One More Reason to Hate MySpace

Now they've gone and swallowed iMeem.

I'm not a big fan of LaLa (what? only one listen per song unless I pay? nonsense)

I guess it's off to grooveshark.

The Search For the Worst Song Ever

I'm a fan of using hyperbole and exaggeration to comedic effect. The drawback of this, of course, is that you've actually found the best/worst/biggest thing ever, there's no good way to top yourself.

Very few places is this more aggravating than in the world of music. For example, I would posit that the song "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas is the single worst song to become popular on the radio in recent memory, but one listen to "When In Doubt" by Stentorian - a song that will surely be featured in this space in the near future - and it's extremely clear that there's a difference between "insipidly annoying song on the radio" and "worst song ever".

That's what this search is all about. I'm not trying to find the "annoying song that your coworker's 13-year old daughter insists on playing 12 times a day and if you hear it one more time you're totally going to freak out". I'm trying to find the worst song ever. The worst lyrics tied to the worst melody sung by the worst singer as the worst band ever plays the whole thing - poorly.

A few things I'm looking for in this search...

 

Vocals
Pitch perfection is not a requirement for good vocals. I don't believe anyone really thinks Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse) has a fantastic voice, but he makes it work. Many, many, many others.........don't.

Production
Likewise, production doesn't always need to be crisp and clean to fit in with a song. A lot of times, it actually sounds better when there's a little bit of an edge (or, possibly, a lot of edge). With very few exceptions, when things sound like they're being played underwater, in a concert hall a mile and a half away, through ears that have been packed full of mud... something's gone wrong.

WTF?
This category covers things which cannot easily be explained using things like reason, logic, and common sense. It's impossible to figure out why a certain element of a song is there, because it's impossible to understand the motive behind doing such a thing. Most truly awful songs have at least a little of this in them, but for our purposes, we'll only use this for the particularly eggregious examples.

Lyrics
My humps. My humps my humps my humps. My humps my humps my humps. My lovely lady lumps. Check it out!

Shoddy Play
Fairly self-explanitory. The drummer who can't keep time, the bass player who seems like he's playing a different song, the guitarist who really doesn't know more than one or two chords.

The Earbleeder
An earbleeder is a special kind of awful. Whereas most bad songs are content to simply offend your sensibilities, an earbleeder is a song that almost literally hurts the ears. Shrill voices, screeching feedback, and incredibly bad mixing can all contribute to this condition.

The Cover Song
Cover songs can, in their proper context, be good and can offer new perspectives on old songs. Unfortunately, while it might have seemed like a good idea for your past-its-prime new wave band to take on a politcally charged song by one of the most in your face rap groups ever; rest assured, it wasn't.

I'll be adding a new entrant every so often, along with a link so that the song in question can be heard in all of its awful glory.

Also, starting Monday of next week, I'll be chronicling my 50 favorite moments in music - ten a day. It should be good times.

Worth Noting.

Thirty degrees below zero is COLD. Even if that were "just" the wind chill, it would be brutal, but when it's the air temperature, it's murder. We hit thirty below yesterday for the first time in five years.

...and it's supposed to be colder tomorrow.

As Noel Gallagher said while bantering with the crowd at the Oasis show I saw recently, "you guys do know there's a place called 'California', right?"

Thieves with Halos

Want to play a guitar simulation video game?
Don't want to damn your eternal soul to hell in the process?

Has 'Digital Praise' got a game for.......ah, to hell with it.

What in the hell is this?? I'll admit (reluctantly) that I used to be a big fan of all thigns Christian rock. That was, of course, before I heard all the bands that my former favorites were ripping off and sanitizing. I still enjoy some of the stuff from back in the day, but that's beside the point.

Digital Praise, the fine people that brought you those knock-off Dance Dance Revolution games, now bring you "Guitar Praise". In their own words:

"Grab the guitar and play along with top Christian bands! Shred those riffs or blast the bass…you add a unique sound to the solid Christian rock. But watch out: if you can't keep up, the artists will take a break and stop the music. Crank it up and try again ? you?ll soon be rockin' with the best while praising the Lord! Order the second guitar and jam with a friend!"

There just aren't any words in the English dictionary that describe that. Luckily, I just so happen to have one of my own.

Cockflickery.

Seriously, people. Do your own thing. Add in a tambourine, have the user wear little bracelets that can tell when you're raising your hands in praise, just don't rip off an established franchise and throw together some shitty tracklist on it and call it 'good'. By the way, out of 40-plus years of rock music (for today's purposes, we'll count the Larry Norman era as the beginings of C-Rock) you can't find anything better to put on a track list of "rockin' spiritual songs" than Stellar Cart, Superchick, and TWO Hawk Nelson songs? I could look through my (admittedly embarassing) Christian music collection and find 50 songs more apt for a collection such as this than TWO Hawk Nelson songs. Amy Frickin' Grant is more 'rock' than Hawk Nelson.

Cockflickery abounds...

Next thing they need is "Organ Hymnal Simulator 5000" for those not down with the C-Rock scene.

Vehicle Issues

So, my car started making a clicking sound a week or two ago. Eh, whatever... I thought something was a little odd about that, so I got an appointment to have it looked at.

I get a call back yesterday, bearing the fantastic news that my clutch is blown and I'll need a new one.... $800. Fantastic.

I get a call back today, bearing the even better news that my transmission is also dead, and I'll need a new one.... $1600. Even more fantastic.

I think the next couple of months could be a lot of fun.