Break Away II

Usually people who love music want to like to write about music they love (in my case that would be musical legends like The Who, Radiohead, & Ween.) But sometimes it’s fun to talk about bad music. In fact in some ways it’s more fun. And it’s certainly much easier to find. Just check out music on MySpace to see what I mean. It’s most disturbing for me that some of the most awful bands I’ve found on MySpace is also among the most popular.

Hollywood Undead has to be the best example of this. They are incredibly bad and even more incredibly popular. I mean I know it’s normal for “the kids” to be into awful music, but isn’t this just taking it a bit too far? Usually the really awful music in the past had some sort of musical quality to it. Sure Milli Vanilli was cheesy but their songs were catchy and had some good production values. But with Hollywood Undead there is not even a hint of quality to be found.

But they certainly are not all alone in the universe of bad music.

How about Dierks Bentley? Have you heard this stuff? He’s unbelievably bad. I had heard his name previously but had never listened to his music before as I have absolutely no interest in country pop but one day I came across his latest single “Feel That Fire” and I was just floored because it was so much worse than I thought it would be. And that really is saying a lot because I thought it would be flat out horrendous. But no, it’s much worse than that.

It’s no big deal that people are releasing awful music. There is absolutely nothing new about that. The big deal to me is that so many people actually think this is good music. Why is that? How can people be so amazingly clueless about music?

American Idol is the easy to blame culprit. And I’m sure that does have a part to play. Now millions of people think that having a pretty voice is the only thing that matters.

But I’m sure it must go much deeper than that. Of course it’s not like people being into awful music is a new thing. The masses are always attracted to the easy to swallow garbage that usually fills the top 40 every week. And it’s the true music that real music lovers listen to and that lasts for years.

Obviously no one will be listening to anyone from American Idol or Dierks Bentley in 25 years (except out of pure nostalgia or as a joke) while people will still be listening the music of true musical geniuses like Spiritualized & Primal Scream.

Tags: Bad Music, Country Pop, Dierks Bentley, Hollywood Undead, music, Music Critic, MySpace Music