“Corporate Magazines Definitely Suck”

WRITTEN BY PAUL LUBACZEWSKI

Recently on facebook, I got a huge response to the question, “What Bands Were You Told You Liked, But Never Did”. Not a punk response, but across the board cross-section of people responded. These are the bands that no matter how many times we’re told they are fucking geniuses, NOBODY likes. You can tell us their genius until god comes home to roost with his angels. We do NOT like these bands. They may have sold a bunch of records thanks to your collusion with their myth, but actual fans of actual music, and not flavors of the day don’t get it. You can overrate them all the livelong day in the recent rehash of your previous opinion, we don’t care.

So now for all of you Hit Parader, Rolling Stone, and Kerrang readers, here’s a little reassurance, that it isn’t just you. A note, while some of the acts in question could easily get their own entry, some times they just fit into one of my time-saving categories so perfectly, I have to put them there.

• White British baby boomers who escape Art College to tell you how influenced they are by American British Blues. Eric Clapton is the worst offender here. And let’s be honest, name a good Eric Clapton song……….I’m prepared to wait……..Ok, I’m not prepared to wait that long screw it, you cant, know why? He sucks. So stop telling us how good he is. He has sold the vast majority of his albums because of Rolling Stone telling us, we should own one of his albums. Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page get an honorable mention in the “Your white and British, you’ve never even seen a plantation or a lynch mob, quit it” sweepstakes. Your baby didn’t leave you down on the killing floor, or down in the bottom so STOP IT!
• U2. have they honestly had a single relevant song since they stopped putting the little boy on their covers? Yeah, you can’t think of one either.
• REM, they do have a couple of good songs. But frankly, Sentimental Hygiene and Hindu Love Gods were more interesting. Michael Stipe may be a swell fella, but he’s a boring as a crap vocalist.
• Which leads us directly to another category. Rich peoples Warren Zevon knockoffs. Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel come to mind first. Tom Petty is right in there too, as is John Camp Cougar Mellon (or whatever in the hell he’s calling himself this week). While all have sold a lot more records, none got the sardonic sense of humor that made Zevon a Hunter S Thompson favorite and made his grittier tales of woe more believable.
• The Grateful Dead, speaking of bands you’ve probably wasted money on just to find out what in the hell the big deal was about.
• Not Nearly as heavy as advertised, this is probably the Hit Parader/Kerrang specialty. Raven, Saxon, King Diamond/Mercyful Fate, St Vitus, etc, etc.
• Which brings us to Metallica, who was ripped in NUMEROUS categories, but deserves their own entry. Who knew losing a bass player could completely ruin a band? Because since Cliff Burton’s head went squish, so did their balls. Blame it on whatever you want But since Burton died, even if you were putting together the best of everything they’ve done since. Four Horseman crushes every single one of them.

• Janes Addiction, Perry’s nasal whines over Daves pretentious pseudo funk. All awash with a level of druggy wanna be artist snobbiness.
• Which brings us nicely to “Anything David Fricke loves”, the senior editor at Rolling Stone has an unerring talent for deciding and demanding a band is brilliant, 5 years after they are. From his adoration of the Replacements. “Don’t Tell A Soul How Boring This Record Is” , to the Lemonheads “Its A Shame About How Much We Suck Now”, to Husker Du’s “We’ve Already Broken Up, But Our Label Is Prepared To Milk It”, Fricke can find a band after they’ve sold out and are unlistenably dull and decide now they deserve a platinum record.
• A category I have the decency to feel bad about, but exists anyway,”Bands We Wish Would Go Back To Using Drugs”. Once they were exciting and edgy, now they’re sober and boring. Aerosmith, The PSychidelic Furs and the Sisters Of Mercy, we are all looking squarely at you. Face it rock fans, as bad as Lightning Strikes was, you’d rather listen to that then EVER hear “Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” one more time.
• Two categories of music that deserve to be together. Only for the universal loathing they received. Prog Rock and Hair Metal. Nothing good was really felt toward either. So in the grand scheme of things people really do feel almost exactly the same about the artistic nuanced genius(or so I’m informed by Rolling Stone) of Yes as they do about the banal 3-minute turd droppings of Bon Jovi. We don’t like them.
• The king gods of overrated. Led Zepplin and Black Sabbath. They both were influential and had a few good tunes. But there is the key bit of phrasing, a FEW good tunes. Like, a few. In between those few good tunes, both bands produced veritable MOUNTAINS of dreck that they’re over devoted fans have been trying to convince us was genius for well over 30 years now. It’s like having a Blag Fan trying to convince you that YOUR the one who just doesn’t get it, and The Process Of Weeding Out(which I’m sure David Fricke loved) was actually pure genius.

There were ALOT more mentioned, but those were the stunning sticks out like a sore thumb winner that got the most mentioned. Any complaints should be filed with the article’s author, Ron Paul. He looks forward to your input.

-The Reverend Paul Putrid your one-stop hip hop stop