Chattanooga Pulse

I am a highly-accused, but self-proclaimed music snob. But it’s a badge that I proudly wear upon my sleeve right alongside my “Who Maximum R&B” and “Disco Sucks” buttons.

If I don’t like it, then it’s probably not worth listening to. And that authority comes from years of honing my musical taste with healthy doses of knowledge, appreciation and respect for only those artists who can genuinely create a good song rather than one that just happens to become “popular.”

Because sadly enough, music generates fads in the same fashion as any other entity of popular culture. Like the pet rocks, bell bottom jeans, British flag T-shirts, Top Guns and Friends of yesteryear, there are also bands which have achieved a 15 minutes of fame that personally, I wish I could take back.

For every time I have to experience the infectious, yet sad representations of music these bands so callously inflict on the public, it makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth. Here are my top ten examples. Note that all boy-band and teeny-bopper chicks are missing. That’s because they don’t even count.

• Blind Melon — As sad as the untimely death of their lead singer, this band represents what hippie bands can achieve in Top 40 if they blatantly rip off a Jerry Garcia riff and turn it into yet another song that can be choreographed by all seven Grateful Dead dances.

• Spin Doctors — Like Blind Melon, this funkified hippie something-or-other features the most lazily written and sung lyrics I’ve ever heard in my life. Their music was such a flash in the pan that even classic rock stations won’t play them any more. The doctor is OUT.

• Los Lonely Boys — The only thing sadder than the “one-hit-wonder” feeling you get every time you hear their one and only single is the fact that festivals around the country (including Riverbend) booked them as a headlining act. Hopefully they didn’t go wild buying mama-en-‘em big houses and Cadillacs because they’re probably about two more royalty checks away from working at the car wash.

• Green Day — That smarmy Billy Joe Armstrong needs to bend over and let Johnny Rotten and Johnny Ramone screw him they same way he took their influence and screwed up punk.  If that’s what you can even call his power-puke drivel.

• Asia — The A&R genius who put this project together is now either the head of a major label or flipping burgers somewhere. “Let’s take four art rock musicians who are masters at their instruments but couldn’t get laid at a Star Trek convention and make them write a bunch of love songs full of seven letter words. That’ll get the high school girls going.” Even geeks were too proud to buy that record.

• Twisted Sister — A pathetic New-York-Dolls-rip-off wanna-be. “We’re Not Gonna Take It”…and neither are we. What else you got? I thought so.

• Damn Yankees —The first time I saw Ted Nugent trying to look cool “rocking out” to the power-ballad “Can You Take Me Higher?,” I took my Wango Tango record out in the yard and smashed it like the fax machine in Office Space.

• Hootie & The Blowfish — The minute they left the college bar the keg went flat. If you listen closely, you can hear at least one band member yawn during each song…or maybe that’s me.

• Pearl Jam — What amazes me about this band is that REAL rock stars like Neil Young and Mick Jagger endorse these guys. Surely they were stoned out of their minds when or if they ever actually sat down and listened to Vedder’s juvenile lyrics and overproduced guitar puke. Where’s the “Jam” part anyway?

• Dave Matthews Band — I know that I am going to catch a lot of flack about this choice, but how can anyone in their right mind tell me that the noises coming out of Dave’s mouth aren’t the most obnoxious-sounding squeaks and yelps a so-called “singer” can produce. NEXT!

And there you have it. The cream of the crap. I’m sure there are more, but these were the first to come to mind. Listen wisely my friends. Don’t believe the hype. If it sounds too bad to be true, it probably is. Sound advice.

Chuck Crowder is a local writer and general man about town. His opinions are just that. Everything expressed is loosely based on fact, and crap he hears people talking about. Take what you just read with a grain of salt, but pepper it in your thoughts. And be sure to check out his popular website www.thenoog.com