You Know What Really Grinds My Gears

Reynolds has inspired me the last couple of days so I thought I’d throw this up under the old “you know what really grinds my gears” tag. It’s an email that I sent to Joe about a story he had to write for the mag he writes for. If you know Joe then I’d just like to say that he had free reign to bogart any ideas mentioned below. He beat me 93-19 in a game of piddle once so I owe him.

Here is the premise - Pop music today is complete garbage –

Pop music has become driven by the tabloids like US Weekly. I’m not saying everyone has to be an indie music junkie you know how I feel about people who say shit like “oh I used to like so-so before they became popular”. There is something to be said for the entertainment value of popular music today.

No one can look me in the eye and tell me Soulja Boy’s ‘Crank Dat’ is a good song. It’s entertaining to see Vince Wilfork do the dance after he sacks Ben Roethlisberger and Travis Barkers drum remix on YouTube is pretty gnarly, but it’s absolutely not a good song. Unfortunately people like Soulja Boy are getting attention instead of bands like TREOS or Wolfmother or As Tall as Lions. Hopefully at some point the climate will shift and we’ll return to some sort of middle ground that is agreeable like in the mid-to-late 90’s.

The music business should run similar to the NFL where the average career is something like 3-4 years, for musicians, especially pop musicians it should be 3-4 albums then you’re whisked away to reality TV. I’m cereal, Britney Spears was totally a top draft choice when she first came out, she was a freaking dime and she had those typical pop songs, now she needs to go away. The only reason she’s selling any albums right now is because our culture is obsessed with celebrities and we feed on US Weekly and People like the homeless on change.

Britney’s new song is awful, at least her old songs were her singing, now its so over-produced that with the right equipment I could pull any girl or even high voiced guy off the street and make the same song. And yes I will offend the shit out of that stupid leave Britney alone kid from YouTube what an idiot I hope you miss everything cool and die angry.

Speaking of over-produced when did making music stop requiring the ability to sing? Ok we’ll make an exception for Tom Delonge (Tonoite!) – but really Heidi Montag…she’s the queen of the no talent ass clowns…just because you were friends with my future wife Lauren Conrad doesn’t mean you can sing. At some point producers have to realize that they are destroying the world by allowing music like that to be created.

At some point don’t you say ‘I can’t believe I’m putting my name on this piece of shit”. Enjoy the ride of the Hills but you’re not a triple threat ok…calm down this isn’t Vaudeville it’s MTV. I swear to God if anyone would actually buy her upcoming CD I will challenge you to a duel…10 paces turn and fire.

There are a few musicians, like athletes who are able to re-invent themselves but they are usually good musicians or singers…i.e. Chris Cornell, Scott Weiland, Slash…and some that just have Brett Favre like longevity – The Red Hot Chili Peppers - the same can’t be said for many “popular musicians” like Britney Spears or even Fall Out Boy…that some of these people think they are going to be making viable music in 5-10 years is dumb - most likely they’ll be Vanilla Ice on the Surreal Life…I get the feeling we will soon see Pete Wentz, Lil John or Chamillonarie (really? next to the playstation controlla – that’s not a real rhyme!!!) on behind the music sounding like uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite.

Yeah we get it Lil John you used to get krunk (which is a word now ps) but pop rap is probably the most fickle music genre and compared to Talib, Common or Mos Def you were always bush league…so maybe the iced out krunk juice cup was a poor use of your short lived millions but that ’93 Huffy White Heat is almost as nice as the Ferrari you flanted on Cribs. I swear since MTV stopped playing videos they have begun destroying society, it’s the fall of the Roman Empire Sucka Free style.

If you think I’m wrong watch one episode of Cribs then Google search what some rappers said about Hurricane Katrina – act like it doesn’t make you cringe to see the shit they spend money on. Not to say I wouldn’t have the clue house with the piano from Batman Begins that opened a secret passage but still.

The short-term doesn’t look good either – there are very few outlets for good bands to be showcased, everything on MTV is either tabloid or reality TV driven and even networks like fuse are too high school centric – there are some radio stations out there but it’s like Patton Oswald says you have to get out on your own and find out what’s cool for yourself.

The worst part of the whole situation is that people are way too close-minded when it comes to music. You don’t have to like every kind of music but you have to at least understand why someone might. If you don’t like pop music you can’t be an indie douche and say anything on hit list radio crap even if you used to listen to it. That’s only going to lead to less people having any interest in the music you clam is good. Basically people should listen to “Admit it!” by Say Anything.

Luckily music is, like I said, a fickle thing. It is always changing; especially pop music and we could just as soon see metal as the new fad as we could with boy bands. Take a look at things right now, emo is hugely popular among high school kids, 5-8 years ago it was boy bands or rappers like Ja Rule.

Popular Music today is awful, but things are only made worse by smug indie douches, liking music that isn’t on hit list radio is great I fully support that and think it’s better than being a slave to what Ryan Seacreast says every week but don’t be a douche about it…didn’t you see the ‘Smug Alert’ South Park episode? I don’t want to have to go into San Francisco in a hazmat suit tethered to Butters to save you.

Tomorrow - more Reynolds inspired writing - Why the Dolphins are the 40-year-old virgins of the NFL.