October 14th, 2005
Band Name: Hanson would be a good name if just one dude in the band was named Hanson. Ex: Dokken. If the band’s name is a surname, and there’s more than on member of the band with that surname, you need some sort of qualifier. Ex: The Jackson 5, The Allman Brothers Band. The only exception to this rule is Van Halen, and I think we can all agree, Hanson is no Van Halen. The Verdict: Poor choice.
Album Art: This art is surprisingly good, specially considering it was the mid ’90’s. The poses are hilariously cheesy, but I am really liking the duotone photograph. The Verdict: Passsable.
The Music: Mmm Bop is the only song in the history of music to have a completely unintelligible sing-along part. Sure, everyone knows how it goes, but nobody can actually sing it right. Even hardcore bands can write better sing-alongs than that! Terrible. The Verdict: Mmmbop shoobopbop Scooby Doo bopbop yeah yeah yeah!
Genre: Prepubescent Pop
Suggested By: Marie
Posted in Upholds Theory, Bad Album, Terrible Name, Awesome Art | No Comments »
October 14th, 2005
Band Name: Tom Waits. Again with the real name thing, I can’t really make fun of it. And it’s a pretty good name. The Verdict: Good.
Album Art: Hand-colored photographs? When will the Supreme Court just go ahead and make them illegal? That dude with the bow-tie. He’s totally going to give it to baldie after they get back to their seedy hotel room. The Verdict: Truly Awful.
The Music: Tom Waits is that wrinkly old hound dog who sits way down at the far corner of the bar that you simply do not want to fuck with. If I give this album a bad review, he’s going to show up at my doorstep early tomorrow morning, and stab me repeatedly with a rusty knife. He probably won’t kill me, he’ll just leave me severely maimed. The Verdict: I like it. Really.
Genre: Blues?
Suggested By: Ben
Posted in Disproves Theory, Good Album, Ugly Art, Good Name | 3 Comments »
October 21st, 2005
Band Name: Clearly, they wanted to have the acronym ABC, and just had to find some words to make it happen. Absolutely Boring Claptrap? No, that won’t work. AirBorne Cops? No. Assless Bunny Chaps? Definitely not. Another Bad Creation? YES! The Verdict: Another Bad Band Name.
Album Art: Holy shit. Holy. Shit. Those 7 year old kids are dressed too thug to handle. Honestly, how tough can you be that tough when you’re 3′8″ tall? The real question is, do you think they dress themselves in the morning, or does their mom do it for them? And what’s with all that shit around them? News flash: Keith Harring is already dead. The Verdict: Nice hats!
The Music: This album is incredible. There’s a bumpin’ beat, James Brown-esque horn flairs, and gang-vocal choruses. During the course of each song, each of the 6 kids get their own turn to rap about today’s pressing issues, such as: candy, parents, Mario, and being home by dizzark. Stunning. The Verdict: I swing my beats .. at the playground..ya know!
Posted in Disproves Theory, Good Album, Ugly Art, Terrible Name | 5 Comments »
October 26th, 2005
Band Name: Can you think of a positive band without the word “youth” in the name? You can’t can you! That’s because there aren’t any! (Those of you who thought of Good Clean Fun are going to get knifed unless you change your answer to uphold my theory). The Verdict: Totally Massive.
Album Art: What do we have here? Some positive, clean cut youth flying the straight edge flag, eating their 5 daily fruits and vegetables, running over some negative types with a steam roller, backed by an army of straight edgers! Hippies, drug addicts, Gene Simmons, and crust punks look out! Or you’ll have to face the Youth Brush, or even worse, the Posi Machine!! The Verdict: Thoroughly Crucial.
The Music: This is a standard youth-crew hardcore album, with gang vocal choruses about being morally straight, bench pressing your weight, and using the crosswalk. And the liner notes have posi moshing tips with Safety Squirrel, what more could you want!? The Verdict: I’ve got a positive dental attitude!
Genre: Posi Youth Crew Hardcore
Posted in Good Album, Good Name, Awesome Art | 2 Comments »
October 26th, 2005
Band Name: If you’ve got a gun, shoot ‘em in the head, that’s a sure way to kill ‘em. If not, grab a torch or a club. Beat ‘em or burn ‘em, the Creepniks go down pretty easy. The Verdict: A truly awesome horror band name that sounds like it would be a truly awesome horror movie.
Album Art: Poor, helpless Janet is about to suffer a horrible death at the hands of an entire army of the undead! In a matter of minutes, she too will become a zombie, which is a lot like her normal miserable existence, except instead of craving chocolate all the time, she craves brains! The Verdict: A truly awesome horrror album cover that looks like it would be the cover of a truly awesome horror movie.
The Music: This album sucks! The band has an awesome name, the cover has awesome art, and even the songs are good, so the album should be good, right? But that singer’s voice! Ugh! I don’t care if he is a zombie (er..sorry, a Re-animaded American), when your songs have awesome theremin and Telecaster shredz, you should not wreck them with your horrible, horrible voice The Verdict: Bad. Real bad.
Genre: Horror, Surf, Rockabilly
Posted in Disproves Theory, Bad Album, Good Name, Awesome Art | No Comments »
November 2nd, 2005
Band Name: Goblin Cock? Are you kidding me? Your band’s name is “Goblin” + “Cock”? Even if you are the heaviest of heavy metal bands, that is inexcusably bad. The only person allowed to use “Goblin” is David Bowie in Labyrinth. The Verdict: Please.
Album Art: Well, well, well. A goblin with a big cock. Who would have imagined. It does look pretty metal, but the only way you’re going to get away with a name like Goblin Cock is if you have album art with tons of skulls, death, battle axes, decaying carcasses, and missing limbs. The least they could do is put spiked shoulder pads on that dude! Lame. The Verdict: FYI: Goblins are circumcized at birth.
The Music: GOBLIN COCK IS NOT EVEN HEAVY!! One might expect to hear double-bass, guttural growled vocals, and guitar squeals - something truly appropriate of the name Goblin Cock. However, the real Goblin Cock has wussy riffs, and whiney, nasally, harmonized vocals. This isn’t metal at all. It’s shitty boring early-90’s indie-rock. Curse you Goblin Cock for making me think you’d sound like Immortal! Curse you Goblin Cock and your hipster irony! The Verdict: I hope Dying Fetus kills every last one of you, Goblin Cock!
Genre: Crappy, boring, alt-rockish crappy crap.
Posted in Upholds Theory, Bad Album, Ugly Art, Terrible Name | 1 Comment »
November 11th, 2005
As I haven’t written a record review in a while, Mr. Ben Privett answers the question, who would win in a fight… Tom Waits or Charles Bronson?
Charles Bronson has unlimited arsenal, a steely stare, and a small Mexican man to carry his ammunition. Charles also has no remorse towards the killing of others. He also has much martial training due to his many Death Wish films and westerns.
Tom Waits, on the other hand, probably carries a large, rusty knife. Likely he’s killed many a drunken circus clown in a bar fight with that same knife. Tom is also probably impervious to most small-arms fire.
The fight would likely occur in a dark alley and quickly devolve into a staring contest, both combatants being expert starers, lasting for days until one flinched. Likely Bronson flinches first (he’s older) and Tom would reach back for a rusty hatchet and throw it through Bronson’s sternum. As he crumpled to the floor, Bronson would reach into his back pocket and pull out a large-caliber pistol, firing into Waits’ chest.
The result? A tie. The plain fury of the staring would also likely destroy several city blocks surrounding the area.
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November 12th, 2005
Band Name: Mastodons are like giant, hairy, prehistoric elephants. Except that they have huge tusks, specially bred for slaying and impaling non-believers of metal. The Verdict: Awesome, despite going extinct.
Album Art: How sick is this cover? There is a warhorse, whose guts are being exploded by the fury of pure, unrestrained heavy metal at a volume not suitable for mere mortals. Mr. Ed has made the grave mistake of galloping within a 5 mile radius of Mastodon’s stacks, and his chest cavity was simply no match the deafening double-bass and sweet lixx. The Verdict: Gives Chuck Norris a roundhouse kick to the face.
The Music: Not only is Mastodon heavy, they’re ridiculously tight and technical. Remission has much more hardcore-influenced vocals than the album that followed it, Leviathan, which is a plus for me. The Verdict: A shining example of the Grand Unifying Theory.
Genre: Metal
Posted in Upholds Theory, Good Album, Good Name, Awesome Art | 1 Comment »
November 12th, 2005
Band Name: Since they have a completely gratuitous heavy-metal umlaut in their name, they automatically are awesome as per the
Gratuitous Umlaut Clause. Fun Fact: Lemmy was originally going to name the band Bastard, which would have sucked. Unless he named it Bastärd.
The Verdict: Awesome and heavy metal.
Album Art: WHAT! Is this some kind of heavy-metal joke? When you have a
logo as awesome as Motörhead does, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE FOR NOT USING IT. Furthermore, we all know that Motörhead is from England, and England does not have cowboys, nor a Wild West! You are not fooling anyone here! Furthermore, Lemmy you are not yet old but you are still warty!! We do not want to look at that, we want to see Snaggletooth!!
The Verdict: Horrible!!!
The Music: This is the quintessential hard rock album. It is possibly one of my favorite albums of all time. Why then does it have a horribly sucky cover? Beyond horribly sucky. This album is to the Grand Unifying Theory as subatomic particles are to F=MA. I suppose just as in physics, the Grand Unifying Theory must utterly collapse on rare occasions. I’m ashamed to show my face in public. The Verdict: You win some, lose some, all the same to me.
Genre: Hard Rock, NWOBHM
Posted in Disproves Theory, Good Album, Ugly Art, Good Name | 1 Comment »
December 21st, 2005
Band Name: If you are Swedish and your name is Yngwie, either you are a piece of furniture from IKEA, or you are destined to play shred guitar like it’s nobody’s business. The Verdict: Pretty sure I’m sitting on the YNGWIE chair right now…
Album Art: While most heavy metal guitarists do battle with dragons figuratively, in the form of an armor-clad knight wielding a battle axe or war hammer, Yngwie shreds so furiously, he can slaughter a three headed dragon simply by ripping arpeggios so fast flames shoot out of the neck of his guitar. The Verdict: So heavy metal.
The Music: Based on his name and the album cover, let’s see how much we can guess about him. He’s an aging metal dude who plays ultra-clean, blindingly fast shred guitar, and I bet Yngwie likes to talk about Bach a lot. The Verdict: Aging metal dudes are all about the classical music.
Genre: Shred guitar
Posted in Upholds Theory, Good Album, Good Name, Awesome Art | 3 Comments »
