Chapter 3

Music

            One of the most awesome things in the world is music. There are so many different types of music that you can literally go months without hearing the same genre let alone song twice. I grew up with a musical family. My parents always listened to music so I was pretty cultured. Along with that, whatever types of music my parents didn’t listen to, my brother did. This covered hard rock to punk rock basically. Because of this, I have a pretty eclectic taste for music. But with hat in mind, there is still a lot of music out there that is absolutely shitty. I would guesstimate that for ever good artist out there, probably five shitty ones exist. So there may be a lot to talk about in this chapter.

            Like I said, I grew up with a lot of music in my life. My brother was in band throughout his high school career so I was exposed to that whole lifestyle. I also ended up doing band mainly because my family wanted me to. I picked the saxophone as my weapon of choice and I went at it. I never really liked practicing, but who does really? They used to offer us incentives if we practiced but they were usually shitty penny candy or stickers. Stupid little shit like that was not going to get me to practice, trust me. But what it did make me do was cheat… a lot. I used to write down how many fake hours I would practice and forge my parent’s signature. Then I got my penny candy. That’s how I roll. I mean honestly, who the fuck wants to practice for penny candy and stickers? No one. Get a clue you morons. I mean honestly, since when have sticker been relevant for anything whatsoever? They are literally useless.

 I then joined marching band in my high school days, mainly because my mother wouldn’t allow me to play football. I always wanted to play for my home town Scotties. They may have been awful, but I would have lost right along with them. I kind of want tot hank my mom for saving me years of anguish because I most likely would have blown out my knees. But I learned a lot from it. Discipline, listening skills, and even proper ways of exercising were some of the many things I will take with me from that experience. I was also once called a steaming pile of piss by a band director once, so that was cool. That guy was a big dick let me tell you.

            Other than band, like I said I got a lot of my love for music from my family. I wouldn’t call my parents gurus of music, but they introduced me to a lot of stuff while I was young. My father is a huge Beach Boys fan let alone a huge oldies fan. It’s basically all my parents listened to in the car so I had a lot of exposure to that. I remember when we used to live in the trailer park they used to blast that stuff through the whole trailer. I don’t remember a lot of specifics about what music they used to play but I do remember one particular song. Smooth Operator by Sade was a song my parents used to play constantly when it was big. It used to make me mad even when I was a kid. As an effort to make fun of it, my brother and I would scream “foooood operator” because it kind of sounded like it. Boy, were we clever. Speaking of my brother he really didn’t listen to the same stuff my parents did. And at this time I was into the whole young kid faze where I listened to the Spice Girls and stupid shit like that. I literally had no musical taste, but who does really until they get a little older. But my brother listened to the classics. Classic rock and punk were his forte. Bands like the Doors, Led Zepplin, Tom Petty, and the Misfits were some of the bands he frequented. This is where I got it from. I thank my family for giving me my musical taste.

            But I thank Howard Stern for bringing it to light. It wasn’t until I head one of his radio shows way back in the late 1990’s when I realized that I wanted to be in radio, which in turn made me listen to the radio more. Listening to the radio more makes you hear more music. What an equation. Who would have thought that listening to the radio meant you heard more music…

Radio+ ears = hearing music

Wow, it's that simple? But even back then I listened to some shitty stuff. I think I listened to one of those current hits stations where the DJ’s thought they were the coolest people on the planet where in fact they were just annoying the shit our of everyone that listened. They were playing crap like Sisqo and Nelly. If you know who those people are you know how irrelevant those people are now. But then something magical happened. Somehow, in some distant universe, I heard what would come to be the best thing I have ever heard. A band called Weezer.

            Weezer was the band who popped my musical cherry. They were the ones who made me look for other music and they were the ones who made my musical pallet into what it is today. They made me realize what good music is and what absolute crap is. Sisqo and Nelly were crap where Weezer and Cake were not. It’s a simple equation…

Great music- Shitty music = Success!

            So by me saying that Weezersubgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 80s, such as grunge, British pop, gothic rock, and indie pop. It has a certain sound to it that I love. Weezer is on that list along with other bands like the Smashing Pumpkins, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, modest Mouse, and the Killers are just some of the bands that have had huge success in this genre of music since the 1990’s. There are really shitty bands though. Linkin Park is a fucking awful band. In fact have they made an album in about ten years? They made that song for the Transformers movie and everyone was like, oh yeah that was a band once. They legitimately only had one album. They had their first album, which I kind of liked, and it was called Hybrid Theory. Then they pulled a fast one on everyone and released a remix album called Meteora. Who the hell liked remix albums except for die hard fans? Oh, that’s right, no one. No one has die hard fans after one album. And to top it off it took them three pain staking years to release. Nothing says serious artists like releasing a shotty remix album after three years.

 I really think it all comes down to talent. I know talent when I hear it and I respect them if they have it. I don’t listen to pop music per say, but I know for a fact that one of the only people out here with talent right now is Katy Perry. Good lord can she wail. So when I hear other people out there with hits like Taylor Swift, it makes me angry. I also have a thing for women

singers so I kind of have a bias for them. If you are a rock band that has a lead singer of the female sex, you are golden in my book.

            My tastes grown vastly over the years. Back in the early 2000’s there were a slew of unbelievably annoying bands that came out that had huge popularity. These bands would sing songs about first dates and songs about an anthem, and at the time I was not a fan because of how overplayed and unbelievably frustrating these songs sounded. It really bothered me that stuff like this could actually be played on the radio and get significant playing time. It just goes to show that most people don’t know what good music is or how it sounds. This type of music has a name, and people call it emo. Emo music is typically awful and is described as melodic musicianship and expressive, often with lyrics that confess something. Even that description made me a little uncomfortable, imagine what listening to Blink 182 did to me. I got so pissed about this type of music at one point that I went on my Myspace account and wrote a little something about. This was my rant…

 

I would like just to point out that I don’t know this kid, and I don’t care to know him either. From what I have come to understand, this poor soul is "emo." For those of you who don’t know what emo is, I have compiled some information that may help you in your search for understanding this lifestyle. Emo, first and foremost, is a type of music. Shitty bands play this type of music, and I don’t like them. My Chemical Romance is one, for example, and from what I hear, they aren’t ok. This music is listened to by mostly douche bags, and they dress like douche bags as well. They wear a lot of black (most of them), they have lame ass hair, and the boys wear girl’s jeans. All of those factors piss me off, especially the last. Emo boys are typically extremely skinny white boys who can fit into these jeans and they think its sweet looking. Me, well I just think it’s very homosexual. The whole black thing is fine with me though. In fact, I think I own two black shirts myself. Then there is the hair. As you can see in the picture that I have provided at the beginning of this, that is what emo hair looks like. How to explain it though... well, all girl emo's are blond and all boy emo's have black hair (both usually dyed). Then all you have to do is grow it extremely long and take the hair in the front of your face and cover one eye. Only one eye though, this is essential for vision. But if I didn’t provide that picture, this is how I would explain it... Picture this, me setting my package on your head and having my dong hang over one eye. That is what it looks like, except for the fact that my package wouldn't be black. I just don’t understand this whole emo lifestyle. As I stated to my good friend and associate Sterling Clark, the whole I am sad and I don’t know why" thing doesn't make any sense. What the hell do they have to be sad about? Those clothes they are wearing are damn expensive, and if I had money to blow on lame ass clothes like those, I would be quite happy. Money makes people happy. Period. Another thing is the forth mentioned music. Jesus Christ is this shit horrible. Panic! at the Disco is one of these bands and I would like to rename the band to Panic! this music sucks. I have always complained about how annoying these bands are mainly because of their lead singers.

Blink 182 is the one that got me started on this rampage because the lead singer, Mark whatever the hell his name completely whines while he sings. Seriously, have you ever listened to it? He literally whines. I can sing better with my ass. These people, talking again about the emo people, need to live their lives and perk up a bit. There is nothing in life that bad that they have to dress in all black, fix their hair, light some candles, put on some Dashboard Confessional and slit their wrists. ITS NOT THAT BAD... If I would ever meet an emo person face to face and actually have an intelligent conversation with them, I would listen to their spiel about how life sucks, and then tell them how it ACTUALLY is. I would say “ life isn’t all peaches, puppies, and the smell of new carpet my friend, get over the breakup of you and your boyfriend of all of two fucking days, quite wining, get over it,  you whore.” I would then proceed to throw one of my many white t-shirts at them and walk away. Get a life, you bastards. The end...

Needless to say I was an angry teen. But I still somewhat feel that way especially about the way they dress. But I have matured with age when it comes to the music. My ears have changed and I now somewhat can understand what the music is about and why it was popular. So I sort of have a respect for it… but not really.

            Another type of music that has ALWAYS been on my shit list is country. There is only one thing I can say about this particular genre of music… It was made for one reason and one reason alone, to annoy the piss out of anyone who listens to it. It’s screeching fiddles and twangy singing is enough to make my want to throw a humidifier at passing car that’s playing it. I want to get to the bottom of whose ears can actually take that kind of punishment because I know mine can’t.

            I will give credit where credit is due though. I know that country music is arguably the most successful genre in the industry. For some reason hot women and men with fake southern accents flock toward it with their six packs of PBR and their large confederate flags waving from a gigantic Dodge Hemi’s. It’s a way of life for some people, I get that. They love to hear the idiotic droll of a country music star singing about the good ol’ US of A or drinking their sorrows away. All I have to say is no thank you. Id rather not do any of those things.

            There is one thing going for them though, gorgeous women. They may not be the most talented people in the world, in fact they could literally sound like a walrus, but if they all looked like Carrie Underwood I will watch them do their act. That’s probably how most people deal with the fact that they are actually listening to country music, they are basically looking at beauty queens. Let’s take, for example, a normal looking woman like Ellen Degeneris and have her release a country music album. I don’t know how I picked her, but I did. Then let’s take a woman like Scarlett Johansson, who is generally thought of as one of the hottest women alive, and have her release a country music album. Which one do you think would sell more copies? It’s a proven fact that sex sells, and I truly think that is the ONLY thing that drives the country music world, because frankly, country music is like taking a dry wall screw and dragging it on a chalk board to my ears. Better yet, like sticking a trombone up an elephant’s ass. Literally the worst thing ever.

            Pretty close to being the worst thing ever though is something that may be even more popular. This type of music makes absolutely NO sense to me. Country music actually makes a little sense to me because it follows the lifestyle of a subculture of people, hicks. But what the fuck does death metal follow? Maybe tattoo artists, maybe Satanists, or maybe even people who actually understand the linguistics of that stupid ass screaming/ belching noise they make when they “sing.” I mean seriously, who likes listening to something that is neither soothing to the ear nor the least bit good?

            I know I know, it’s all in the opinion of the listener, and this is only one mans opinion. But I guarantee there are a lot of people who think the same thing. I was on the campus radio station during my college days and I would probably say about half the people on the station played this crap. And no offense to them or anything but even though their favorite music is basically the anti Christ, they were pretty awesome people. Even the names of these bands suck. Take for example Cannibal Corpse… who the fuck came up with his stupid name? It’s like these record labels think of anything gory as a name of a band, slap the name of the band on a couple dicks who can play an instrument, find a guy who can growl really lowly and long, and then throw them out there. It’s not like they need musical talent. I lie, the drummer needs talent. But the other guys just kind of strum one note really fast for five minutes while the lead singer does some sort of mating ritual to the microphone. And is it me or is it a requirement for people in these bands to either have a beard or they have to be bald? Maybe I am making this up but I think of all of the bands that I have seen, every member is like that. What a crock of shit this music is. It’s literally a farce that people listen to it because, in my opinion, it takes no musical talent what so ever.

            Now they did try to do something about putting people in the industry with absolutely no talent. This ridiculous notion came about in when people noticed that Cher used it in her hit song “Believe.” Then people started just using it for absolutely no reason what so ever. Not for effect or anything, just because it sort of sounded cool. I could see using it sometimes. But rappers like T-Pain literally use it in every one of their songs. Why do they do this? It’s quite simple really, because they have no talent. They need some sort of tool to actually make them sing/talk in tune with the music. Its actually really sad to see this. That means literally anyone could get in the record business. Case in point, the hit viral video of 2011 “Friday” by some girl named Rebecca Black. Honestly the worst song lyrics I have ever heard. It’s like she read them on a kindergartners bathroom stall wall and she thought it sounded good. Well, this gibberish from a Kindergartner may have sounded coherent coming out of their mouth, but it sure doesn’t coming out of Miss Black’s mouth. It doesn’t even sound good in auto tune. Oh wait, nothing sounds good in auto tune because it sounds like a robot is singing.

            People even made songs bashing auto tune hoping it would abolish it from existence. Jay-Z made a song called D.O.A, or Death of auto tune. By the way, months later ironically this song was remixed using auto tune. I don’t know if people think this tool is serious or if people see it as a joke now because even the news is being auto tuned. The news is being auto tuned into hit records like the intruder song with that guy saying “hide your kids hide your wife.” I even bought that single on Itunes so it’s not like it wasn’t even that bad. It’s just the fact that this auto tune thing is making  stars out of people who otherwise shouldn’t be. Any schmuck of the street can jabber something into a microphone and then be auto tuned into a hit apparently. That isn’t cool. Not for something I hold near and dear to my heart. It should take absolute talent to make it in the music industry. Not some computer program.

            Since I went through my least favorite types of music, I think it is time for me to just list some of my least favorite bands of all time, either recent or older. No one is safe from my wrath…

Justin Bieber

Now you may be thinking to yourself, why is he putting this dude first? It’s the first one to pop into my head, that’s why. These are in no particular order. But the only thing I really hate about this faux man is his stupid fucking hair cut. What the hell is he trying to prove with that thing?  He literally looks like a mushroom. His mother probably cuts it. It’s basically the 2011 version of a bowl cut. But his music sucks too so don’t think I actually enjoy his music. In fact, it’s quite frustrating how annoying it is.

Muse

Now here is a classic example of a band that I kind of understand why they are popular, but then I think to myself… man they really shouldn’t be. I am actually pretty sure they won awards for their music which literally baffles me. Every one of their damn songs sound the same. And I know I exaggerate, but I am not exaggerating when I say that EVERY ONE OF THEIR SONGS SOUNDS THE SAME. Here is the musical scheme of each of their songs. There is an instrumental beginning with some sort of symphony. The symphony plays in the background while a guitar comes in. Then the lead singer comes in while singing at the same level the entire time in this unbelievably annoying tone. Then the song ends on some sort of musical interlude where it sounds like the lead singer is chanting something that has to do with what the chorus of the song was saying. The end. Awful.

Bruce Springsteen

I understand he is one of the most influential artists of all time and probably one of the most successful in the industry. I know he sells out thousands and thousands of seats in arenas. It just doesn’t matter. His music is neither good nor catchy. In fact you can’t even understand a damn word he says most of the time. I will tell you though, I do think it is very cool that Silvio from the Sopranos is in the band… in fact that’s bad ass, but that does not make up for the fact that his music sucks.  When he sings, it sort of sounds like his mouth is full of marbles. In the song “Glory Days” these are the lyrics… I had a friend was a big baseball player back in high school, mwuzh izps yuwjd hfhdka…. What the hell did he just say? See what I am saying? As Charles Barkley would say, turrible, just turrible.

Bob Dylan

Speaking of people you can’t understand…

The Doors

I have tried and tried and tried to get into this band because I kind of feel as though I should like them. But no matter what I do, I can’t enjoy their music. Jim Morrison was a great vocalist, but I think it has something to do with the annoying keyboard. Just think about it. Everyone has heard a Doors song. And just think about how annoying the keyboard is. This may be just one of those petty things that probably shouldn’t keep me from liking a band but it does.

Eminem

The worst rapper of all time. No doubt in my mind. His voice may be more aggravating than any other noise on this planet. It pierces my ears more than a tiger pistol shrimp would. If you didn’t know that’s the loudest animal on the planet... there is your stupid fact for the day… I remember when his first album came out. I heard this piece of trash on the radio and honestly thought it was a parody of something it sounded so bad. How did this fool get in the industry, I honestly want to know this. I would like to talk to that record executive who actually signed this annoying piece of trailer trash. Because I would probably make him realize that he should be doing a sitcom with Fran Drescher with that voice rather than making records. Also, what the fuck is he trying to pull off with that bleach blond hair? That just makes him look like more trailer trashy than he already looked and sounded. I guess people are into that sort of thing. Myself, I like listening to actual musicians who can speak without me thinking about killing myself.

Kid Rock

Seriously, where did this idiot come from? All of a sudden he comes out with this song with gibberish as lyrics and everyone blows a load over it. I for one thought it was awful because as usual I don’t usually like things other people like. That’s just my nature. He runs around with this midget too. Was that a gimmick or were they really friends? My vote would be that it was a gimmick, but I could be wrong. He, like Eminem, also looked like pure trailer trash. If I am not mistaken, I think those two came out around the same time, so maybe that was just the cool thing to do. Then don’t get me started on that song called “All Summer Long.” A terrible song where they ripped off the music of a band that he will never even come close to touching in greatness. I was actually offended when I heard it the first time. And I swear everyone and their damn mothers were singing that song that summer. I wanted to punch someone and still do when I hear that song.

Sublime

I really do not understand why this band is so popular. I know I said this about Muse, but every one of their songs sound the same. It’s actually kind of weird that I don’t like their music because I like reggae. I think in their music, the up beat really gets on my nerves. There may be some deep down thing where I know their race, and them using the up beat really just gets me angry. If I hear the “Santeria” song one more time, I might do something rash.

Nickelback

I am about 98% sure on this, but I think that there is not one Nickelback fan in the world. If they are a fan, that just makes them stupid. There is not one good thing about any of their songs. They are extremely simplistic, so much so that a monkey actually may have been the writer of their songs. One of the worst songs ever written, by far, is that “Rock Star” song. Sorry boys, putting Playboy bunnies in your video wasn’t going to save the fact that you were basically spewing garbage out of your mouths. Awful… purely awful…

Plain White T’s

Now I know why I hate this band. First and probably the most important thing is that their music is putrid. I don’t think I could find one person on this planet that is not a 12 year old girl, either of age or mentality, who actually likes them. With that in mind it is my ex fiancés favorite band.

With all that said, I love music. I just don’t like certain kinds of music. But I am always open to new suggestions and I am always open to exploring new artists and genres. But let’s face the facts, there is always going to be shitty bands out there and there will always be new shitty music coming out. But there will always be idiots out here who like it and will give their money to the music industry as well. That’s why people are stupid.

Tomorrow... Chapter 4: Driving