "It's like, both of these guys look like asswipes, but in completely different ways." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNaH_Uf2B4w
So yeah anyway... Porcelain Black was another one these, and completely deserved every public insult. "Featuring Lil Wayne" has become the tag for some of the worst songs of the past 5 years, as he's lately enjoyed associating himself with the worst fusions of rock, pop and hiphop that have ever been on the radio... combining all these elements into a gigantic shimmering glossy elephant turd.
Beyond that, it's probably best to just let B&B do their thing...
http://www.youtube.com/embed/i9LCHgpzfxQ
08 Pink “Raise Your Glass”
Two singers in a row named after colors. Both are horrible. Max Martin is pretty much finished with his reign of pitch-perfect-pop craftsmanship, especially now that all of his most frequent collaborators (like Britney Spears and Pink) love to get their filthy hands into the creative process and so they can throw in amazing lyrics like “What’s the dilly yo?” “Oh shit, my glass is empty / That sucks,” “Party crasher / Panty snatcher / Call me up if you a gangsta / Don’t be fancy / Just get dancey / Why so serious?” And of course, it still hit #1, so what the fuck do we know?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjVNlG5cZyQ
07 Cher Lloyd “Swagger Jagger”
The phrase “structural nightmare” comes to mind, thanks to a disjointed verse/chorus pairing. Obnoxious sub-Fergie-esq sing-talking leads into the chorus, awkwardly borrowing 90% of its melody from “Oh My Darlin’ Clementine.” Its bloated production sounds as if instructions were followed from a how-to manual of 2011 pop music; any chance of fun emitting from Cher Lloyd has been completely removed thanks to over-compression and misuse of auto-tune.
The song title suggests Mick might be alluded to in some way, but at no point in “Swagger Jagger” is the phrase ever actually defined. Instead, she remains insistent on her noteworthy swagger, repeating “You can’t stop looking at me, staring at me...” practically begging the world to check her out in the song’s equally nightmarish green-screen video. As it turns out, she #1 can’t dance, #2 dresses like a fucking homeless person, and #3 wears the type of hairstyle that girls usually have while they’re being dragged to an asylum, screaming in a straightjacket. Call us crazy, but this whole “consciously dressing like you don’t know how to dress” hipster-irony trend is now akin to tragedies along the lines of the Iran hostage crisis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdbyG2MrBHk
06 Cee-Lo Green “Fuck You”
AIN’T THAT SOME SHIT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc0mxOXbWIU
05 Brian McFadden “Just The Way You Are (Drunk At The Bar)”
Taste My Kids presents: An incomplete history of sexual assault in rock and pop music...
1991: By this point, the issue was considered too taboo for mainstream radio airplay, although punk, hiphop and metal discussed the issue in great detail.
1992: Tori Amos starts getting popular.
1993: Nirvana's In Utero hits #1 in several countries, containing the infamously controversial "Rape Me," later issued as a single and still receives moderate radio spins to this day.
1994: Hole's Live Through This includes songs such as "Asking For It."
1995: KROQ in Los Angeles starts spinning Sublime's cautionary single "Date Rape."
1996: Fiona Apple releases Tidal. Also, the compilation album Home Alive includes tracks by artists such as Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, The Posies and Joan Jett, intended to fund a women's self-defense collective that was formed after the death of Gits vocalist Mia Zapata.
2011: Brian McFadden releases his latest single in which he tells a drunkenly wasted chick, “I can’t wait to get you home to take advantage.” A banjo is included during the breakdown “rap” section, where he goes into date-rape detail. Progress!
Brian used to be in some boyband called Westlife that no one outside of England remembers or cares about, and it’s quite possible that this song killed his singing career... Although, he was already a judge on some shitty singing-contest TV show by the time of this song’s release, so he will unjustly not be serving us tacos anytime soon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhft4WmMJeM
04 Gym Class Heroes featuring Adam Levine “Stereo Hearts”
We're starting to lose some steam... That's usually what happens right around #4... God, what to say about this one... The biggest memories we have of "Stereo Hearts" are within the first 2 or 3 seconds, because that's normally how long it takes for us to reach over to the radio and change the station after hearing Adam Levine's stabbing falsetto. Bad frat-rap follows soon after. Sounds like a hit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3E9Wjbq44E
03 Jason Derulo “Don’t Wanna Go Home” / The Black Eyed Peas “The Time”
“Stealing the hook from a 20+ year old song that drunk girls love to sing at bars and making that the chorus of your new single” isn’t exactly a new trend, but it somehow blew the fuck up in 2011. One of the only non-abysmal examples was in J Cole’s “Work Out,” that song with the hook borrowed from Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up,” which seemed to only exist so that 20-somethings can turn to their friends at the bar and drunkenly ask, “HEY, IS HE SINGING THAT PAULA ABDUL SONG?” with a super-serious look on their faces, which seems to be the only reaction this song ever receives.
Jason Derulo raped Robyn S’s “Show Me Love” with a dildo called “Day-O,” one of the most cop-out hack jobs of sampling in its history, almost as if Derulo and his producer buds sat down and actually tried to think of a huge enough WTF-moment to really make people question the current state of pop music. He’s another one of those dude’s who’s scored multiple major hits, but no one knows his name because he has no personality whatsoever, kinda like the R&B version of Seether or Hinder. More like Jason Deru-LOL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CGF_Z3yZAo
An even bigger WTF arrived with “The Time,” which happened after Will.I.Am googled “top 100 wedding reception requests” and decided he wanted to sample all 100 of them, starting with “I’ve Had The Time Of My Life” by Bill Medley. The B-section is virtually identical to “Boom Boom Pow.” Quite a formula. We hear their next album will be mostly sampling deep cuts from Jock Jams 2 & 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwQZQygg3Lk
02 Bad Meets Evil featuring Bruno Mars “Lighters”
“Lighters” is truly a landmark in the history of vomit, in which Bruno Mars’ vocal melody totally rips off “Superman” by Five For Fighting, a song from ten years prior that was far better left forgotten. Thanks for the reminder, asshole. Bruno also finally took off his hat in 2011, revealing an uber-lame 50’s-hairdo, making us wish we hadn’t made fun of his hat so much. It turns out that Eminem is part of this "Bad Meets Evil" thing, and at this point we'd love nothing more than to wipe that fucking scowl off his face. What the fuck is Eminem so fucking angry about? No one wants your negative energy around. Fuck off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWt4wmZ_EMI
01 Bruno Mars “The Lazy Song”
Wow, this year's list was NOT easy to get through... It never is. And here we have our #1... It's tough to say whether the video on its own causes us more personal trauma than the song... It may be best to consider "The Lazy Song" one of those where the song and video are forever associated with each other. Frat-boy bro-hipster-douchebag Skrillix-poster next to the "Dark Side of the Moon" poster next to the John Belushi poster next to the lava lamp next to 115 empty PBR cans... You'll be initiated into our elite club if you pay us thousands of dollars and dance in a stupid fucking video that we're going to post on Youtube. How bad do you wanna fit in? We'd be willing to bet dudes have gotten laid by claiming to be one of the dancers in this video, which is both disturbing and very sad.
We didn't get to embellish on this earlier, but "Fuck You" (also written by Bruno Mars) is easily the most overrated song released since January 1, 2010. For whatever reason, people responded to its supposed juxtaposition, clashing the innocence of vague 60's Motown elements (even though it doesn't sound like 60's Motown, but instead more like Maroon 5) with curse-words and bitterness. Both "Fuck You" and "The Lazy Song" possess a vague "silliness" that doesn't quite register as actual humor, with both cases seeming intended to appeal to baser instincts. "Hey, I feel like being lazy too. I like this guy. Haha, did you hear that? He whistled. Hah!" What is it about songs with whistling that makes us want to go on a stabbing spree? This one especially kills our soul (our "collective soul?"), far worse than the "Pumped Up Kicks" or "Moves Like Jagger" whistling sections... It's got this smug fucking "as a matter of fact" aura that generates so much anger...
Is that it? Are we really done? Thank you God...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLexgOxsZu0
20 Heart2Heart “Facebook Official”
Heart2Heart’s winning combination of poor production value, crabcore haircuts, slightly-off-time/slightly-flat vocals and gigantic lolz made us hugely nostalgic for 2Gether, MTV’s “joke but also not a joke” boyband (with Chris Farley’s brother) which became one of our favorite shows of the early 2000’s. The huge obvious difference is that “Facebook Official” doesn’t seem intended as a joke. Like a mini-Rebecca Black of sorts, except Rebecca’s song/video exudes endless joy even after 50 views, whereas Heart2Heart is really only funny for the first minute or so... (Gym Class Heroes tried to do something similar back in the MySpace days with the huge bummer single "New Friend Request." Rule #1: Pop songs that refer to social technology will always suck dem dix.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt4AWNui9bg19 Rich Hil “City Lights”
Aww, isn’t that sweet? Tommy Hilfiger’s son wants to be a rap star. How endearing... You know when you pinch the end of a balloon and release the air really slowly and the balloon makes that stupid/annoying sound? That’s what Rich Hil's voice sounds like. It’s also what his face looks like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXnhx2PvECY18 Matt Nathanson “Faster”
Fun Fact: Spotify purposely chooses horseshit like Matt Nathanson to play in their ads, because the commercials might seem enjoyable if they actually chose to promote good artists, and then no one would ever upgrade to premium. And yes, it worked on us, but at least our ears are free of the frat-boy sub-Dave Matthews posturing. This guy probably has probably paid to see Dane Cook’s stand-up at least twice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyjQFdeFox8
17 Insane Clown Posse featuring Jack White & JEFF The Brotherhood “Lech Mich Im Arcsh”
Fuckin toothbrushes... How do they work?
Completing the ICP meme-trifecta that launched with the incredible Gathering Of The Juggalos infomercial series (one of our favorite June rituals!) and 2010’s “Miracles” video. Fellow Detroit-dude Jack White’s sense of humor normally averages at a zero out of ten, so this project is somewhat perplexing to us, although he can totally get away with silly one-off projects since his cred-arsenal is fully loaded. And plus, he didn’t even have to play on it... Strangely enough, JEFF The Brotherhood might be the only other garage band with an even worse sense of humor than Jack White. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR0MUiRDrP416 Nicki Minaj featuring Rihanna “Fly”
We’re positive that she STILL hasn’t learned her lesson about flooding her albums with bullshit like “Fly” or “Right Thru Me.” More repetitive assey 1-5-6-4 shit. Hard to believe this song is actually shorter than 4 minutes. It feels closer to 9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n71KUiWn1I&ob=av2e15 Jessie J “Who’s Laughing Now”
In the tradition of Lady Sovereign, Joss Stone and Lily Allen comes yet another completely nondescript UK popstar desperate to break into the US market. Seemingly out of nowhere, MTV-U started spinning 5 of her videos all at once not long after she landed a coveted TV appearance singing prior to EVERY commercial break during the VMA’s. And STILL nobody cared, probably because she doesn’t have much to offer the US; neither her mediocre music nor her nondescript presence fills any specific void within the world of pop. We don’t expect her to stick around much longer, despite that she’s apparently cracked the top 10 with a song called “Domino” which has yet to get stuck in our heads. While Jessie J’s breakthrough single “Price Tag” barely missed out on our worst songs of the year, we were unable to forgive the malignant drudgery of “Who’s Laughing Now.” Just FYI, shallow descriptions of revenge almost always resemble the opposite of fun, and this is no exception. (She's so nondescript, she didn't even have a good meme for us to post.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsxSxF3JKeU
14 Toby Keith “Red Solo Cup”
TK’s attitude just doesn’t sit well with us, as if he’s singing on behalf of all “true Americans,” and anyone who doesn’t hang onto his every word with a sincere smile-and-nod can GTFO. He claims that anyone drinking beer out of a glass must not have male reproductive organs, even though glasses are what every bar in the Western hemisphere uses to serve beer. “Not in MY country they don’t.” Fuck you Toby. The old-people-party in your video looks about as fun as waiting in line at Walmart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKZqGJONH6813 Kate Miller-Heidke “Are You Ready”
New York Lottery advertising can be thanked for drilling this one into our collective cerebellum. Indie-pop’s equivalent of Chinese water-torture. And it just keeps getting louder and more obnoxious as the song progresses. God help us. (Fair warning: The video is fucking CREEPY.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scckwzeyzMo
12 will.i.am featuring Jennifer Lopez and Mick Jagger “THE”
“I woke up in the morning / Hard like morning wood in the morning.” “Imma go hard like a mothafuckin’ boner.” These are the actual lyrics, people. Shortly after Ke$ha scored a huge hit where she figured out that “swagger” rhymes with “Mick Jagger,” Mick’s already inflated confidence shot through the roof, enough that he became once again convinced that he contains any modern relevance whatsoever. Not long afterwards, his guest-vocals were awkwardly inserted into the afterthought coda of will.i.am’s latest track, literally titled “THE.” Somewhere, Jann Wenner from Rolling Stone magazine is furiously masturbating. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjIwmJMqrco11 The Black Eyed Peas “Just Can’t Get Enough”
This reminds us of being forced to sit through little sister’s dance recitals, year after year, specifically the parts where 9-year-old girls were forced to sing solos. They usually sang Paula Abdul or Michael Bolton, or various awful showtunes, or something from a Disney movie. There was one chubby girl trying to “act cute” who sang “I love you, a bushel and a peck...” This is what Fergie’s vocal performance on “Just Can’t Get Enough” has brought to mind. Nothin’ but bad memories on this end... We know Stacy Ferg takes it to heart whenever people negatively judge her vocals. And we know she’s talented enough to do better than this. And yet, bullshit is all she ever delivers. Why on Earth would she choose to sing the hook like an untrained 4th-grader, and then expect people to take her seriously? Makes no fucking sense. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrTyD7rjBpw10 Hot Chelle Rae “Tonight Tonight” / All Time Low “I Feel Like Dancing”
Both of these basically sound like watered-down clones of All-American Rejects' "Hope It Gives You Hell." Even if you've never seen either video before, trust us, you definitely have... "Tonight Tonight" opts for the overused "bound by the shackles of the workforce environment" premise, while "I Feel Like Dancing" uses the stale "record exec sits the band down in his office and gives them tips on how to become more marketable" thing previously seen in videos by Dr. Dre and Sum 41. Keep it fresh, guys...
HCR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzlNFcT2aOE
ATL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTJkE8Ki3Gg
09 Porcelain Black featuring Lil Wayne “This Is What Rock N Roll Looks Like”
Beavis & Butthead's return included some unexpected odd changes to story-structure, and a Jersey Shore clip in virtually every fucking episode (which was only funny the first 2 times). Predictably, the new season's only truly consistent moments took place while they were ripping a new asshole into a few modern music videos. And thank God this finally happened... While they didn't rip apart every aspect of the shit-music-spectrum as we were hoping, their choices of "suck" were fucking spot-on...So yeah anyway... Porcelain Black was another one these, and completely deserved every public insult. "Featuring Lil Wayne" has become the tag for some of the worst songs of the past 5 years, as he's lately enjoyed associating himself with the worst fusions of rock, pop and hiphop that have ever been on the radio... combining all these elements into a gigantic shimmering glossy elephant turd.
Beyond that, it's probably best to just let B&B do their thing...
http://www.youtube.com/embed/i9LCHgpzfxQ
08 Pink “Raise Your Glass”
Two singers in a row named after colors. Both are horrible. Max Martin is pretty much finished with his reign of pitch-perfect-pop craftsmanship, especially now that all of his most frequent collaborators (like Britney Spears and Pink) love to get their filthy hands into the creative process and so they can throw in amazing lyrics like “What’s the dilly yo?” “Oh shit, my glass is empty / That sucks,” “Party crasher / Panty snatcher / Call me up if you a gangsta / Don’t be fancy / Just get dancey / Why so serious?” And of course, it still hit #1, so what the fuck do we know?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjVNlG5cZyQ
07 Cher Lloyd “Swagger Jagger”
The phrase “structural nightmare” comes to mind, thanks to a disjointed verse/chorus pairing. Obnoxious sub-Fergie-esq sing-talking leads into the chorus, awkwardly borrowing 90% of its melody from “Oh My Darlin’ Clementine.” Its bloated production sounds as if instructions were followed from a how-to manual of 2011 pop music; any chance of fun emitting from Cher Lloyd has been completely removed thanks to over-compression and misuse of auto-tune. The song title suggests Mick might be alluded to in some way, but at no point in “Swagger Jagger” is the phrase ever actually defined. Instead, she remains insistent on her noteworthy swagger, repeating “You can’t stop looking at me, staring at me...” practically begging the world to check her out in the song’s equally nightmarish green-screen video. As it turns out, she #1 can’t dance, #2 dresses like a fucking homeless person, and #3 wears the type of hairstyle that girls usually have while they’re being dragged to an asylum, screaming in a straightjacket. Call us crazy, but this whole “consciously dressing like you don’t know how to dress” hipster-irony trend is now akin to tragedies along the lines of the Iran hostage crisis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdbyG2MrBHk
06 Cee-Lo Green “Fuck You”
AIN’T THAT SOME SHIT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc0mxOXbWIU
05 Brian McFadden “Just The Way You Are (Drunk At The Bar)”
Taste My Kids presents: An incomplete history of sexual assault in rock and pop music...Brian used to be in some boyband called Westlife that no one outside of England remembers or cares about, and it’s quite possible that this song killed his singing career... Although, he was already a judge on some shitty singing-contest TV show by the time of this song’s release, so he will unjustly not be serving us tacos anytime soon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhft4WmMJeM
04 Gym Class Heroes featuring Adam Levine “Stereo Hearts”
We're starting to lose some steam... That's usually what happens right around #4... God, what to say about this one... The biggest memories we have of "Stereo Hearts" are within the first 2 or 3 seconds, because that's normally how long it takes for us to reach over to the radio and change the station after hearing Adam Levine's stabbing falsetto. Bad frat-rap follows soon after. Sounds like a hit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3E9Wjbq44E
03 Jason Derulo “Don’t Wanna Go Home” / The Black Eyed Peas “The Time”
“Stealing the hook from a 20+ year old song that drunk girls love to sing at bars and making that the chorus of your new single” isn’t exactly a new trend, but it somehow blew the fuck up in 2011. One of the only non-abysmal examples was in J Cole’s “Work Out,” that song with the hook borrowed from Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up,” which seemed to only exist so that 20-somethings can turn to their friends at the bar and drunkenly ask, “HEY, IS HE SINGING THAT PAULA ABDUL SONG?” with a super-serious look on their faces, which seems to be the only reaction this song ever receives. Jason Derulo raped Robyn S’s “Show Me Love” with a dildo called “Day-O,” one of the most cop-out hack jobs of sampling in its history, almost as if Derulo and his producer buds sat down and actually tried to think of a huge enough WTF-moment to really make people question the current state of pop music. He’s another one of those dude’s who’s scored multiple major hits, but no one knows his name because he has no personality whatsoever, kinda like the R&B version of Seether or Hinder. More like Jason Deru-LOL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CGF_Z3yZAo
An even bigger WTF arrived with “The Time,” which happened after Will.I.Am googled “top 100 wedding reception requests” and decided he wanted to sample all 100 of them, starting with “I’ve Had The Time Of My Life” by Bill Medley. The B-section is virtually identical to “Boom Boom Pow.” Quite a formula. We hear their next album will be mostly sampling deep cuts from Jock Jams 2 & 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwQZQygg3Lk
02 Bad Meets Evil featuring Bruno Mars “Lighters”
“Lighters” is truly a landmark in the history of vomit, in which Bruno Mars’ vocal melody totally rips off “Superman” by Five For Fighting, a song from ten years prior that was far better left forgotten. Thanks for the reminder, asshole. Bruno also finally took off his hat in 2011, revealing an uber-lame 50’s-hairdo, making us wish we hadn’t made fun of his hat so much. It turns out that Eminem is part of this "Bad Meets Evil" thing, and at this point we'd love nothing more than to wipe that fucking scowl off his face. What the fuck is Eminem so fucking angry about? No one wants your negative energy around. Fuck off.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWt4wmZ_EMI
01 Bruno Mars “The Lazy Song”
Wow, this year's list was NOT easy to get through... It never is. And here we have our #1... It's tough to say whether the video on its own causes us more personal trauma than the song... It may be best to consider "The Lazy Song" one of those where the song and video are forever associated with each other. Frat-boy bro-hipster-douchebag Skrillix-poster next to the "Dark Side of the Moon" poster next to the John Belushi poster next to the lava lamp next to 115 empty PBR cans... You'll be initiated into our elite club if you pay us thousands of dollars and dance in a stupid fucking video that we're going to post on Youtube. How bad do you wanna fit in? We'd be willing to bet dudes have gotten laid by claiming to be one of the dancers in this video, which is both disturbing and very sad. We didn't get to embellish on this earlier, but "Fuck You" (also written by Bruno Mars) is easily the most overrated song released since January 1, 2010. For whatever reason, people responded to its supposed juxtaposition, clashing the innocence of vague 60's Motown elements (even though it doesn't sound like 60's Motown, but instead more like Maroon 5) with curse-words and bitterness. Both "Fuck You" and "The Lazy Song" possess a vague "silliness" that doesn't quite register as actual humor, with both cases seeming intended to appeal to baser instincts. "Hey, I feel like being lazy too. I like this guy. Haha, did you hear that? He whistled. Hah!" What is it about songs with whistling that makes us want to go on a stabbing spree? This one especially kills our soul (our "collective soul?"), far worse than the "Pumped Up Kicks" or "Moves Like Jagger" whistling sections... It's got this smug fucking "as a matter of fact" aura that generates so much anger...
Is that it? Are we really done? Thank you God...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLexgOxsZu0
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
"Stupid Hoe"
In honor of the only charting song to specifically mention the 2012 Super Bowl, we felt it was only necessary to post this... It's an intensely creepy video and probably the most polarizing song that's currently on the radio. People fucking HATE this song...
We think it's the best song of the year so far... We don't plan on watching 4 hours of football and commercials at any point today, but it's looking like she's supposed to sing this song at some point during the broadcast. For the sake of her fan-base, it would probably be in her best interest to choose the boring/safe "Super Bass" as her song selection instead of "Stupid Hoe." Either way, Nicki has finally won us over.....
P.S. We just checked Billboard stats out of curiosity, and it turns out that this song is barely charting... While it's currently appearing on 5 Billboard charts, it's below #50 on 4 out of those 5. WEAK. Average people don't like exciting music. It's official. Although, perhaps we're in a slightly better direction than we were in 12 years ago when Outkast's "B.O.B." failed to chart on the Hot 100 and only reached #69 on the urban chart...
We think it's the best song of the year so far... We don't plan on watching 4 hours of football and commercials at any point today, but it's looking like she's supposed to sing this song at some point during the broadcast. For the sake of her fan-base, it would probably be in her best interest to choose the boring/safe "Super Bass" as her song selection instead of "Stupid Hoe." Either way, Nicki has finally won us over.....
P.S. We just checked Billboard stats out of curiosity, and it turns out that this song is barely charting... While it's currently appearing on 5 Billboard charts, it's below #50 on 4 out of those 5. WEAK. Average people don't like exciting music. It's official. Although, perhaps we're in a slightly better direction than we were in 12 years ago when Outkast's "B.O.B." failed to chart on the Hot 100 and only reached #69 on the urban chart...
"OG Simpson"
In honor of Super Bowl Sunday, we'd like to post our alltime favorite song about football...
We remember enjoying Moistboyz back when we were in our "complete-ist Ween discography / must collect every Ween thing ever" phase, which was prolly around late-1998.... At the time, there were only two Moistboyz LP's...
However, throughout all of their releases, the only one of their songs that ever stood out to us as memorable is the non-album A-side "OG Simpson," mostly thanks to Dean Ween's sick guitar-riff and Dickey Moist's admittedly brilliant lyrics (which we're almost ashamed to label as such)... A few of us still have the words completely memorized... Looks like this is the only copy of this song on the entire internet as of this moment, complete with OJ rants, although the original rant is still the A+ version: "Mickey, I can't believe this BULLSHIT they doin' to OG, my man OG, they used to call him The Juice! He was runnin' down the sideline man.. He was a Moistboy one-hundred percent! He had the 411!" (Content warning: There's an embarrasing "n-word bomb" in this one. Kinda wish there wasn't. We get that it's supposed to be commentary, but still...)
Saturday, February 4, 2012
David Lynch commercials
Still searching for more excuses to use the "David Lynch" tag... http://www.openculture.com/2012/02/david_lynchs_surreal_commercials.html
Here's a good Playstation commercial he did a few years back...
Here's a good Playstation commercial he did a few years back...
Friday, February 3, 2012
question everything
We love Adbusters. http://www.adbusters.org
It contains probably the best photo-journalism out of any magazine we've ever seen, and their articles are always articulate and concise, and usually left-leaning. Despite their political stance, it's obviously put together by some really smart people who seem to be pushing the boundaries of what to expect from a print-magazine. Last summer, I was happy to find a book-bound journal compiling their collection going back from the past few years.
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/99/cleaning-toxic-areas-our-mental-environment.html A December 28th 2011 article points out progress made in lawmaking regarding the regulation of advertising, which we're all for, although a few of these points seem pretty fucking ridiculous....
McDonald’s Happy Meal toys are outlawed in San Francisco, killing the top-selling Happy Meal promotion in the city. City Council ruled the toys unfairly manipulate children into purchasing unhealthy and obesity-causing foods.
Sounds like a good idea, until you realize that children aren't the ones "purchasing" Happy Meals... Parents have the right to feed their child any delicious foods they see fit for their kids, regardless as to who's giving away free toys. If I saw commercials for McDonalds giving away free toys as a child and my mother never took me there, I wouldn't have known the difference. Good parenting is always a stronger influence than advertising.
SpongeBob SquarePants is proven to make your child dumb and agitated. An American study shows that “children who watched nine minutes of the show scored significantly worse on assessments designed to measure memory and self control than children who watched a slower paced cartoon or kids who spent nine minutes drawing.” The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has launched a campaign to stop Nickelodeon marketing the cartoon to children under six.
Seriously fucking absurd... Say what you want about Spongebob, but it's still one of the most creative kids shows on television. (Remember Teletubbies? A tediously slow-paced kids show with basically no educational value whatsoever, and even that was on fucking PBS. I'd argue that show did FAR more damage than Spongebob ever did.) Parents have the ability to sit down with their children with flashcards and play memory games, and watching 9-minutes of a silly cartoon isn't going to simply ERASE that experience. I don't know enough about child-psychology to know how much influence a TV show might have on "self control" but once again, I'd be willing to bet in 99% of cases, good parenting is always a stronger influence.
Alcohol advertisers have been targeted in the campaign to combat fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in South Africa. SA is proposing a total ban on liquor advertising across the country as five percent of the school-age population is now listed as having alcohol-induced birth disorders.
This has a million times more to do with education than advertising!!! We're not convinced.
It contains probably the best photo-journalism out of any magazine we've ever seen, and their articles are always articulate and concise, and usually left-leaning. Despite their political stance, it's obviously put together by some really smart people who seem to be pushing the boundaries of what to expect from a print-magazine. Last summer, I was happy to find a book-bound journal compiling their collection going back from the past few years.
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/99/cleaning-toxic-areas-our-mental-environment.html A December 28th 2011 article points out progress made in lawmaking regarding the regulation of advertising, which we're all for, although a few of these points seem pretty fucking ridiculous....
McDonald’s Happy Meal toys are outlawed in San Francisco, killing the top-selling Happy Meal promotion in the city. City Council ruled the toys unfairly manipulate children into purchasing unhealthy and obesity-causing foods.
Sounds like a good idea, until you realize that children aren't the ones "purchasing" Happy Meals... Parents have the right to feed their child any delicious foods they see fit for their kids, regardless as to who's giving away free toys. If I saw commercials for McDonalds giving away free toys as a child and my mother never took me there, I wouldn't have known the difference. Good parenting is always a stronger influence than advertising.
SpongeBob SquarePants is proven to make your child dumb and agitated. An American study shows that “children who watched nine minutes of the show scored significantly worse on assessments designed to measure memory and self control than children who watched a slower paced cartoon or kids who spent nine minutes drawing.” The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has launched a campaign to stop Nickelodeon marketing the cartoon to children under six.
Seriously fucking absurd... Say what you want about Spongebob, but it's still one of the most creative kids shows on television. (Remember Teletubbies? A tediously slow-paced kids show with basically no educational value whatsoever, and even that was on fucking PBS. I'd argue that show did FAR more damage than Spongebob ever did.) Parents have the ability to sit down with their children with flashcards and play memory games, and watching 9-minutes of a silly cartoon isn't going to simply ERASE that experience. I don't know enough about child-psychology to know how much influence a TV show might have on "self control" but once again, I'd be willing to bet in 99% of cases, good parenting is always a stronger influence.
Alcohol advertisers have been targeted in the campaign to combat fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in South Africa. SA is proposing a total ban on liquor advertising across the country as five percent of the school-age population is now listed as having alcohol-induced birth disorders.
This has a million times more to do with education than advertising!!! We're not convinced.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
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