This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.
Soundgarden – Burden In My Hand
This tune always stood out to me from the band’s 1996 set Down On The Upside. It’s some kind of twisted murder ballad that also seems to leave something to the imagination. It’s a bit distorted and trippy and it fits well on what would be Soundgarden’s final work for a long time.
Lyrically the song captures the torment of someone who killed his lover and now wanders without her. The words are well-placed and also fit the psychadelic music with a sometimes vague quality. Yeah, it’s clear he offed his old lady and that he’s messed up but this isn’t some Point A-to-Point B story. There is plenty of exposition, or perhaps mystery, to be found in the lyrics. There is no clear-cut resolution for the subject or certainly his victim.
Part of this may be due to how Chris Cornell wrote the song. In a 2012 interview with Artist Direct, Cornell states that he wrote the lyrics while playing on the guitar. It wasn’t a straight lyrical sketch – the riff seemed to dictate what words should go where. I’d imagine that would lend to the song’s lack of straightforward storytelling.
It’s a little hard to say this song has too powerful of a personal meaning – I mean, kinda hard to relate to murder. (At least I would hope…) However, the idea of wandering without direction through a desert, literal or metophorical, just totally lost – that part can hold some meaning.
Though not really important to evaluation of the song I did want to mention the music video. I like a video such as this that simply accents what’s in the song. The entire thing is just the band walking through the desert, just the same as the song’s subject murderer. It’s nice when a video accompanies a song, far too often a video has its own identity that I feel takes away from the song’s meaning. Certinaly not the case here.
Why is this song S-Tier?
It’s the combination of almost post-grunge music along with haunting yet cryptic lyrics sung by one of the best to ever pick up a microphone. Both the imagery conveyed and the space left for the listener to fill in offer a masterful soundscape.
That does it for the first edition of S-Tier songs. Enjoy your weekend and try not to like, stab your significant other or anything.
Our album of the week is an old-time cut from the early ’80’s. It’s a cult classic from a band that took on a life of its own after originally breaking up and has now ascended to legendary status.
The Misfits – Walk Among Us
Released March 1982 on Ruby Records
Favorite tracks – Astro Zombies, Mommy Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight, Skulls
Walk Among Us is a record I backed into for fairly obvious reasons – I was 4 years old when it came out. For whatever music I was exposed to in my early upbringing, The Misfits were not going to be counted among it.
About a decade later I was, like many adolescent dudes at the time, into Danzig. The Misfits’ former singer had found success in the early ’90’s with his Evil Elvis brand of metal. He was polarizing and is to this day reviled by some but I still hold up those early Danzig albums as examples of some truly great music.
At some point in that early half of the decade a buddy of mine needed to run to the next town over for something I can’t quite remember. I went along because well, you ain’t got much to do in mid-Missouri as a teen in 1993, or 1994, or 2004, or ever.
We wound up at a pawn shop and I sped straight over to their music section. The quality of music in a Midwest pawn shop was not up to the standards of any living being. It was the literal bottom of the barrel – just rejected tapes and CD’s that frankly should have never been recorded in the first place.
As luck would have it on that day, I spotted Walk Among Us in the pile of cast-off music. I paid $6 for a good used copy of this classic in a day and age where finding stuff like this wasn’t easy at all. The Internet was just barely a thing at the time and was not at all useful for commerce. And rural areas were sorely underserved for music – it was Wal-Mart or nothing.
I got home with my prized find and was instantly in love. I was nothing more than a tourist as it concerns punk but I was a Danzig fan and I was after everything he’d been involved in. And The Misfits were spectacular. The savage attack of unrefined horror punk was absolutely welcome to this young metalhead’s ears. It’s not some huge chasm between their stuff and metal anyway so it was pretty easy to see why so many in metal loved The Misfits.
The years wore on as they do and found both The Misfits and Danzig changing course and adding distance between them and their classic periods. Eventually they would find each other again and, if nothing else, they could count the money on the table and so they launched a few reunion gigs. I myself didn’t get to see them but that’s ok.
So there we have it – one of my all-time favorites and a more than fitting selection for the album of the week. 13 killer songs in 25 lean minutes and sometimes that, and some brains for lunch, is all you really need.
As a note, the list as originally provided counts down from 21 to 1. I am running the list in reverse order, from 1 to 21. Just a minor mishap with the secondary source I originally used that also ran the list in reverse order.
#8 – Radiohead
Of course Radiohead were gonna show up. I’ve certainly encountered no shortage of vitriol spewed their way in my Internet travels. They evoke strong reactions from both their fans and detractors. And their fans seem to trigger the detractors even more. I personally haven’t run into a lot of that but there’s definitely an “annoying Radiohead fan” vibe that plays into their slot on this list.
I have spun Radiohead a time or two but am by no means a huge fan. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually get into them but if a good act pisses a lot of people off it’s something I totally here for.
Overhated? Probably, but roll with what ya got
#9 – KISS
I would have been disappointed had Kiss not been on the list. They are a rock institution unto themselves, but boy do they get the blood boiling. Their possible lack of talent, their less than graceful aging, the sordid history of ex-members, a 35 year long farewell tour and Gene Simmons being kind of a dick a lot of the time will lead to people talking some shit on you. No way around it.
Do I dig Kiss? Yes, I do. I am a Kiss fan. I’m not the world’s biggest fan but I do enjoy some Cold Gin and Detroit Rock City. Maybe they are marketing and merch whores to a huge degree, but the hell with it, money’s money – go get it. (I mean, my favorite band would never deploy a marketing scheme quite like Kiss, but here we are…….)
Overhated? No, not really
#10 – Dave Matthews Band
If there is any sort of justice or sense of right in the universe, let this be the only time on my blog that I mention Dave Matthews.
I am not a fan. I don’t know what that stuff is, really. I don’t think he drinks, smokes or thinks enough because if he did he wouldn’t have graced us with his awful music.
Overhated? Impossible.
#11 – Coldplay
So I’m at my favorite craft beer brewery awhile back, sitting outside to enjoy a nice, socially-distanced IPA because it was still virus stuff then (just like now!). A song comes on that I hadn’t heard before and I thought it interesting. I used the old Google song identifier thing on my phone to find out that I am, in fact, enjoying Coldplay.
Do I actually like Coldplay? I never fucked with them before. I just rolled my eyes when I saw Chris Martin in the tabloids like any good angsty prick with no life would do. When they were part of the One Love Manchester gig I thought “hey, good on them.” Hell, they even jammed with Liam.
But that’s a league away from actually liking them. I guess I’m gonna have to consult Spotify and maybe professional help and see if I do actually dig Coldplay. I’ll report my findings.
Overhated? Probably, but maybe not.
#12 – Green Day
I don’t know, Green Day never really bothered me. Wouldn’t call myself a fan but I also never really worried about them. I didn’t change a radio station if they came on. I just heard some of their more recent stuff and it sounded like crap, but I don’t think that’s why they’re hated.
Of course they’re hated because they watered down punk and got massive. Punks don’t take kindly to that shit. I’m cool with punk even if I’m not one myself and I get the vibe of not digging Green Day. I just kinda don’t really care one way or the other.
Overhated? No, I get it
#13 – The Doors
Yeah, to be honest I see why they’re hated. The Doors have been worshipped for eons, Jim Morrison was some kind of freaky sex symbol/godhead figure, and their music has been everywhere forever. It probably gets annoying to someone who can’t stand them.
I have friends who like them. I have friends who hate them. I personally fall somewhere inbetween – I don’t mind some of their songs but their overall sound isn’t really my jam.
Overhated? I don’t know
#14 – Metallica
At first I was surprised to see their name on the list. They are one of the biggest bands ever, they defied genre and expectations to conquer the world, they have a gargantuan fanbase and they do unconventional and cool shit sometimes.
But then I realized who hates Metallica. No one hates Metallica more than Metallica fans. No one bitches about shit they like and don’t like more than metalheads. I know, I’ve done this dumb shit for over 30 years now.
Metallica changed tack in 1991 and took over the world with a more accessible, polished sound. They also alienated legions of die-hard supporters who wanted it longer and harder. They continued changing their sound, getting haircuts, suing Napster and doing other shit that caused consternation among the metal community.
There’s also Lars Ulrich. People love to hate Lars. I wonder how much of the band’s placement on this list is affected purely by Lars hate. Personally I have no issue with the dude but that’s just me.
Where do I stand with Metallica? I’ll take the first four albums, a bit of Load, and Hardwired. The other stuff isn’t for me, to varying degrees. I did once look back in anger at the band for their deviant ways but over time I quit giving a shit and agreed with others that a band ought to do what they want at the end of the day. It isn’t for me to tell one of the biggest and most influential acts in the world how to record or how to run their business.
Overhated? Yeah, to what extent I don’t know
I’ll wrap up the final 7 spots on the list tomorrow with Part 3.
Earlier in the year a site called BestLifeOnline.com released a list of the world’s most hated bands, according to science. This list was compiled by the use of algorithms that measured a series of metrics across several platforms. After going through the cesspool of the Internet for long enough they provided a ranked list of the most hated bands.
As an FYI, the list runs from 21 to 1, though my list starts at the top and works its way down. I used a different source to write this but decided to link to the original source for the post. My apologies, and please scroll down to find 1 through 7 and the least surprising thing you’ve probably ever seen in music discussion.
It’s an interesting topic. I read through the list and see a lot of bands that yeah, they’re gonna be on this list. There’s a few that caught me off guard, too. Some of the bands I don’t care about, others I like. And at least a few I join in on the hate campaign. But here we have this definitive, ranked and science-backed list of the bands that people bitch about the most.
There are 21 bands on the list. I’ll split this into 3 parts and tackle 7 bands at a time so I can spread the good vibes and cheer over a greater time span.
#1 – Nickelback
I mean, no shit Nickelback takes the top honors here. Talking trash about Nickelback has been a prime hobby of every disaffected angstwhore for the past 20 years. If you’re bored on Twitter and need something to take a shot at, Nickelback is always there for you.
The truth is that, yeah, Nickelback are overhated. They’re just a damn rock band. Sure, they’re mega-popular and influenced a bunch of soundalikes back all those years ago, but it’s whatever. Yeah, that song about the photographs is ultra shitty, but beyond that I really don’t have time to care about Nickelback.
Overhated? Yeah, but just like Thanos, this was inevitable.
#2 – Limp Bizkit
Good old Limp Bizkit, in at number 2, and not at 1 just because Nickelback exists.
And yet, here we are over halfway through 2021 and Fred Durst and company are in the midst of some rennaissance. A few years of memes about the band created this backdoor into a new appreciation for them and the group seem ready to capitalize on it.
I tried to like them for about 20 minutes when they blew up in ’99. Then I turned my nose up at them for the next few decades. Now? The world is so screwed and everything is so upside-down that honestly, it’s just one of those days. I can set aside any false pretense of intellect and have some fun for a bit.
Overhated? Yes and no, somehow.
#3 – Creed
I can recognize the life of its own quality that Nickelback hate has. I can even find retro appreciation for Limp Bizkit, one of the world’s most derided bands.
But Creed? Please take this Pearl Jam-meets-praise and worship trash somewhere else. I don’t need some ham-fisted warbling about God and guilt when I’m trying to have … well, literally anything else. If any cosmic forces could convene to make sure this group doesn’t re-up for a cash grab reunion tour, that would be great.
Overhated? If every sentient entity in the universe focused their energies on hating Creed it would still not be enough.
#4 – U2
Well, can’t say I’m surprised to see the ol’ U2 on the list. They were bigger than life at more than one point in history. Bono does come off as a douche sometimes but he doesn’t personally bother me.
I really don’t mind the stuff from the 80’s but I don’t necessarily have to hear it again either. Not a whole lot to say, no one is shocked that U2 made the cut.
Overhated? Eh, no.
#5 – Mumford and Sons
I’m a little shocked to see them this high on the list. But after thinking about it, not really. Their shit is pretty weak and I’ve honestly never heard anyone say anything good about them. In fact I’ve heard plenty of people slag them off, so I can at least say I run in the right circles after all these years.
Overhated? No, but a very strong showing for a more recent-ish band
I mean, I’m not gonna post a fucking Mumford and Sons video. Might as well ride the hot hand.
#6 – Bob Dylan
So I guess I shouldn’t register shock that he’s here, but it seems out of place to me. I mean, I won’t cop to being a Dylan fan, just never got into him.
Bob Dylan is one of the most important forces in American music, like, ever. I understand how much he has contributed to the art form even if I don’t personally jam to his stuff. I think that appreciation ought to mean something outside of one’s tastes and fandoms. There is an objective side to music and Dylan clears that bar by leaps and bounds.
Overhated? Yes, he shouldn’t be on the list.
#7 – Phish
I can’t cop to liking the jam band stuff at all, but I’ve had friends that are all about it. It’s definitely its own scene and one I’ll leave them to. I’ve never listened to them, I probably never will, and on we go to other stuff.
Overhated? I don’t care
That’s it for part one. Part 2 drops Thursday and Part 3 wraps things up on Friday. Till then let’s break stuff.
Ok so this won’t be what anyone would consider “top tier” content. This is scraping the bottom for stuff to post. I didn’t have a Friday post ready for this first week so I went back to this idea I had worked on a bit a few months ago as I was preparing to re-enter the blogosphere.
I sat through the “Best of Rock 1990” playlist on Spotify and checked it out. I wrote what I thought about each song down. I quit doing it a thrid of the way through because there are 60 damn songs on this list and no one cares what anyone thinks about every one of them.
So in desperate need of content to float me through my first few weeks of a new blog, I decided to revisit this and pare it down to where I just discuss a handful of the songs. I left off a few things that I’m going to do more in-depth posts about later and I also left off some that all I have to say is “why did you write that?” It’s also out of order because I think Spotify shuffles stuff around on these sometimes and because this whole thing is kinda boring.
Anyway, let’s get into it.
AC/DC – “Thunderstruck”
Good way to open. I know people are down on AC/DC but I always dug ’em, and Razor’s Edge specifically was a badass record. This always was one of their better songs.
Scorpions – “Wind of Change”
I played the shit out of Crazy World back in the day. Yeah, I know the CIA maybe secretly wrote this song. I gotta check that podcast out someday.
Jon Bon Jovi – “Blaze of Glory”
I actually do dig this song. Sure it’s whatever, but I always jammed out to it when I was young and dumb. Now that I’m older and dumb I’d still play it but I never really do.
The Black Crowes – “Hard To Handle”
The Crowes are all over this playlist and with good reason. The whole album is a monster. One of the best things to come from the year.
INXS – “Suicide Blonde”
The death of Michael Hutschene was to sex what the death of Dale Earnhart Sr. was to auto racing. Advances in auto-erotic asphyxiation devices have kept generations safe in lonely hotel rooms since. I know I feel safer.
Oh yeah, the song totally slays. INXS were badass.
Alice In Chains – “Man In The Box”
I’m all about AIC, I took to them right off the bat when this vid hit MTV back when MTV was MTV. Sure, local cover bands beat this song to death in every dive bar across our great land. But that doesn’t deter my enjoyment of it.
Bad Religion – “21st Century (Digital Boy)”
Here we are with the first thing I’m not familiar with on here. I never did give this band a proper listen and I don’t remember if I’ve ever heard this song. I should definitely throw the band onto the “check out” pile. This song is fine, I don’t know where the band’s fans rank this recording or anything like that.
Jane’s Addiction – “Stop”
Jane’s were a good time back in the day. This song does a bit more for me than the ever-present “Been Caught Stealing” but it’s all good.
Queensryche – “Silent Lucidity”
So yeah, it’s that song that scored big for them and also marked a pretty big shift in their sound. That’s a bit misleading though since they reshaped their sound on every prior record anyway. I’m cool with it and it was my intro to the band. I went to buy this tape but it was sold out and so I settled for their prior album. That changed my fucking life.
Poison – “Unskinny Bop”
Nothing like a Poison track to usher in a new decade. This surely flew the flag for hair metal and ensured it would carry on through the next ten years.
I was into Poison when I was young. Like, I asked for their second album for Christmas and I got the tape. My mom went through and tore out a huge part of the insert that had bunch of pictures of them partying, often with scantily-clad women. Gotta love those good Christian households, always looking out for your welfare.
I don’t really mess with Poison these days but hearing the stuff now and again doesn’t really bother me.
Blues Traveller – “But Anyway”
Oh yeah, this is the song from Kingpin. Love that movie. But anyway, I’m not a huge BT fan though this is a pretty cool song.
Cocteau Twins – “Heaven Or Las Vegas”
Ok so I do like shoegaze but I literally just started listening to it last month so I don’t know jack about it. MBV and Slowdive are like all I really know about, which if the memes are to be believed, means I know all I need to know.
I know that CT predate shoegaze but they were clearly very influential to the movement. That doesn’t mean I really want to listen to much more of this, though.
Depeche Mode – “Enjoy The Silence”
I do really like Depeche Mode. That said, Violator is the only album I’ve ever owned of theirs. But yeah they were/are really good and this happens to be my favorite song of theirs.
I didn’t realize this came out in 1990, I thought it was earlier. Oh well, time is made up anyway.
Midnight Oil – “Blue Sky Mine”
So I only know that song about the burning beds from them that I mistakenly thought Talking Heads did. This song is fine but I don’t really have to have it in my life. 1990 was weird, man.
I think that about covers it. 1990 was the year before I absolutely dove headfirst into music so this was kind of a “before the storm” time for me anyway. What would happen in 1991 would blow apart the music landscape and then by the end of the decade I don’t know what the hell anyone was doing. We’ll call this good and try to post stuff that isn’t as lame. (Next week is a good week for that, by the way)
I suppose it might be wise to offer a bit on how I got into music in the first place. I’ll do these in pieces over time since there’s a lot of ground to cover.
I am getting a bit long in the tooth these days but I think I’ve pinpointed the first memory I have of actually sitting for awhile and listening to music. It would have been in the early ’80’s – I am guessing here but I think it was ’83. I would have turned 6 that year but was probably still 5 at the time.
I was over at my grandparents’ house staying the evening and my uncle’s room there was uninhabited for the night. I sat with his stereo and his – wait for it – 8 track collection.
I don’t remember exactly what all I jammed out to that evening but I very much recall hearing Jimi Hendrix. That would stick with me to this very day and Hendrix is one of my favorite artists of all time.
I wouldn’t get into having my own music until several years later. In the intervening time I would absorb it through the usual mediums of the time – from relatives’ collections on huge old stereo systems that are now retro and worth money, on the radio, and on the up-and-coming music video channel on cable TV. (What was its name?)
I’d hear and like a lot of the big names of the day – The Police, John Mellencamp, Springsteen, and all the various one-hit wonders of the time. But the one that really got me was Van Halen. I’m far from the only one – Van Halen truly rocked the world. They were the ones who, more than anyone, launched me onto the path I’ve been on all these years.
I was 9 when my mom finally relented with my unending demands for my own music and she bought me a record, straight off the shelf of our local Wal-Mart in Cowtown USA. It was one of the most popular records of the year and probably not something a lot of people would do much but sneer at today, but dammit it was mine. It was Bon Jovi – Slippery When Wet.
I’ll be upfront about it – I still dig it to this day. Excellent songwriting and fun stuff to jam out to. I won’t say I’m a huge fan of their whole catalog but this album gets it done for me.
After that my family took the hint and started buying me music as gifts. I’d get the standard fare for the time – hair metal, Michael Jackson, that sort of thing. It’d be a few years until I got into anything off the beaten path, but that’s a whole other story.
The process of discovery was the great thing about the early days. It was easy to do back then, music was massive business and was all over the place. It was also nice to be too young to be into the gatekeeping, elitism and smugness that would come in later years. It was simply a matter of enjoying something that was cool and moving on from stuff that wasn’t.
Alas, the joy and innocence of childhood discovery is long since lost to the ages. But it’s always cool to think back on how a lifetime of musical enjoyment and appreciation began. And somehow there are a series of straight lines to draw from here to extreme metal, and to country, and somehow later curving back to Britrock and shoegaze. But we’ll get there.
The Crooked Wanderer 