I can certainly get the Nickelback and Creed hate. What I don't understand is why many other bands just like them (say "Kings of Leon") escape the same level of hatred.
Kings of Leon are better than Nickelback. But I'm with the Doc here, I don't hear music (except for Dave Matthews, I don't know what it is with him but Lord I loathe him like I've never loathed any musician and yet the good radio stations play him I don't get it) these days that is as bad as Foreigner, REO Speedwagon, Foghat, Eddie Money, and the like. I do think there has been something of an evolution -- that the crap these days is significantly better than the crap of the Seventies and Eighties. I mean Lord Almighty, Muskrat Love made the charts in the 1970s. Twice. Once by America (blech) and then by the Captain and The Frigging Tennille. See that's a bad that today's youth cannot comprehend.
And I say this as someone who saw a KoL concert back at the Pukkelpop festival in - I think - 2004 and found it one of the more enjoyable shows I saw that day. But their sound back then couldn't have been more different to the stadium-friendly fodder they eventually made it big with.
IMHO, their music shares the same blandness and unorginality that are rightly mocked with Creed and Nickelback.
I saw them sometime in the mid-80s at the Cow Palace. They weren't bad, I think that it was more of unrealistic expectations...
Muskrat Love is a song about courtship on a level that speaks of a kind of innocence, that used to be OK, but now it isn't. i remember when the TV show Cheers wasn't rife with crude innuendo, the Shelley Long days, not the Kirstie Alley days. here are the lyrics of the number one song by Pitbull et Cie: Give Me Everything Me not working hard? Yea right picture that with a kodak And better yet, go to times square Take a picture of me with a kodak Took my life from negative to positive And I just want y'all know that And tonight, let's enjoy life Tonight I will love love you tonight Give me everything tonight For all we know we might not get tomorrow Let's do it tonight I will love love you tonight Give me everything tonight For all we know we might not get tomorrow Lets do it tonight Don’t care what they say All the games they play Nothing is enough Till they handle love (Lets do it tonight) I want you tonight, I want you today I want you tonight Grab somebody sexy tell ‘em hey Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Get busy tonight Cuz to more and more to do bad before and for Prius Desperate tonight I can make you my queen And make love to you eanless This is insane, the way the name growin’, money keep flowin’ Hustlers move aside, so I’m tiptoein, keep flowin’ I gotta locked up like Lindsay Lohan Put it on my life baby I can make you feel right baby I can’t promise tomorrow But I promise tonight Dale Excuse me But I might drink a little bit more than I should tonight And I might take you home with me if I could tonight And I think you should let me cause I look good tonight And we might not get tomorrow Tonight I will love love you tonight Give me everything tonight For all we know we might not get tomorrow Lets do it tonight I will love love you tonight Give me everything tonight For all we know we might not get tomorrow Lets do it tonight Lets do it tonight Don’t care what they say All the games they play Nothing is enough Till they handle love (Lets do it tonight) I want you tonight, I want you today I want you tonight Grab somebody sexy tell ‘em hey Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Grab somebody sexy tell ‘em hey Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Reach for the stars And if you don’t grab em, at least you’re on top of the world Think about it Cuz if you slip I’m gonna fall on top of you girl Put on ‘em ball when they sleep at the Macy’s And it ain’t no secret My granny’s from Cuba but I’m an American Tied over money like Seacrest Put it on my life baby I can make you feel right baby I can’t promise tomorrow But I promise tonight Dale Excuse me But I might drink a little bit more than I should tonight And I might take you home with me if I could tonight And I think you should let me cause I look good tonight And we might not get tomorrow Tonight I will love love you tonight Give me everything tonight For all we know we might not get tomorrow Let's do it tonight I will love love you tonight Give me everything tonight For all we know we might not get tomorrow Lets do it tonight Don’t care what they say All the games they play Nothing is enough Till they handle love (Lets do it tonight) I want you tonight, I want you today I want you tonight Grab somebody sexy tell ‘em hey Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight Give me everything tonight ------- a slight difference in tone? ya think? Foreigner wrote tuneful, hook-y pop-rock tunes that were part of the genre of their era. Foghat was one of the less technically accomplished of the boogie rock bands that emerged from the British blues-rock thrust that Cream, early Fleetwood Mac, Savoy Brown and others inaugurated. But they did record a couple of albums with a handful of very enjoyable songs. "Step Outside" has a couple of nice solos. Eddie Money? another handful of enjoyable songs. today's crap isn't better than the crap of the 80s. it's just different crap, lots of it riddled with crass sexuality, not even pretending to be about love. it's got no nuance. you can have REO Speedwagon.
There were some pretty terrible bands in the 80's hair band heyday. I remember watching two hours of headbanger's ball waiting for the one Iron Maiden or Metallica video they'd show only to suffer through songs like this: Sure, there were probably some decent bands in that era. But they were washed out by the Wingers & Warrants of the world.
Slaughter appears to be having fun. the message is predictably adolescent. Iron Maiden is ponderously self-important and appeals -- i guess -- to the dreary-minded guys who would prefer that life is hopeless. yippee!
Well, it's a matter of personal preference. I'm sure Slaughter made a lot of money and pulled a lot of tail. More power to them. But as a teenager from a broken home, I would have rather listened to a song about Alexander the great.
What seems to make a band like Nickelback so much worse than a band like Creed or a whole slew of craptacular bands of the past 2 or 3 decades is the fact that they've been all over the airwaves for more than 10 years releasing their brand of souless, post-grunge schlock. Yeah Creed stunk, but at least they only stayed popular for around for 6 or so years and the guitarist (Mark Tramonti) was unique enough not to sound like all the"I refuse to play a guitar solo"/haf-step tuned down guitarists of the time. Slaughter was horrid, but the 2-3 years that they were around to torture our ears really can't compare to having to hear "This is How You Remind Me" constantly, more than 10 years after its release.
there is room for Slaughter and Iron Maiden in the world of rock. i would never pimp Slaughter as a great band or try to get anyone to buy an album or attend a concert, but the music isn't inherently unattractive melodically. lyrically it's all froth -- no substance. i could never get into the pomp and circumstance metal bands like Iron Maiden. but i understand the appeal, i think.
Jack Black would be alright if he died and someone 1/1000th as annoying as him was singing his songs. What is Train and why are they on the radio? I know their singer looks like an elf but that's about all I know.
He gets a pass from me because my toddler son loves Kung Fu Panda. Aww, heck, who am I kidding....my son and I love Kung Fu Panda.
I cannot believe that people are saying bad things about Jack Black and Tenacious D. They literally sang the greatest song ever sung.
But if you think Jack Black is an annoying, overrated twat as a "comedian", there's no amount of "awesomeness" that will convince one otherwise. Joe Queenan on his suckitude: Black – the classic example of the raffish outsider who initially spits on the entertainment industry, then is seduced by it, and then comes to epitomise everything that is wrong with it – first came to the public's attention in the 2000 film High Fidelity, in which he played a hilariously idiosyncratic record store employee. Prior to that, he had appeared in a number of films, including The Jackal and The Cable Guy, in which he played the designated loser. Three years later, Black would achieve his greatest success in School of Rock, again playing a dyspeptic slob. As far as I can tell, these are the only films in his recent CV in which he does not flat-out suck. He sucked in Shallow Hal, he sucked in Orange County, he sucked in The Holiday, and he sucked in Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny. He also sucked in King Kong, Saving Silverman, Year One and yes, Kung Fu Panda. It is almost impossible to suck in a film in which only your voice is used, but Black sucked anyway. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/08/jack-black-actors-who-suck
It's interesting to see this piece mentioned only a few posts after Jack Black and his work in Hight Fidelity. What that book and movie showed was that this type of condescension is as meaningless, devoid of value and hollow as the bands or artists it is aimed at. "Oh, you took a sarcastic dig at a crappy band. How original, here, have a cookie!"
It can be useless blathering at times, but someone confirming your long-held suspicions is also affirming in a weird way. Like this slapdown of the execrable Billy Joel: And I think I've done it! I think I've identified the qualities in B.J.'s work that distinguish his badness from other kinds of badness: It exhibits unearned contempt. Both a self-righteous contempt for others and the self-approbation and self-congratulation that is contempt's backside, so to speak. Most frequently a contempt for the supposed phoniness or inauthenticity of other people as opposed to the rock-solid authenticity of our B.J. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2009/01/the_worst_pop_singer_ever.html
Agreed, on the general principle and on the individual. Not once but twice yesterday did Blow Job intrude onto the car radio -- a quick turn of the knob and he was relegated to the oblivion to which he belongs.