Music I Hate, Music I Love

I love punk rock - that's been well established. So what kind of music rubs me raw? What kind of music gives me waves of nausea? What kind of music inspires a murderous rage deep within me? Shitty pop-punk. I even feel dirty having to put "punk" on the description of that shitty, shitty music. Who are these musical offenders? A list:

1. New Found Glory [the worst band in the world]
2. Good Charlotte
3. A Simple Plan
4. Bowling For Soup
5. American Hi-Fi
6. Stroke 9 / SR-71 / other pop-punk of 1999
7. Bowling For Soup
8. Yellowcard
And countless, other shitty bands who I can't recall the name of other than as "that shitty pop-punk band with that one really fucking annoying song."

But don't get me wrong, pop-punk itself isn't a bad thing. Good, fast punk songs with pop-sensibilities are a great thing, but it's just hard to pull it off without sounding whiny or stupid [see above list - especially NFG, whose lead singer's voice makes me want to murder someone] - but some bands pull it off well. Examples:

1. Green Day
2. Sum 41
3. Rancid
4. Blink 182 [I'm not a fan, but they don't deserve to be in the earlier list]
5. The Offspring
6. The Living End
7. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
And a few others, but those just popped into my head at the moment.

Since looting the Zack/Nathan/Glover/Will compound of their digital cable box, I've been able to get 50 or so more channels on my TVs - including a long-awaited return of MTV2. M2 was part of basic cable in Atlanta, so I watched it and TechTV a shit-ton while at GT. It's good to finally have them back, but with TechTV merged with G4, I doubt I'll watch it much. But in one 15 minute span on M2, I saw the following videos: "Float On" by Modest Mouse, "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand, "All Caps" by Madvillain, "Mass Destruction" by Faithless, and "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West. That's five incredible songs, all in a row. From August 2002 through May 2003, I would go to MTV2's online playlist and download all the tracks, and it was a good source for new music. Sure, they play some shit [the new Ludacris is awful, anything by Juvenile, and a fair share of shitty pop-punk], but there's some gems in there too. Download those five songs and judge the quality yourself. Of course, this amazing streak of 5 videos was ended by the 6th video being a New Found Glory video.

New Found Glory...what an awful fucking band. The fact that they're going to share the same stage as Pennywise, NOFX, and Bad Religion on this year's Warped Tour is fucking bullshit. Can you possibly listen to one of their songs without wanting to obliterate their lead singer? How fucking whiny can you get? That guy's voice is fucking atrocious, and their lyrics are fucking cotton candy - no substance. As somebody who's listened to (some) Bright Eyes, I can honestly say that I would rather hear Conner Oberst cry into a microphone for an hour than listen to one minute of a NFG song. [And yes, Conner crying into a microphone is a good way to describe any Bright Eyes album ever released. Fucking emo.]

Recently downloaded albums [within the past week, a fucking long list of stuff to catch up on]:

Beastie Boys - To The 5 Boroughs (2004)
Dead Prez - Let's Get Free (2000)
The Von Bondies - Pawn Shoppe Heart (2004)
Desaparecidos - Read Music/Speak Spanish (2002)
The Elected - Me First (2004)
Rilo Kiley - The Initial Friend EP (2001)
Rilo Kiley - Take-Offs & Landings (2001)
Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things (2002)
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People (2003)
The Decemberists - Her Majesty The Decemberists (2003)
Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State (2003) [what an album...]
Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway (2003)
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
The Wrens - Meadowlands (2003)
Madvillain - Madvillainy (2004)

So as far as new music goes, I think I've got a backlog. And jeez, Jenny from Rilo Kiley is freaking hot. Go watch the video for "The Frug" and you'll agree with me. God I love redheads.