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Tetragrammaton (The Blog)
Introduction
EDITING NOTE: This version of the "Worst Rock Band Ever" page was
compiled from entries originally posted in real time on my blog, so the comments
about "come back tomorrow" or "yesterday I wrote" are
relics from that original presentation. You can read it all now in one fell
swoop. Also, I received a lot of complaints about the original green
background of this page, which worked fine on my main website for years, since all the
articles were short, but caused eye-strain when stared at for as long as it
took to read this lengthier page. So I've changed the color scheme, hopefully
to make it a little bit easier on the eyes. Sorry if I've already blinded
you.
Guitar World's article about the worst rock bands of 2003 (they picked
Limp Bizkit and Creed) got me to thinking . . . which band is the worst band
in the history of rock and roll? Being a stats and numbers and research geek,
I've developed a system for who qualifies and a process for then honing the
qualifiers down into a sheer hard ball of ultimate badness. It'll probably
take a week's worth of posts to type it all out here with explanations and
what have you, so watch this space to see the worst of the worst pulled from
under their rock and beaten to death with sticks.
The Worst Rock Band
Ever Competition (Part One):
So, as promised, this week Giant Nylon Hair Net
investigates, critiques and names the worst rock band ever.
Today, setting the field. It seems that to qualify as a really significant
atrocity, a band has to have had dramatic commercial success. Naming some
obscure nonentity as the worst rock band of all time is pointless. If a
band's badness hasn't been spread from coast to coast by the record industry,
and then lapped up by the record buying rabble, then they really don't have a
right to claim the all-time worst title, do they?
So how do we identity such bands and set the stage for the suck-fest? First,
I went to the RIAA website (they're the folks who award gold and platinum
records) and did a search for artists who have had at least one record sell
over five million copies. There's a bunch of them. A surprisingly large
number of them, in fact, well over 100. So, since this is a survey designed
to assess the worst rock band ever, we first eliminate solo artists (with the
exception of cases where a solo artist and a band are viewed as a single
entity: Shania Twain doesn't qualify for the list, but Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers do, for example). Then we eliminate vocal groups (N'Sync, Boys
II Men, etc.); if a group's members don't or didn't at some point provide the
primary instrumentation for their music, then they really don't deserve
scrutiny for all time worst band. It's kind of a gimme that groups backed by
anonymous session musicians are gonna score higher on the suck scale.
Finally, we eliminate groups who exist completely outside of the rock
spectrum: if a group has never released a record that featured rock music as
a basic part of their sound (Alabama, Mannheim Steamroller, etc.),
then they don't belong in this competition either, since there's not really a
fair apples-to-apples comparison to be made there.
After that process, there were 79 bands left on the list. I wanted to get to
an even 64 teams, so they can be pitted against each other, head to head for
suck content, which means that I needed to judge 15 of the qualifying bands
as "bubble teams" who really don't belong in a competition for
worst band ever, due to consistent critical success, influence on entire
genres of music, etc. So in the first subjective cut, 15 bands were
eliminated from consideration, judged (by me) as being the least likely to
"win" the worst bands title. (After the Fact Note: The "bubble
team" that gave me the most trouble was The Eagles . . . and with 20/20
hindsight, I probably should have let them into the field of 64, if for no
other reason than for spawning Glenn Frey's solo career). The 15 so
eliminated were:
AC/DC
The Beatles
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
The Doors
The Eagles
Earth, Wind and Fire
Fleetwood Mac
Led Zeppelin
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Bob Marley and the Wailers
Pink Floyd
Queen
The Rolling Stones
Sly and the Family Stone
U2
This leaves us with our field of 64. Now . . . to ensure that we have a
decent blend of styles and genres as we get closer to our final atrocity
selection, these 64 bands are broken into eight divisions, loosely by
stylistic approach. Of course, it's not possible to exactly fit them all into
clusters that make sense . . . but in the same way that Duke sometimes gets
sent to the West Regional in the NCAA basketball tournament, some bands have
to go into groupings that aren't quite right, just to get them spread out
evenly. Within each group, we will sort the bands in alphabetical order, then
look at them, head-to-head, to assess which group sucks more. That group will
then advance to the next round to be pitted against another advancing group.
Here are the groupings:
Classic Rock (Pool A):
Aerosmith vs. Bad Company, Boston vs. Foreigner, Genesis vs.
Heart, Journey vs. Van Halen.
Classic Rock (Pool B):
Bon Jovi vs. Dire Straits, Guns n' Roses vs. Steve Miller Band, Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers vs. R.E.O. Speedwagon, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street
Band vs. Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
Punk/New Wave/Hardcore/Neopunk:
Blink 182 vs. the Cars, Green Day vs. Korn, Limp Bizkit vs. Metallica, No
Doubt vs. the Offspring.
Metal: Def Leppard
vs. Motley Crue, Poison vs. Quiet Riot, Skid Row vs. Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden vs.
Whitesnake.
Blues/Jam: Black
Crowes vs. Blues Traveler, Counting Crows vs. Doobie Brothers, Dave Matthews
Band vs. Santana, Spin Doctors vs. Z.Z. Top.
Soul/Funk/Rap:
Beastie Boys vs. Bee Gees, INXS vs. Linkin Park, Prince and the Revolution
vs. the Police, Red Hot Chili Peppers vs. Sublime.
Pop: Chicago vs. the Cranberries, Hootie and
the Blowfish vs. Huey Lewis and the News, Matchbox 20 vs. Men at Work, Tears
for Fears vs. Third Eye Blind.
Modern Rock: Bush
vs. Creed, Live vs. Nickelback, Nirvana vs. Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins vs.
Staind.
When the suckiest band in each grouping have been identified, Classic Rock
(Pool A) will go up against Classic Rock (Pool B), Pop will go up against
Soul/Funk/Rap, Punk/New Wave/Hardcore/Neopunk will go up against Metal, and
Blues/Jam will go up against Modern Rock to give us a final four. We'll look
at the final four as a round robin, comparing each band to each of the
others, ultimately identifying one as the Worst Rock Band in History. Stay
tuned . . . or write if you'd like to offer comments, insights or votes.
Keep an eye on this page . . . each day this week, I'll move us forward
another round towards . . . . ULTIMATE SUCKINESS!
The Worst Rock Band
Ever Competition (Part Two):
Today we work through the first round of increasing suckishness. Remember:
the bands that advance are the worse
bands, not the better bands.
Aerosmith vs. Bad Company:
Right off the bat, we've got to note that Aerosmith aren't as good as
everyone thinks they are, and Bad Company aren't as bad as everyone thinks
they are. While Aerosmith has more good songs and records than Bad Company,
they've got many more bad
songs and records. Let's be controversial right up front, shall we? The suckier: Aerosmith.
Boston vs. Foreigner: Boston has always been the emodiment
of cold, calculating corporate rock. Foreigner turned into that, eventually,
but they were actually reasonably interesting through their first few
records, when King Crimson alumnus Ian McDonald gave 'em some zip and cred. The suckier: Boston.
Genesis vs. Heart:
Genesis issued some of the most amazing albums ever recorded early in their
career, before becoming the feeder band for Phil Collins' treacly career and
Mike and the Mechanics. Heart has pretty much been Heart all the way through
their career: flashy radio rock with the occasional power ballad tossed in to
leaven the mix. Still, Genesis' overall quality average ends up higher than
Heart's consistent mediocrity, although Genesis' worst albums are worse than
Heart's. The suckier: Heart.
Journey vs. Van Halen:
No contest. Van Halen redefined rock guitar, while Journey was originally
build around the castoffs of Santana, a pioneering band, sure, but not
because of the members who founded Journey. And that, of course, is before
Steve Perry joined, so it doesn't get better as you go forward. (To be fair,
Van Hagar and Van Horrible, the latter day incarnations of Van Halen, are
pretty dire themselves, but not so dire that they obviate the power of the
original band). The suckier:
Journey.
Bon Jovi vs. Dire Straits:
I think this one is closer than most people would think too. Bon Jovi is
corporate rock of the most lowest-common-denominator variety, but Dire
Straits are pretty tedious themselves, Mark Knopfler's guitar playing
notwithstanding. "Money for Nothing" may be one of the most
annoying songs of the '80s, but Bon Jovi has to advance here, if only because
one of their band members dated Cher. Shudder. The
suckier: Bon Jovi.
Guns n' Roses vs. Steve Miller Band:
As powerful as Gn'R were out of the blocks, they've reached new peaks of
suckiness since the whole band adandoned Axl to his own devices. The live
cuts I saw from the Chinese Democracy tour were truly some of the worst rock
I've ever seen. Plus . . . without Steve Miller, we wouldn't have the
Pompatus of Love. The suckier: Guns
n' Roses.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers vs.
R.E.O. Speedwagon: Again, no contest. Petty is a great
songwriter with a great band. Kevin Cronin and company are neither. The suckier: R.E.O. Speedwagon.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street
Band vs. Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band: Honestly, I
dislike both of these bands, a lot, but Seger takes the cake here for penning
"Turn the Page," the most odious of the "Oh, woe is me, I'm a
famous rock star" songs. The
suckier: Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
Blink 182 vs. the Cars:
Duh. The suckier: Blink 182.
Green Day vs. Korn:
Korn is pretty good, actually, once you get past their odious public persona.
They innovated (there wouldn't be as many 7-string guitars in your local
music shop if they hadn't taken 'em to the mainstream), Green Day copied. The suckier: Green Day.
Limp Bizkit vs. Metallica:
St. Anger is so awful that
it almost, almost, makes me want to take a slap at the Metallica, but, c'mon,
who are we kidding, there's bad records, and then there's bad careers. Limp
Bizkit has mastered the latter. The
suckier: Limp Bizkit.
No Doubt vs. the Offspring:
Ehhhh . . . . both of these groups are wan imitators of things done better
elsewhere, but at least No Doubt have tried to develop themselves musically,
while the Offspring have launched a string of songs destined to be played by
obnoxious frat boys for generations to come. The suckier: The Offspring.
Def Leppard vs. Motley Crue:
The New Wave of British Heavy Metal vs. Bad American Hair Band? No brainer. The suckier: Motley Crue.
Poison vs. Quiet Riot:
Sheesh . . . two Bad American Hair Bands. Dock Quiet Riot points for having
to steal from Slade to get their first hit. The suckier: Quiet Riot.
Skid Row vs. Stone Temple Pilots: God, this category is
nauseating me, but not as much as Sebastian Bach does. The suckier: Skid Row.
Soundgarden vs. Whitesnake:
I find Chris Cornell to be an astoundingly annoying singer, but I liked
Soundgarden's songs. Can't say either about David Coverversion and friends. The suckier: Whitesnake.
Black Crowes vs. Blues Traveler:
No contest, Black Crowes had the muscle and fire to mop the floor with Blues
Traveler. The suckier: Blues
Traveler.
Counting Crows vs. Doobie Brothers:
The Doobie's also didn't know when to quit, and their Michael McDonald era is
pretty weeniefied, but in their '70s heyday, they kicked serious ass, and
wrote great singalong songs. Counting Crowes have done neither, and their
desecration of Joni Mitchel's "Big Yellow Taxi" is one the suckiest
of all time sucky cover songs. The
suckier: Counting Crows.
Dave Matthews Band vs. Santana:
Two big improvisors, one with lasting influence, one with lasting annoyance. Plus,
Carlos Santana didn't need to call Tim Reynolds in to play his parts in the
studio. The suckier: The Dave
Matthews Band.
Spin Doctors vs. Z.Z. Top:
Dusty Hill would eat Chris Barron for breakfast, with a side of bacon. The suckier: Spin Doctors.
Beastie Boys vs. Bee Gees:
(Note: this entry edited a day later
after it was made clear to me that I had not stated my case clearly or
explained my logic thoroughly enough. Making a heretical pick like this one
requires that the picker at least explain his position). Heresy
alert! Heresy alert! I consider the Beastie Boys to be the most over-rated
band of the past 20 years: mostly obnoxious fake hip-hop from guys who
started off making mostly obnoxious fake punk. Give 'em credit for spotting
the better wave to ride when they did. Things got better as they got more
organic (their mid-period albums where they functioned as a reasonably
self-sufficient instrumental trio are their best), but the vocals have always
remained teeth-gratingly shrill and whiny, with not a powerful voice in the
bunch. It's like having a band with three Flavor Flavs . . . everybody loves
the Flava, sure, but you need some Chuck D in there to anchor the proceedings
and to make your sinuses stop vibrating in resonance with the group's high-pitched,
dental-drill-buzzing raps. The Bee Gees get damned eternally for Saturday Night Fever and all that it
spawned, but their early pop works are lasting pop masterpieces, and if I
needed to hire a songwriter, I'd call Barry Gibb before the Beastie of your
choice. There's some apples-against-oranges here, but when push comes right
down to shove, we've got to conclude that "Fight For Your Right to
Party" is more of a blight on classic radio than the Bee Gees disco hits
were. Sorry, Grand Royal posse. The
suckier: Beastie Boys.
INXS vs. Linkin Park: Smooth and cool funk-styled
pop against surprisingly melodic and well-written rap-rock. A closer contest
than it would seem on the surface, since Linkin Park are far better than most other
bands in their genre. Still, it's hard to argue with the number of great,
lasting songs that INXS managed to get onto radio over the years, and their
Australian pub rock background gives them some cred that most other bands
lack. The suckier: Linkin Park.
Prince and the Revolution vs. the
Police: A very, very, very tough call: two great bands, both
of which spawned really annoying and pretentious solo artists. I've got to
stick it to Prince here, though, if only because the Police were more of a
band, Sting's grandstanding notwithstanding, while the Revolution was more of
a collection of (very talented and worthy) backing players. So with some
chagrin, the suckier: Prince and
the Revolution.
Red Hot Chili Peppers vs. Sublime:
Pioneering rap-rock versus derivative rap-rock, from a couple of bands
savaged by heroin addiction. You gotta keep the originals and let the one-hit
wonders go. The suckier: Sublime.
Chicago vs. the Cranberries: Bleurgh. Can we skip this one?
No? Well . . . I find the hiccuping, over-wrought vocals on the Cranberries'
recordings to be unlistenable, while Chicago's smooth pop goes straight
through my head without making an impression at all. You've gotta keep the
invisible over the annoying, right? The
suckier: the Cranberries.
Hootie and the Blowfish vs. Huey
Lewis and the News: Double bleurgh! Two terrible, popular
acts, but at least Lewis and company had some interesting early session work
to their names, while Hootie emerged full blown in their awfulness, and
didn't have the sense to leave the scene after their unimaginably successful
first record. The suckier: Hootie
and the Blowfish.
Matchbox 20 vs. Men at Work:
You just gotta take the Aussies here, since they're outsiders by definition,
and Matchbox 20 have got "corporate" stamped all over them, and
they get docked for Rob Thomas' participation in Santana's cheesy comeback
album. The suckier: Matchbox 20.
Tears for Fears vs. Third Eye Blind:
Tears for Fears are overwrought, but they did cover a lot of stylistic
ground, and grew dramatically over their career. Third Eye Blind sounds like
lots and lots and lots of other college rock radio bands, and don't appear to
want to change that. The suckier:
Third Eye Blind.
Bush vs. Creed:
Fake Nirvana vs. Fake Pearl Jam. We don't like either of
the original bands, but Creed's preachiness comes with a whiff of hypocrisy
to it, and their over-emoting and anthem-writing gets real old, real fast. The suckier: Creed.
Live vs. Nickelback:
Nickelback are another one of those bands that sounds like all the other
college rock radio bands. Live think too much, and fall prey to the same
over-emoting and anthem-writing that Creed indulge in. Relax, guys, it's only
rock n' roll, but when you do it, we don't like it. The suckier: Live.
Nirvana vs. Pearl Jam: Phew!! The grand pappies of
grunge slugging it out in the first round. Again, another heresy alert: if
you've been reading this blog for a while, you've read my Anti-Nirvana
screed. I pity Kurt Cobain (and even more pity his child), but he and his
band were only as good as Dave Grohl and Butch Vig made them. Pearl Jam are
very, very annoying, but they get points for evolving and taking on new
challenges. But they're still annoying. The suckier: Nirvana.
Smashing Pumpkins vs. Staind:
Billy Corgan is a shrill whiner, but you gotta give him credit for being
ambitious. Staind have successfully mined the lowest common denominator
points of modern rock with verve and applomb, but that's not a good thing, is
it? The suckier: Staind.
And so, for tomorrow's second round, that leaves us with the following
matchups:
Classic Rock (Pool A):
Aerosmith vs. Boston, Heart vs. Journey
Classic Rock (Pool B):
Bon Jovi vs. Guns n' Roses, R.E.O. Speedwagon vs. Bob Seger and the Silver
Bullet Band.
Punk/New Wave/Hardcore/Neopunk:
Blink 182 vs. Green Day, Limp Bizkit vs. the Offspring.
Metal: Motley Crue
vs. Quiet Riot, Skid Row vs. Whitesnake.
Blues/Jam: Blues
Traveler vs. Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band vs. Spin Doctors.
Soul/Funk/Rap:
Beastie Boys vs. Linkin Park, Prince and the Revolution vs. Sublime.
Pop: The
Cranberries vs. Hootie and the Blowfish, Matchbox 20 vs. Third Eye Blind.
Modern Rock: Creed
vs. Live, Nirvana vs. Staind.
Tune in tomorrow as we move ever closer to determining . . . . the worst rock band in history!
The Worst Rock Band Ever Competition (Part Three):
Today we weed the prospects into a dense sweet sixteen of suck. Remember: to
qualify for this list, each band had to have at least one album sell five
million copies, and it's the worse, not the better bands that advance. So
without further ado:
Aerosmith vs. Boston:
Aerosmith has put out some really dismal albums and singles over the past 15
years, ever since they started relying heavily on outside songwriters for
hits and/or beginning to craft aggressively adolescent lyrics and/or
featuring too-much-too-young pre-starlets in their videos: I see "Love
in an Elevator" and "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)" and
"Janie's Got A Gun" as the watershed transitional singles for them,
when they passed from dangerous rockers to winking superstars. That having
been said, they issued some tough, hard, nasty albums in their heyday, and
they did work their up from clubs and pubs on their way to superstardom. Boston, on the other hand . . .
didn't. They were always the canned vision of Tom Scholz: while they played
clubs in their early days, it was Scholz's meticulous basement demos that
earned them their contract, not their live chops. Scholz's studio
geekery/freakery got worse with time, although the longer he took on Boston's records, the worse they got.
Rock and roll is ultimately about soul and passion and rebellion, and a band
as cold and calculating as Boston doesn't satisfy those primal
requirements. The suckier: Boston.
Heart vs. Journey:
Heart's Dreamboat Annie and
Little Queen were pretty
stunningly shocking when they hit pop/rock radio in the mid-'70s, since we'd
been programmed by that time to accept women singers, but not ass-kicking
female guitarists, or a pair of sisters serving as their own musical
directors and writing their own songs. Those two records presented material
by a surprisingly mature emergent band: the seeds of Heart go all the back to
1963, so the Wilson sisters had been doing their
thing for a long time before they broke big with it. Of course, when they had
to start churning out the obligatory album a year during the '70s, the
quality level dropped off dramatically. They had a commercial renaissance
with their self-titled '85 album, but by that time, they'd taken the Aerosmith
path of hiring outside songwriters to write more formulaic hits for them.
Most of which were, let's be honest, pretty lame. Journey's career path took
the opposite approach: the first three albums by this Santana spin off band
were critically and commercially tepid jazz-fusion flavored records, before
they took on singer Steve Perry and broke huge with 1978's Infinity and 1979's Evolution. The jazz rock stuff was
pretty weak, while the pop-rock stuff became annoying radio fodder for years
to come: "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" is particularly shudder
inducing to this day. I think, ultimately, this one comes down to the radio
test: I don't switch the station when "Barracuda" or "Straight
On" or "Magic Man" come on, but I'm quick with the dial when
"Anyway You Want It" or "Open Arms" or (shudder)
"Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" come on. The suckier: Journey.
Bon Jovi vs. Guns n' Roses:
Guns n' Roses were so good when they first started, and the Use Your Illusions albums too long by
half, but show an astounding degree of ambition for a genre of music that
wasn't known for it. The bottom fell out at that point, though, once Izzy
Stradlin left, beginning the steady sequence of departures that have left Axl
to putter about in his hair piece and girdle, playing unbelievably bad live
shows with a cobbled-together band of merceneries, when he feels up to it.
Bon Jovi, on the other hand, have been paeans to the consistency of
mediocrity: they are what they are, and that's all that they are, and you
know what you're getting, and that's all there is. We have to go with a band
that once had big vision and ambition over the middle of the road rockers. The suckier: Bon Jovi.
R.E.O. Speedwagon vs. Bob Seger and
the Silver Bullet Band: Both of these bands were classic
middle of the road radio rockers at their commercial apexes. Seger, however,
had some pretty significant back story: his late '60s releases Ramblin Gamblin Man and Mongrel were piledriving Detroit rock
records, the place where the MC5 met Mitch Ryder; Seger's "2+2 = ?"
is one of the more powerful anti-war songs of its era. He was still rocking
hard and mean with 1974's Seven,
but with 1975's Beautiful Loser
he walked into the mainstream and spent the next five years sitting pretty
near the top of the charts with a series of accessible, mostly harmless pop
rock records. Right around the time that Seger's key commercial period ended,
R.E.O. Speedwagon shot to the top of the charts with Hi Infidelity in 1980, capping a
ten-year, ten-album slog through various subgenres of arena-ready rock. They
got their arenas in the early '80s, but they were sharing them with Styx and Journey, so what does that
tell you about the spirit of that
age? The suckier: R.E.O. Speedwagon.
Blink 182 vs. Green Day:
Both derivative neo-punk bands, both with huge crossover success, but Green
Day got through the door first, letting Blink 182 pop through in the wake
they created. Green Day get points for tackling the occasional non-genre cut,
most notably "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," while Blink 182
get docked for one of the worst album covers and titles in rock history with Enema of the State. (Which outsucks
even Green Day's own puerile Dookie
disc). The suckier: Blink 182.
Limp Bizkit vs. the Offspring:
Rapcore vs. neo-punk, how appealing. Not. While the Offspring's frat friendly
fare gets obnoxious quickly, at least it's catchy enough to stick in your
noggin for a while, whether you want it to our not. Limp Bizkit, on the other
hand, can get painfully amelodic at times, and not in the good/experimental
sense of that word: they're trying to write melodies, they just can't do it,
or if they can, then Fred Durst can't sing them. We have to ask ourselves:
how did such an unappealing vocalist come to front such a successful group?
Well, we'll certainly be able to talk about them more tomorrow, since they
are . . . The suckier: Limp Bizkit.
Motley Crue vs. Quiet Riot:
It's frightening to remember that the first heavy metal record to top
Billboard's charts was Quiet Riot's Metal
Health. It's also frightening to consider that a metal band with
a guitarist as bad as Mick Mars could rise to the commercial apex of this
guitar-intensive genre. Quiet Riot were essentially one hit wonders (they
sold plenty of copies of Condition
Critical, the followup to Metal
Health, but it's a blueprint of its predecessor, making it one
hit spread over two discs, right down to the paired Slade covers, which are
the best songs on both albums), while Motley Crue managed to offend over a
long series of discs and tours and excesses and VH1 television shows. I
started this paragraph thinking I was going to give the nod to Quiet Riot as
the suckier band, but as I type, I think we've got to honor Motley Crue's
long-term commitment to making bad music in public places, since Quiet Riot
at least had the dignity to fall off the radar screen after their moment in
the sun. The suckier: Motley Crue.
Skid Row vs. Whitesnake:
As noted yesterday, I find Sebastian Bach to be a particularly annoying metal
singer/persona. Maybe it's the hair, I dunno. Of course, as annoying as he
is, he is the person you think of when you think of Skid Row, so when a
couple of the other members of the band got back together to put out a new
record under the Skid Row monniker without him, it dinged the band as an
entity down a couple on notches on the integrity scale. Whitesnake is
derivative, sure, but at least they came by their derivativeness honestly:
most of them were veterans of Deep Purple, so if they weren't blazing trails
with Whitesnake, it might be because they'd done so already and were ready to
just take the rock god dollars without having to redefine the rock god rules
again. The suckier: Skid Row.
Blues Traveler vs. Counting Crows:
I have a confession to make. When I first sketched out this strategy for
identifying the worst rock band of all time, these two bands were both in the
final four of suckiness, along with another lightly jam-flavored band (and,
yes, I know the Crows aren't really a jam band, but they craft music that's
textured and flavored in the same ways that most of the jam bands texture and
flavor their music, they just don't wank on it as long). It occured to me
that, as odious as the jam scene can be, picking three of the final four
bands from a single genre seemed a bit reductive. So I came up with the eight
categories to make sure that the final four represented a little bit more
variety when it came to badness. Of course, that means that now I have to
chose one these bands to advance and one to fall off the radar screen, even
though I think they're both pretty awful and both could stand to go another
round or two. Oh well, you can't change the rules once you've posted them
(well . . . you can, but I
won't). I'm going to give the Counting Crows the benefit of being less straightly
jam driven and more song oriented, and because their debut album is actually
reasonably dark and reflective, indicating that they were thinking about
something other than how the hell they were gonna get back to the root chord
after a 20 minute harmonica workout. The
suckier: Blues Traveler.
Dave Matthews Band vs. Spin Doctors:
Dave Matthews and company have been carrying the Dead/Allmans torch for much
of the past decade, drawing huge throngs to watch their onstage pyrotechnics
and improvisations, based on and build around reasonably accessible pop
songs. They deserve credit for creating their fare from a very unusual
instrumental configuration: how many other guitar-drum-bass-violin-sax bands
can you think of? (Here's two: Hawkwind and Roxy Music, at different points
in their careers). Spin Doctors, on the other hand, were one-hit jam band
wonders, dropped by their own label five years after releasing a six-times
platinum record. With so little to recommend them, they are clearly . . . The suckier: Spin Doctors.
Beastie Boys vs. Linkin Park:
I dislike the Beastie Boys, I really do, and I find Linkin Park one of the
more appealing post-rapcore crossover bands (and before you write to snark
about this, listen to their
records . . . I'm always amazed at how quickly people are to dismiss things
based on having caught a piece of a video or a part of a song on the radio).
However, this contest is unbalanced in terms of career length and prospects
that there's not really any good model that I could come up with to judge Linkin Park as a superior band to the
Beastie Boys, however much I dislike them. So, on the strength of their
career, their reasonably innovative early work with Rick Rubin, their
nurturing of other artists, and their one great song ("Sabotage"),
we let the purveyors of "Fight for Your Right to Party" off the
hook, and reluctanly reward . . . The
suckier: Linkin Park.
Prince and the Revolution vs.
Sublime: No contest, again both in terms of career arc,
influence, longevity, creativity, originality, etc. etc. etc. etc. The
grossest mismatch of the second round, clearly, although there's nothing
really wrong with Sublime. They just can't hang with Prince. Or Wendy and
Lisa, for that matter. The suckier:
Sublime.
The Cranberries vs. Hootie and the
Blowfish: I don't know which is the chicken and which is the
egg, but I suspect we have the Cranberries Dolores O'Riordan to thank for the
hiccuping vocal trick that Alanis Morrissete rode to superstardom a couple of
years after the Cranberries first popped up on American (and presumably
Canadian) radio. While it's interesting the first time you hear it, it makes
listening to records (or even songs) by artists who sing that way very, very
repetitive sounding, very, very quickly. But, to their credit, the
Cranberries were inspired by artists like the Smiths, and were trying to do
some interesting instrumental things early on in their careers, until
O'Riordan decided to focus the band's attention onto topical subjects,
writing about them badly, becoming a lightweight counter to the already
over-rated Sinead O'Connor in the process. Hootie in the Blowfish? Well, they
were sort of the steroid-fueled version of the Spin Doctors, a band that
astounded everyone, and I mean everyone,
by selling millions and millions of copies of a wan and tepid debut album,
then slowly, steadily, falling out of everyone's consciousness, leaving
millions and millions of people to wonder: what was I thinking? Ambition, however misguided, always
trumps easy listening, however lucrative. The suckier: Hootie and the Blowfish.
Matchbox 20 vs. Third Eye Blind:
Third Eye Blind are mostly harmless radio rock, really. As are Matchbox 20,
come to think of it. Both of these groups fit so seamlessly into the sounds of
pop format radio these days that it's kinda hard to think which songs are
theirs until you look at a listing of their albums: "Oh! That's them?
Oh!" Once again, this one comes down to the margins . . . Matchbox 20
get dinged because Rob Thomas has become a go-to guy for tepid comeback songs
by classic rockers, and when I saw them in concert (hey, I was reviewing the
show, I didn't want to be
there), their live presentation was so innocuous on one hand, but
manipulative and calculating on another. They pushed each of the stock live
show buttons systemically, sequentially, goading the audience right to where
they wanted them. If you hadn't seen a lot of rock shows, I could see how you
could have walked out of that room thinking you'd seen a classic. If you'd
seen a lot of rock shows, then you'd know that you'd been had. The suckier: Matchbox 20.
Creed vs. Live:
Before I assess this one, I have to strain real hard to make the tendons in
my neck stand out, and scrunch my eyes together, and lift my hands up in the
air to show how thoughtful and earnest and sincere I am as I spill my guts
onto the computer. Both of these bands are way, way, way, way, way too
pompous and histrionic and preachy for their own good, Creed from an
ostensibly Christian perspective, Live from a more Eastern/pantheistic
standpoint. Look at us! We're so sincere! We're so thoughtful! Buy our
records! Uhh . . . no. Instrumentally, Live are the more ambitious of the two
groups, with Creed's music being as heavy-handed and plodding as their philosophy
and preaching. I shiver as I untense my shoulders, let out a deep breath, and
declare . . . The suckier: Creed.
Nirvana vs. Staind:
Nirvana launched a revolution, even if it was a backward looking one, even if
it died on the vine, even if their legacy now hinges more on the pillaging of
poor Kurt Cobain's backstory and diaries than it does on the music. At least
they mattered, once upon a time. I first encountered Staind on a triple live
bill with Static-X and the Clay People. I adored the sets that those two
bands offered, but found Staind to be dull and tepid by comparison, clearly
the inferior act. Six months later they were sitting atop the charts, so what
do I know? Well, I do know this . . . The
suckier: Staind.
Alright, that's it for today! Tomorrow we pick the final eight, one finalist
from each of our eight categories. To sum up, tomorrow's competition will be
between:
Classic Rock (Pool A):
Boston vs. Journey
Classic Rock (Pool B):
Bon Jovi vs. R.E.O. Speedwagon
Punk/New Wave/Hardcore/Neopunk:
Blink 182 vs. Limp Bizkit
Metal: Motley Crue
vs. Skid Row
Blues/Jam: Blues
Traveler vs. Spin Doctors.
Soul/Funk/Rap:
Linkin Park vs. Sublime
Pop: Hootie and the
Blowfish vs. Matchbox 20
Modern Rock: Creed
vs. Staind
Watch this space, as the ball of badness gets smaller and denser, each and
every day.
The Worst Rock Band
Ever Competition (Part Four):
We're back . . . and today we pick the final eight, one from each category.
Before we get to the selections, though, a couple of thoughts on the process
and reactions to feedback received:
1. As a general rule, I'm not a fan of destructive criticism: it's always
better to write a good review of an unknown band just starting out than it is
to take potshots at bands who have already succeeded (commercially, that is).
Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship, and all that. This competition, of
course, is all about the negative . . . but that's the main reason that I
made the criteria for participation sales of at least five million copies of
one or more albums. Once you've achieved commercial success at that level,
the price of fame is that you're open for having your bubble popped, both in
the national press and on private journals like this one. You can't put your
art statements out in front of millions of people without accepting, and
expecting, a more stringent critical view than a band that's playing for
peanuts and beer money is going to get from the same critics. That's why
people often accuse critics of going soft on our own hometown bands. In
general, it's not that we're going soft on them, it's that we're not going as
hard on the big name bands that we could savage, if there was a point to
doing so.
2. Every one of these bands is commercially successful, which means that every
one of these bands has millions and millions of fans. I don't hate you if you
like these bands, I don't think you're stupid if you like these bands, I'm
not insulting you if you like these bands. I'm insulting the bands
themselves. There's a difference. You are a fan. You are not the band, and
not responsible for upholding their honor. They have press flacks to do that
for them. They can afford that luxury, having sold at least five million
albums. Based on responses I've heard already, I'm sure that when this all
gets indexed into the search engines that I'll be hearing from an increasing
number of people saying "Dude . . . [your band name here] rocks . . .
you suck!" And, well, hey . . . no argument there, really, but if you
don't like what I'm saying, then why are you reading my blog?
3. Yes, of course this is all subjective. All music criticism is subjective.
If there was an objective standard for judging music, then we wouldn't need
music critics, and we wouldn't need record labels, and we wouldn't need press
flacks: corporations would just put out a very small number of records that
met the objective standard for "good music" and everyone would buy
and listen to the same small number of things. It's subjectivity, both in
terms of artists' aspirations and talents and critical and commercial
response to them, that makes music exciting. You can't have a happy
trainwreck or an inspired mistake in a world ruled by objectivity.
4. Yes, of course this is just my opinion. (Well, not really, I have been
getting input from readers, and have been taking their points into
consideration). But, ultimately, it's me that's making the call. But, then,
ultimately this is my blog, innit? Why would I fill my blog with somebody
else's opinion? If you want to know what Kurt Loder or Dave Marsh or Greil
Marcus think about these bands, go read their blogs.
Alright, then, that taken care of, we can now move subjectively, negatively
and personally into selecting the final eight.
Boston vs. Journey:
Both bands are, ultimately, creatures of their sole permanent member
guitarists: Tom Scholz for Boston and Neal Schon for Journey. The difference
between them is that Journey has at least functioned as a fully formed band
for most of their history: you can hear that a drummer and a bassist and a
guitarist and a keyboardist actually got together to make music together.
It's hard to hear that with Boston, since so much of their recorded output
has been so heavily and tightly controlled, composed, produced and processed
by Scholz, which has made his bandmates expendable. Or so Scholz imagined,
since the problem with him using his mad, precise studio wizardry to polish
his band's sound to a reflective sheen is that the only really, truly unique
thing that listeners recognize as a distinctive sound to Boston's music is
singer Brad Delp's voice. Scholz forgot that on 1994's Walk On, spending seven years in the
studio and cavalierly replacing Delp with another singer. Fans and AOR radio
weren't buying it by that time, though. As much as Scholz is the brains
behind Boston, Delp is the voice, and it ain't Boston without him. Some folks
would make the same argument about Journey, that they're not Journey without
Steve Perry, but Perry wasn't an original member, and the first Journey album
without him (2001's Arrival)
is actually better than the last Journey album with him (1996's Trial By Fire). Ultimately, it comes
down to a competition between a band that has steadily mutated its membership
over the years (Journey) and a marketing construct that hires and fires
musicians and singers as necessary to serve the musical overlord. I'll always
pick a band over a marketing construct. The suckier: Boston.
Bon Jovi vs. R.E.O. Speedwagon:
The Heartland vs. the Jersey Shore. Both of these bands are real bands (unlike Boston), both of them
slogged their way up through clubs, although Bon Jovi had a bit of a head
start in that department, given that Jon Bon Jovi's cousin is Tony Bongiovi,
owner of the Power Station recording studio, and young Jon had the chance to
hobnob, rub shoulders and record demos with members of Springsteen's E Street
Band, which presumably R.E.O. Speedwagon's members didn't. It took R.E.O.
Speedwagon ten years and ten albums before they broke the five-times-platinum
barrier with the chart-topping Hi
Infidelity, but they did it themselves, and their breakthrough
album didn't have any particular pot sweeteners or additives crassly added to
take it over the hump. Bon Jovi, on the other hand, scored big with their
third album, Slippery When Wet:
for which they brought in mercenary schlockmeister Desmond Child to write the
hits, and behind which the emphasis in the marketing package shifted to
making sure that the very telegenic Jon Bon Jovi was given male pin-up heart
throb treatment. R.E.O. Speedwagon were never going to be poster boys: they
got what they got through the music, not by being cute, and not by hiring
hacks to do their songwriting for them. With that distinction in hand, we
salute the Heartland and decree . . . the
suckier: Bon Jovi.
Blink 182 vs. Limp Bizkit:
Okay, I'll admit it: I actually liked Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" the
first time I heard it. There. It's out. I've said it. Of course, I thought it
was Korn the first time I heard it, since what I liked about it was its bottom-heavy
bass and seven string guitar crunch, not the dreadful vocals on top of it.
It's understandable that Limp Bizkit would issue a song that sounded
(instrumentally) like Korn, since Jonathan Davis and company served as the
conduit through which Limp Bizkit got its crack at the big time: without
Korn, Fred Durst would still be a tattoo artist somewhere. (Hmmm . . . maybe
I need to rethink how much I like Korn). Durst went on to actually perform a
with Korn on Follow Your Leader,
dragging Jonathan Davis through what is probably supposed to be a spontaneous
free-style rapped dis fest, but which actually becomes one of Korn's most
empty and hollow and pointless sounding songs. Limp Bizkit's career opened
with a dreadful cover of George Michael's "Faith" (one where you're
not quite sure if you're laughing with the band, or at the band), and their
desecration of the Who's "Behind Blues Eyes" is currently on the
charts. In between those points, the band lost guitarist Wes Borland (who,
despite the idiocy of his onstage costumes, actually offered some of the few
interesting moments his band produced), the music stayed pretty much exactly
the same (except that the guitar parts got worse) and Fred Durst's lyrics
grew to be almost as whiny as his voice: nobody understands him, boo freakin'
hoo. Blink 182 rose out of the whole surf/skate/punk/Warped/Vans scene,
playing mostly harmless neopunk, although as I've noted before, I cringe
every time I see their Enema of the
State record in the racks, one of the worst record covers ever,
certainly the worst by a five-times-platinum band. However, I've got to give
them credit for realizing that it's time to grow up and put aside the
skateboards after ten years of surf rat fodder: their self-titled 2003 album
finds them stretching themselves in new directions, going so far as to
recruit the Cure's Robert Smith to sing on a track. Give 'em credit for
balls, if nothing else, and for looking in the mirror and realizing that it
was time to grow up. I suppose we can hope that someday Fred Durst has such a
moment. The suckier: Limp Bizkit.
Motley Crue vs. Skid Row:
Motley Crue were one of the first prominent hair metal bands of the '80s,
while Skid Row emerged at the tail end of the hair metal era. We can blame
Motley Crue for that unfortunate phenomenon accordingly, while with Skid Row
we just have to shake our heads and wonder how they could have been sucked
into such things. Skid Row, to their credit, tried some interesting modern
metal tricks in between the rock radio friendly fare, particularly on their
more speed-metal flavored mid'90s records. Motley Crue, on the other hand,
were always about pushing the same buttons that Kiss pushed on their rise to
stardom, only several years later, the make-up, the devil references, the girls,
the explosions, etc. etc. etc. If you can find a stitch or a spark of
originality in the Motley Crue canon, then you're a more detailed observer
than I could ever be. I will always see them as Kiss Ultra-Lite (now with 20%
more pasturized cheese food product!) The
suckier: Motley Crue.
Blues Traveler vs. Spin Doctors:
It's very, very interesting that these two slug it out against each other
here, since Spin Doctor Chris Barron went to high school with the founding
members of Blues Traveler, and is a close friend of Traveler frontman John
Popper; the two even jammed together in their formative years, and there are
apocryphal tales to be found online of Barron being an original member of the
Blues Traveler's earliest incarnations, before he was given the boot. Blues
Traveler made it out of the starting blocks first, and were instrumental in
the founding on Spin Doctors: Popper and company encountered Barron while on
tour, and brought him back to New York City with them, saving him from having
to continue playing in such bands as the Funbunnies and Dead Alcoholics With
Boners. (This is true, I'm not making this up, or if it's not true, then the
All Music Guide is making up facts again). He met his fellow Spin Doctors
there, which probably relieved Blues Traveler, since they probably didn't
really want to bring him back into their
band again. Both bands rode the Grateful Dead fueled jam train to their
unexpected (in Blues Traveler's case) and amazingly unexpected (in the Spin
Doctor's case) pop breakthroughs. It's how they handled the post-breakthrough
success that separates them: Spin Doctors oscillated wildly between pushing
the sorts of straight pop that got them onto the radio (and MTV) and pushing
the sorts of jam fare that their original following liked, and by trying to
please everyone, they pleased no one, including Epic Records, who dumped them
after 1994's dreadful Turn It Upside
Down. Blues Traveler, on the other hand, have aged with some
dignity, and their musical changes seem to be driven less by market
considerations that by internal forces (the death of bassist Bob Sheehan,
John Popper's struggles with weight and illness, attempts to incorporate new
instrumentation or to mix up their classics acoustic style, etc.).
Ultimately, it seems that Blues Traveler did the right thing when they left
high school chum Chris Barron to his own devices, since if they hadn't, we
wouldn't be able to declare . . . the
suckier: Spin Doctors.
Linkin Park vs. Sublime:
Now this is an unfortunate final for the soul/funk/rap division of our
competition, in that neither of these bands really suck. They just has the
misfortune of going up against heavier hitters in the early rounds, with
Linkin Park being defeated by INXS and the Beastie Boys, and Sublime falling
to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Prince and the Revolution. Who'da thunk that
this category would have been the highest quality one when push came down to
final shove? Not me! Anyway . . . Linkin Park is melodic rapcore (no mean
feat) with a cool jones for Aphex Twin styled rhythms and textures. Sublime
was melodic post-punk with a splash of reggae sunsplash thrown into the mix
for good measure. We're gonna give Linkin Park the benefit of the doubt here
in that they're an ongoing concern, and have thus far been smart enough not
to lose their creative sparkplug to a heroin overdose. We'll dock Sublime's
surviving members, too, for the things they've done with Long Beach Dub
Allstars, which veer perilously close to jam band wankiness, even when
they're done in the name of dub. A little bit less dope might tighten it up a
bit, perhaps? Punchline is, one of these bands has to advance, although
basically this amounts to a "free ride to the final four" for
whoever they meet in the next round. Therefore . . . the suckier: Sublime.
Hootie and the Blowfish vs.
Matchbox 20: Hootie and the Blowfish were the little bar band
that could . . . chugga chugga chugga chugga solo chugga chugga chugga chugga
chorus chugga chugga chugga chugga fade. It's almost hard to blame or credit
them for their success, since they were the beneficiaries of an unexpected
mass and widespread desire by American listeners to hear a bar band at home,
instead of in the bars where their unoffensive fare goes down smooth with
bourbon and smokes. Hootie and the Blowfish were onetime offenders: it's easy
to let 'em off with a slap on the wrist and probation, telling them that
they'll only have to do their prison time if they offend again. Which they're
never going to. Problem solved. Matchbox 20, though, are repeat offenders,
recidivists of the most pernicious variety. Their debut album Yourself or Someone Like You just . .
. would . . . not . . . . go . . . away!!! Ten million copies sold and
counting, singles on the charts and on the radio for years after it was
issued, never a chart-topper, just a constant, nagging reminder of how rock
music can be so well packaged and marketed. Singer Rob Thomas then became
ubiquitous with his performance on Santana's "Smooth," a truly
lowest common denominator version of the Latin rock that Carlos Santana
single-handedly invented 25 years earlier. And then . . . Mad Season . . . and then More Than You Think You Are . . . all
of them sounding exactly the same, all of them polished to a tee and perfect
in their construction, sleek and aerodynamically designed to permeate the
airwaves and stay there, forever, songs that could have been written,
recorded and issued anytime in the past 25 years by any number of bands,
they're so generic and fit so well with whatever else is on the radio or MTV.
But, they were actually made by only one band, and therefore . . . the suckier: Matchbox 20.
Creed vs. Staind: This
one's the opposite of the Linkin Park-Sublime contest, in that both of these bands
have many, many, many strikes against them, and I'd be happy to see both of
them move forward in the contest. But we need to pick the worse of the two to
preserve the sanctity of the event (how could I have been so dumb . . . why
didn't I put them in separate categories?? foolish! foolish!!!). In the same
way that we have to damn Korn for inflicting Limp Bizkit upon us, we have to
damn Limp Bizkit for inflicting Staind upon us: Fred Durst just loved the
band, and helped get them studio time and a record deal. Thanks, Fred, for
sharing. While Staind had faux rough chops early on, playing light a
lighterweight counterpart to Tool or Korn, they really found their niche
(such as it is) when they sawed the edges of their music and began issuing
singles that are sort of the power ballads of the nu metal era. They are very
sensitive, and earnest, and will tell you so in their songs. But they've got nothing on Creed in the earnest
department: as you can tell by the title of their debut album My Own Prison, these guys are just
all torn up inside, and they're gonna tell us all about it, you bet, in their
best post-grunge leather-lunged knock-upside-the-head fashion. And then on Human Clay, they're gonna tell us
about how we're all clay, see, and we can be molded, if you shout really
loudly over trundling riffs and mid-tempo slabs of mediocrity. And now
they're Weathered, they're
older and more experienced, and they're gonna shout, shout let it all out
(sorry, Tears for Fears), but it sounds the same as it's always sounded, and
stop yelling at me, dammit, I hear you, I just don't care!!! The suckier: Creed.
And, so that takes us down to our final eight, one from each category, which
means we merge the categories tomorrow to get a final four. Tomorrow's Elite
Eight matchups will be:
Classic Rock (Pools A and B):
Boston vs. Bon Jovi.
Punk/New
Wave/Hardcore/Neopunk/Metal: Limp Bizkit vs. Motley Crue.
Soul/Funk/Rap/Pop:
Matchbox 20 vs. Sublime.
Blues/Jam/Modern Rock:
Creed vs. Spin Doctors.
It's getting tense and intense . . . as we move ever closer towards
recognizing: The Worst Rock Band Ever!!
The Worst Rock Band Ever Competition (Part Five):
Today we pick the final four, combining our original eight categories into
four super categories, seeking the four most heinous offenders to move on to
the final round robin tournament of badness. By this time tomorrow (well,
maybe by a later time tomorrow, since it's Saturday and I'll probably sleep
in, sorry), we should have our winner. Or loser, I guess would be the better
way to honor them. So . . . without further ado, today's contests are:
Boston vs. Bon Jovi:
A New England vs. New Jersey slugfest between two bands who are as tightly
marketed, glossily produced and manipulatively packaged as any others to ever
come out of the classic radio rock genre. In Bon Jovi's favor, there is the
fact that they really are a band, not a shell concept for pushing the
monomaniacal impulses of a single producer/guitarist, a la Boston's Tom
Scholz. Look at Scholz's credits on the last Boston album, 2002's Corporate America: Bass, Guitar,
Drums, Guitar (Electric), Keyboards, Vocals, Art Direction. Hmmm . . . that's
pretty much everything, isn't it? (Note, too, that Boston has now resorted to
revolving lead singers: Scholz knows that people associate Brad Delp's voice
with Boston, but if Delp only sings occassionally, he can't erode or impede
Tom's total control). Bon Jovi have a lot of hired guns on their discs, but
there is a band buried under there, somewhere. The problem is, though, that
most of the songs that you recognize from the radio also feature the
songwriting and production talents of Desmond Child, one of the most serious
purveyors of pop rock pablum to ever take pen to hand or sit behind a mixing
board. Boston, at least, wrote their own hits. Or, uh, Tom Scholz wrote their
hits. But he is Boston, so that means the same thing. Boston wins on the
marketing front to some extent to: as antisceptic and soulless as it can,
it's all about the music with Boston. Do you even know what any of the band's
member(s) look like? Have their faces ever appeared on the front of an album
cover? Bon Jovi, on the other hand, has ridden pretty boy looks and style
that perfectly mesh with their (Desmond) Childish musical approach, playing as
cute young things to cute young things, or at least to the guys who want to
hang out with cute young things. To some extent, they built on the radio rock
that Boston pioneered in the '70s, and gave it a hairband era brush cut and
make-up job. Which also reminds us that when Boston hit the airwaves with the
best selling debut album ever (at the time, they've seen be supplanted by
Whitney Houston), they were actually something of a breath of fresh air in a
radio environment that was packed with things like disco and "You Light
Up My Life" and "Afternoon Delight" and all sorts of other
timeless horrors. They were innovative (if calculating) in their day. Bon
Jovi was derivative (and calculating) in theirs. And the radio dial test
stands: when I hear Boston's earliest cuts on the radio, I don't change the
station. I haven't listened to a Bon Jovi cut sitting in my car all the way
through since, oh, I dunno, maybe ever, although I've been subjected to them
at parties and clubs and social settings far more often than I would have
liked. Looking at all the pros and cons, we therefore decree . . . the suckier: Bon Jovi.
Limp Bizkit vs. Motley Crue:
Allmusic Guide's review of Limp
Bizkit's latest album, Results May Vary,
pretty much hits the crux of this band's problem right on the head:
"Part of its weakness stems from two perennial Limp Bizkit problems: for
a metal band they sound, well, limp, and in Fred Durst they have the worst
frontman in the history of rock." He really, truly is about as bad a
singer and public face as any band could ever ask for, or ever ask to avoid,
and there's something really, savagely wrong with us as a nation that we
don't recognize that this in an emperor wearing no clothes deal here. Durst's
influence on his own band has grown over its career, particularly since Wes
Borland departed, leaving Durst to provide the creative spark and impetus for
the truly odious Results May Vary.
Not that the earlier discs were all that much better mind you: you've gotta
shake your head over the fact that an album with the title Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water
(with content that lived down to its cover) could actually top the American
charts. The other problem with Limp Bizkit is that they are in our faces right now: this whole survey started
when I read an article citing Limp Bizkit and Creed as the worst bands of
2003, and both of them are still surviving now in the final eight. Does that
mean that things are worse now than they've ever been? I don't think so . . .
I think it's just that time heals, and recent affronts to good taste are
going to feel bigger than slights from 20 years ago. So to fairly assess the
odious Limp Bizkit against Motley Crue, we've really got to go back and give
the Crue's career a thorough scrub: they're off the radar screen now, but
they were really, really, really
pointlessly stupid and bad in their glory (?) days. In summary . . . their
terrible, horrible makeup and hair on the cover of breakthrough album Shout at the Devil launched a
thousand hair band photos . . . the devil imagery on that record was so
shallow and transparent, right down to covering the Beatles' "Helter
Skelter" (they probably thought Charles Manson wrote it) and inserted an
instrumental called "God Bless the Children of the Beast" . . .
their breakthrough single was a lousy cover of Brownsville Station's stupid
song "Smokin' in the Boy's Room" . . . ."Home Sweet Home"
was arguably the first metal power ballad to break through on MTV . . .
"Dr. Feelgood" and "Girls, Girls, Girls" are two of the
worst songs to continually recycle on rock radio to this day . . . Vince Neil
killed Nicholas Dingley of Hanoi Rocks in an auto accident . . . Tommy Lee
served time for beating up Pamela Anderson . . . Nikki Sixx served as
songwriter for hire to Meatloaf, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw . . . Vince Neil's
ex-wife accused him of spousal abuse . . . . married family man Sixx slept
with tour drummer Samantha Maloney and slammed her for it on his website
after the fact . . . . and what the hell is that thing sitting on top of Mick
Mars' head? Is that hair? He is a scary troll, he is. And not scary in the
good sense of the word. So as you wrap things up and look at the cons and
more cons on both sides of the argument, and discount the fact that Limp
Bizkit's horrible presence is in the now, while Motley Crue's heinous
offenses are historical (but many and multifaceted), I actually end up in a
different place than I would have expected as I began writing this paragraph.
Limp Bizkit aren't worth the ink to damn them, they're going to be
historically insignificant in the grander scheme of music: you've got to aim
bigger to win this contest than Limp Bizkit will ever be able. Motley Crue
(right down to the umlauts over their letters, which I refuse to type, and
which they stole from Motorhead) are badness for the ages, and badness that
inspired a lot of other badness, and as such, we must acknowledge them as . .
. . the suckier: Motley Crue.
Matchbox 20 vs. Sublime:
Well, this one doesn't take a lot of thought. As noted yesterday, Sublime
made it to the final eight not on the merits of their own scant suckiness,
but because they had the misfortune of going up against obviously superior,
non-sucky bands in the first two rounds. But their bad luck streak ends here,
because there is no question that Matchbox 20's ubiquitous, lowest common
denominator radio rock is of a more insidious, perfidious stripe that
Sublime's passing (and passed) moment in the reggae-punk limelight, even when
we adjust for present aggravation against past aggravation. Plus, there's no
doubt that Matchbox 20 are going to offend again, and in anticipation of
that, we decree them to be . . . the
suckier: Matchbox 20.
Creed vs. Spin Doctors:
This contest, on the other hand, is a tough one. We have to take the Limp
Bizkit Factor into consideration: does Creed seem more annoying to us because
they're a present annoyance, rather than a past annoyance? Because they are
really, really annoying,
there is no doubt about that at all, with their midtempo anthemic rockers and
Scott Stapp's "I'm oh so serious and emotive" baritone yell. If you
boil everything about mainstream post-grunge rock music down into a
heartless, tasteless broth, you could can it and package it and sell it as
"Campbell's Creed Soup." Sad thing is, you'd make millions doing
it. On the upside (such as it is), Stapp did duke it out in the public domain
with Fred Durst over the Limp one's "mobster mentality" business
tactics (Durst, in addition to being the worst front man in rock history is
also a senior Vice President for Interscope Records, which is as telling an
indictment against the state of the rock industry as any I can come up with).
But that outburst aside, Creed are just too damn serious for their own good,
and their records have gotten weaker and weaker as they go along, even as
their sales grow higher and higher. Stapp has compared his band to Led
Zeppelin, who were also routinely slagged by critics while selling millions
and millions of records, but the difference is that Zeppelin made something
people still want to hear 30 years later, while Creed is more likely to end
up on the soundtrack of "I Love the Nineties" 15 years from now,
while people watching the show sit on their couches saying "Oh, are
those the guys that did that 'arms wide open' song? What were they called
again?" But this competition isn't between Creed and Led Zepellin, it's
between Creed and Spin Doctors. And Spin Doctors are (or were) pretty dire
too, but in the opposite end of the spectrum: perennially, heinously goofy
and lightweight. The first cut on their debut live EP was called "Big
Fat Funky Booty." Cringe! But, then, later on that disc, we get "Yo
Mama's a Pajama." Double cringe!!! Their breakthrough single was
"Little Miss Can't Be Wrong." I have a hard time accepting anything
with the words "Little Miss" in them, and the album that rode that
song to super multiplatinum status, Pocket
Full of Kryptonite, (ha ha, ha ha, I get it) played like a
watered down version of the Grateful Dead's Arista era records, which were
pretty watery to start with. (Maybe we need to market "Campbell's Cream
of Spin Doctors" broth, too, for the older, toothless listeners). That
one-hit wonder was followed by three albums of decreasing quality and
decreasing sales (the opposite of Creed's "reduce quality/increase
sales" approach), before a throat problem forced Chris Barron to take a
vow of silence for a year, which he followed with a solo album. (I do have to
give him credit and props for that: that's a level of commitment that
requires some serious discipline, certainly more discipline that he and his
band evidenced in their recordings and performances). So I'm really torn on
this one: expired one-hit wonder vs. growing ongoing concern. Modern Rock (a
bad genre) vs. Jam Band (a very, very bad genre). Ultimately, though, I think
we have to pick the band that's perpetrating the greater damage to pop
culture as a whole: the Spin Doctors represented the temporary penetration of
jam band subculture into the record buying mainstream before the noodle
dancers went back to trading tapes and being mostly harmless in their own
little world; Creed, on the other hand, represent to total neutralization and
standardization of modern rock radio, standing as the perfect strip mall band
for play on strip mall radio stations, all of which are owned by the same
companies, who also own the bands. How convenient. The suckier: Creed.
So! To recap, our final four are:
Classic Rock: Bon
Jovi
Punk/New Wave/Metal/Hardcore/Neopunk:
Motley Crue
Pop/Funk/Soul/Rap:
Matchbox 20
Modern Rock/Blues/Jam:
Creed
Remember that the final four will be held round-robin style: each band
against the others, the one with the most "suckier" points at the
end of the process deemed and dubbed . . . the worst rock band ever!!
The Worst Rock Band
Ever Competition (Part Six):
Today's the day we pick a champion. Our final four are:
Classic Rock: Bon
Jovi
Punk/New
Wave/Metal/Hardcore/Neopunk: Motley Crue
Pop/Funk/Soul/Rap:
Matchbox 20
Modern Rock/Blues/Jam:
Creed
Up to this point, it's been straight one-on-one process of elimination, with
the worst band in each pair moving forward in the bracket. To really get our
hands around the final four, though, we shift into a round robin mode: each
band pitted against every other finalist, this time picking the more worthy and awarding two points
for a win, one point for a tie, and no points for a loss. There will be six
pairings (do the math: and remember that "Motley Crue vs. Matchbox
20" is the same thing as "Matchbox 20 vs. Motley Crue"). At
the end of the process, the band with the fewest
points is decreed the Worst Rock Band Ever. The essays over the past five
days explaining how each band has moved forward have laid out in great detail
the reasons for each of these finalists being here. We're not going to repeat
or recap all that information, so if you need it again, please review the
submissions to the blog over the past week. And so, without further ado.
Bon Jovi vs. Motley Crue:
Bon Jovi's middle of the road rock offers few edges and blazed few trails,
and ultimately they are about packaging easy-to-swallow songs and
nice-to-stare-at looks into a marketable rock product. Motley Crue is
supposed to be all about decadence, but on one hand they offer a stock-shock,
no imagination affronts ("Ooo! The devil! That's scary!"), and on
the other hand, the decadence they offer is of a distinctively white trash
variety; the Rolling Stones are elegantly decadent, Motley Crue is just gross.
The better band: Bon Jovi (2
points).
Creed vs. Matchbox 20:
Easy to swallow rock for the new millenium in both cases: if you averaged the
sounds of these bands together, you would have the exact middle point of
commercial radio, the place where everything is safe and comfortable, the
format that fits everything from Adult Contemporary to Pop to Modern Rock. We
have to give Matchbox 20 the edge here, though, simply because they seem
slightly more relaxed and fun about what they're doing, while Creed scowls
intently and puts on their best serious face when talking about the power of
music to change lives. Hey . . . rock and roll can change lives, but not by being mediocre. The better band: Matchbox 20 (2 points).
Motley Crue vs. Matchbox 20:
While we normally give bands nods for inspiring whole genres of music, it's
hard to consider that an accomplishment in Motley Crue's case, since pretty
much everybody is ashamed
of our nation's Hair Band phase, and the numbers of albums we bought while
drunk on the fumes of hairspray and mascara. Motley Crue and their spawn set
popular metal back a decade, and if there's one lasting benefit of the
stillborn grunge revolution, it's that it knocked teased hair off the charts.
Matchbox 20? No innovation, just perfectly precise monitoring of the popular
trends of their day, and a comprehension of how to work an increasingly
homogenized radio universe. The
better band: Matchbox 20 (2 points).
Creed vs. Bon Jovi:
Creed loses to Bon Jovi for the same reason that they lose to Matchbox 20:
Rock and roll is supposed to be fun, not like passing an impacted stool, and
then telling all your friends about it. Bon Jovi's fluffy, sure, but at least
they don't make you feel guilty because your human clay hasn't been weathered
in your own prison. The better
band: Bon Jovi (2 points).
Matchbox 20 vs. Bon Jovi:
Matchbox 20 is Bon Jovi for a new generation, playing to the same crowds,
filling the same radio niche. It's only a matter of time before Rob Thomas
follows Jon Bon Jovi to Hollywood to star in chick flicks. Tie: Matchbox 20 (1 point), Bon Jovi (1 point).
Motley Crue vs. Creed:
Maggoty, fake-devil rock made by low rent scumbags vs. earnest, God-rock made
by too-too-serious sensitive new age guys. On the surface, it looks like
you've got to pick Motley Crue, because rock is supposed to be about
rebellion and fun. But on the other hand . . . rock is also supposed to be
about passion and sincerity and being true to your own vision and beliefs. Do
any of you really think that Motley Crue believes in (or even understands)
the devil-oriented fare they use in their artwork and lyrics? They looked at
how Black Sabbath and Kiss used such imagery (better), and they made a
calculating choice to incorporate it, soullessly, into their own work. At
least Creed can claim some strength of conviction, and when you're singing
along to their songs, you can at least know that they believe what they're
saying. With Motley Crue, when you sing along you know it's because they
chose those words and images because they were designed to piss off your
parents in the quickest and most obvious ways, thereby helping you feel
rebellious, even as your money went from your pockets to theirs. Creed
represent the pinnacle of how the sanitized, strip-malled modern music
industry puts the mediocre atop the commercial pile, but they are the
beneficiaries of that system, not the perpetrators. Motley Crue, on the other
hand, represent everything that's bad about spoiled rich people acting
obnoxiously in the most cliched, pointless and obvious ways imaginable. And
I, for one, demand some imagination from the spoiled rich people I support. The better band: Creed (2 points).
So to wrap it all up, to finish the deed, our final four round robin
standings are as follows . . .
Bon Jovi: 5 points
Matchbox 20: 5 points
Creed: 2 points
Motley Crue: 0 points
. . . which means, of course, that we have a champion:
MOTLEY CRUE IS THE WORST ROCK BAND
EVER!
Thanks to everybody who's been reading and/or commenting on this process over
the past week: your input and insights made a difference. I welcome feedback
and reaction on the process and the results . . . only asking that it take
some form other than: "Motley Crue rocks! You suck!" Because I know
that there are millions and millions of people out there who have gotten
great joy and entertainment from Motley Crue's records and concerts . . . and
the ultimate, reductive, bottom line of any of this is: whatever makes you
happy is cool for you, as long as you're not hurting anybody by enjoying it.
Happy listening, everybody!Musical Dissections by J. Eric Smith:
The
Worst Rock Band Ever
Or . . . Rock’s Greatest Secret Band
Or . . . Best
of the Blockbusters
Or . . . Slaughtering the Sacred Cows
Or . . . March of the Mellotrons
Or . . . Flexible
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