Architecture in Helsinki - In case we die

If Arcade fire tried to be a prog-rock band, they'd be these guys, and they'd still suck.

HATE IT! part 10 - Mick fucking Hucknall

THIS fucking asshole. He's given us a quarter-century of pure garbage, and in the process has gone from licking up Sade's sloppy seconds from the studio floor to resorting to using samples of Hall and Oates. That voice of his is front-loaded as hell and used for evil. Always one to attempt blending the latest in technology and musical stylings with "Northern soul", (a combination doomed to sound horrible) he has failed to create anything good and has left little but annoyance in his wake. His defenders would call him a voice for the ages, but I think "wrinkled ginger cunt", to use british parlance, is more appropriate. Eat shit, Mick Hucknall. The face he's making in this photo is the exact face he'll make when my dream finally comes true and I kick him right in the nuts.

Kate Nash - Made of bricks

So I decided a while back to hear what was happening in the world of music. I had a subscription to SPIN I don't even remember how, but I had it and it talked about stuff and said that some of it was good and some of it was bad. With a skeptical heart and low expectations, I picked the glowingest review that month and decided to give the album in question a listen. And thus I came to hear Kate Nash's album "Made of bricks". It should be called "Made of bricks of shit".
SPIN raved about how this 20 year old songstress crafted songs on a piano and sang about 20 year old stuff but did a really good job of it. Well, the songs were really just crafted by her producer. The piano playing that happens sounded like she was reheating "heart and soul" and let's face it, we all got sick of hearing that one at school assemblies when we were like 8, so no props there. There really isn't that much piano, because she can't really play it very well, so the producer threw together some "hip" and "retro" styled synth parts to carry much of the album. Oh, hooray. Lyrically, yeah, it's a 20 year old singing about 20 year old shit. Not particularly well, not particularly poorly. The 20 year old ship has long since sailed for me, so I couldn't care less about anything she has to say. Even "Shit song", which one might rightly assume I'd be intrigued by (and I was, until I heard it live up to its title) was a vapid song about how 20 year old dudes are relationship idiots. Doye, Kate, but so are 20 year old women, so shut yer gob, already. Pretty much every song has 8 bars somewhere in it that sound good. And she has a pretty good voice, to be fair. But the only tune on the record I can listen to straight through is "Foundations". It's kinda good, but way too slick, and you know she didn't do anything more than sing over whatever her producer told her to sing over, so it's hard to cut her a break for it. It's funny to me that SPIN purveys this stuff as the hip, indie, alternative, smart thing, when it so plainly just isn't. Whatever. I guess that's why I never noticed when my subscription lapsed.

HATE IT! part 5 - Rage against the machine

OK, this one is going to be a little different, because the lion's share of my ire isn't directed against the entire band, but at Zack De la Rocha. An important caveat. Sure, the rest of them share in the culpability for being knee-jerk blowhards, but Zack is not only the biggest of the blowhards, but the least talented as well. Tom Morello will always have my esteem for playing guitar like nobody else. That's tough to do, and laudable when someone does it. But really, what's unique about the band as a whole? Well, Mr. Morello is, and that's it. His contributions are absolutely nullified by the utter banality of De la Rocha's ranting. I've never understood why people think the guy's such a lyrical genius; "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" isn't exactly the kind of pithy political espousal that one can admire, or even take seriously. Of course, there's the use of Ernie Guevara's disgusting visage to object to as well. If these guys were half as politically aware as they think they are, they'd realize that Guevara was nothing but a bloodthirsty failure as a politician as well as a revolutionary, and that the only of his many revolutions that succeeded was the one in Cuba. This was entirely thanks to Fidel's political acumen. They'd also realize that the same iconic image they use was taken by some poor bastard who's never seen a dime in royalties, despite his photo turning up on t-shirts and posters in every pot-smoke filled dorm room in America. Equality indeed. In a 1993 interview with Deadline magazine, De la Rocha said "If I weren't in a rock band, I'd probably be a sexual harassment attorney." Or working in a head shop, methinks. How many women's studies majors did you cajole into the sack with that line, you cad? Renegades of funk? Did you give Afrika Bambaataa any royalties or even any credit for that, since you ripped that title off from him? I'm guessing no. I know it's not necessarily your fault, but how many frat boys hopped up on Schmit ice have listened to your music and pummeled some hapless computer major into a bloody pulp? I know that it's mostly Dave Matthews' and Jack Johnson's territory, but how many times has your music been the soundtrack to a date rape? You are stupid. Your music is stupid. Your fans are stupid. This is political awareness still in its training pants. They're full of shit, Zack, you'd better get them changed. Then you can fuck right off.

P.S. I'm guessing Josh Beckett loves you.

P.P.S. Your message is lost on the majority of your audience, who voted for Bush twice. Just sayin'.

HATE IT! part 4 - "Ten", by Pearl Jam

Oh, man. These fuckers. First, let me say how much the "grunge" label annoys me. It does. It was applied wholesale at the time to any band out of Seattle. This included the venerable Young Fresh Fellows, who, as anyone who has listened to them knows, are not a "grunge" band. They are buffoons who enjoy buffoonery and write songs like "The ballad of only you & the can prevent forest fires" among other fine examples of foolish fun. Naturally, the "grunge" label was extended to Pearl Jam despite their music not fitting within that particular ouvre. Next, I will lament the number of times I saw a bunch of asshats in a "mosh pit" aping the above record jacket by putting their hands up in the air together. Furthermore, I shall bemoan the fate suffered by my poor ears at the strains of this crap. Eddie Vedder sounds like a fucking horse trying unsuccessfully to shit out the family of chinamen who were smuggled into america via his colon. Besides his voice, I don't like the music. It's crap, just like the rest of their albums are crap. This band is crappy and craps crap all over the place except in the crapper, where crap is obviously supposed to go, lest we trod in it and smear crap all over the floor, making it all crappy.


FIE!

Beastie boys - Licensed to ill

I thought a return to form was in order, so once again I consulted the Rolling Stone 500 greatest albums list and picked an undeserving list-maker to bring to heel. I'm going to keep this one brief: It's puerile garbage hastily assembled and poorly produced. I'll leave the meat of this review to a photo: You can see it here.

Achtung baby

Since the primary concern here is to tear into albums I find nauseating, and since my inaugural post was nostalgic gushing for a mediocre disc, I've opted to tear into something deserving of ire. To do this, I googled "greatest albums" and picked a target from the resulting list. The resulting sacrificial turd is U2's 7th album, released in 1991. Oh, boy, does this album ever sound like it was released in 1991. So much so, in fact, that it sounds like a fucking Jesus Jones album. Look at the hits: "Mysterious ways" and "Even better than the real thing" are positively dripping from the firehose spunk gusher unleashed upon it by that conveniently culpable "Zeitgeist". I remember thinking it sounded like Jesus Jones at the time, and the years have done nothing to change my opinion. Let's leave the bukkake out of this and take a slightly more objective look, though, shall we? Squishy sounding synthesizers abound on this record, which is probably Brian Eno's fault, and really doesn't suit the band. Bono is writing bouncy pop songs, probably to get it out of his system, and The Edge, who usually saves the band from sounding twee, is out to lunch on this record. The shining beacon of this album, "One", isn't a bad song, but as Johnny Cash later proved, it's not a good song for U2 to be playing as U2 plays it. If you disagree, download "Right here right now" and I DEFY you to tell me this album doesn't sound the same.