I'm Back... WITH A VENGEANCE!

Well, not really. But I am back in town. Either later today or tomorrow I'll have a review up here, but now I'm just going to get back into the swing of posting with a list of things that bug me. In no particular order, they are:

1) People who complain that all a band's songs sound the same (amusing and egregious example here).

Several years ago I received an e-mail forward which featured a list of bands and people's dismissive descriptions of what each of there songs sounded liked. You were supposed to add a band/description and then send it to everyone you know. This bugged me at the time, and continues to bug me, because in reality (and I'm putting this in caps so you know I mean fucking business) WE ALL WANT BANDS TO HAVE SONGS THAT SOUND THE SAME. If they didn't, WE WOULDN'T LISTEN TO THEM.

Writing a bunch of songs that all sound the same is called having "a style." The vast majority of bands do it. Slayer, for example, has two songs: the fast one and the not fast one. Both of these songs rule and Slayer can keep writing them until the day they all drop dead and I'll be happy. When Slayer tries to add a third song, I am unhappy, and respond by not listening to it.

Most bands whose songs don't all sound similar suck and suck well. I call this the "Mr. Bungle theorem." They suck because you wind up liking one thing they do, but not the next. You inevitably want them to go back to playing what you like, as in "hey, this metal part is totally awesome. I can get into... wait a second. Why are they yodeling?"

On top of that, this is one of those things that people only care about when they don't like a band. Given that most bands songs sound pretty much all the same, every person who criticizes a band for having songs that all sound the same probably has a whole music collection filled with bands doing the exact same thing. Those who live in glass houses, you know?

If you're one of those people who really gets off on bands whose songs all sound radically different, that's fine. More power to you. Might I suggest, however, that you would be better served by listening to a really good jazz band, a really good metal band, and a really good funk band, instead of some band that tries to juxtapose all those styles?

So stop complaining that bands songs all sound the same and come up with some real reasons to not like a band.

2) Faux controversy.

I was reading this thing in The Onion that pointed out that that Katy Perry girl's song "I Kissed a Girl" is trying to pitch itself as controversial, but the lyrics are wildly inoffensive and Jill Sobule wrote a song with the exact same title that had more offensive lyrics 15 fucking years ago (and no one really gave a fuck then, either).

In fact, I only heard the song for the first time the other day, while in the dollar store (an appropriate place for it, as it might be the worst, most low-rent song I've ever heard). When I saw the title of it on iTunes I assumed it was a cover of the Jill Sobule song.

Here's an even more amusing example.

Please note that they refer to their album as "one of the most controversial albums the world has ever seen" right before pointing out that it's limited to 250 copies.

Now I don't expect a lot out of Christian Black Metal, but is it too much to ask to look up the word controversy?

Please note that the definition requires debate, preferably public.

In other words (all caps, once again), YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE IF YOU'RE CONTROVERSIAL. The public at large decides if you're controversial. The fucking Norwegian Black Metal church burnings were controversial. How do I know? Because we're still discussing them 15 friggin' years later! THAT'S controversy. It doesn't matter how offensive, poignant, or challenging it is. If there's NO DEBATE around it, it's not a controversy.

Okay.

I feel better now that I've gotten that out of my system.

I apologize for the negativity of this post. As a counter-balance, here are a cat and a dog who are in love:

If they can make it work, maybe there's hope for us all, right?

I'll be back with the reviews asap.