(By SPIN staff
writers, Spin magazine, March 22 2012, My take is
in purple.)
We open up the case files to see who's
gotten a bad rap and who's just bad. Now
that Osama bin Laden is dead, America needs new enemies upon whom we can dump
our never-ending supply of scorn and bile. We decided to look at the most
dissed and dismissed artists in pop history, exploring both the causes (racism,
sexism, wicked clownism) and the effects. Some artists caught a raw deal, and
some got off easy (though no attempt at objectivity could overcome the fact
that Kenny G made Namaste India last year). Regardless, all of these
artists were, at one time or another, guilty in the court of public opinion.
You mad, doggie?
30 THE MONKEES
CHARGE AGAINST: Talentless central-casting featherweights
conceived in a boardroom for a cut-rate sitcom version of A Hard Day's Night.
CASE FILES: Legendary cinema mavericks Bob Rafelson and the
late Bert Schneider were still a couple years away from Five Easy Pieces and
Easy Rider when they tried to channel the Beatles' goofy charm into a sitcom,
hiring Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, and lone Brit Davy Jones,
despite the fact that none of the four were particularly accomplished
musicians, much less in a band together. By the time The Monkees debuted in
September 1966, the real Beatles were sprinting madly, not from shrieking fans,
but from the mop-top image the show was aping; they'd stopped playing live, had
an album cover banned due to severed baby heads, and had begun work on Sgt.
Pepper's. This made the Monkees' pop trifles — and their inability to play
instruments — seem all the more trifling by comparison. The opinion still persists,
as they've been denied their rightful place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
for 26 years running.
THE DEFENSE: You know who had no issue with the Prefab Four?
The Fab Four. Nesmith, who parlayed his experience into a career as a
music-video pioneer, befriended the Beatles, and according to the 1986 book
Monkeemania, John Lennon called the Monkees "the greatest comic talent
since the Marx Brothers." Rafelson directed the 1968 pitch-black Monkees
cult classic Head, as self-aware and acerbic as the show was frothy and
oblivious. Over time, the Monkees' insistence on remaining a band long after
they were contractually obligated (and after joyless hippies wished them gone)
made them unlikely punk icons: "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" was
covered by both the Sex Pistols and Minor Threat, without irony. Maybe. STEVE
KANDELL
My Take: The Monkees were a concoction but they had the
good sense to find great songs (Neil Diamond wrote some of their stuff!) and
deliver a fun show.
29 PHIL COLLINS
CHARGE AGAINST: The embodiment of ersatz, a man who unerringly —
and ad nauseam — knew how to tie an annoyingly catchy melody to a cliché-ridden
lyric. And what the fuck is a Sussudio?
CASE FILES: With his slick pop singles and aggressively
inoffensive persona, Collins became the personification of wimpy '80s MOR
radio. Jimmy Page blamed Collins' drumming for Led Zeppelin's lackluster Live
Aid reunion gig in 1985. (To be fair, the guy did take the Concord from London
to Philly to play both shows.) In American Psycho, novelist Bret Easton
Ellis' great icon of "Me Decade" greed, Patrick Bateman, even praised
Collins' single-minded pursuit of the almighty dollar: "Phil Collins' solo
efforts seem to be more commercial, and therefore more narrower, in a satisfying
way." He was last seen on South Park with his Oscar shoved up his ass.
THE DEFENSE: Phil has hip-hop cred! In addition to having his
work sampled by Tupac, DMX, and Nas, folks like Lil' Kim and ODB contributed to
2003's hip-hop/R&B Collins tribute album Urban Renewal. His Bone Thugs
collabo "Home" is just plain dope. And for all the rockist snobs out
there: Collins was the go-to drummer for some of the best solo efforts of
artistically unassailable Brian Eno. And don't think Mike Tyson is the only one
compelled to air-drum along with "In the Air Tonight." DAVID
MARCHESE
My Take: This is why I don’t normally listen to lyrics-
they get in the way of a great sounding song.
Collins knew how to write a melody that stuck with you, as a solo artist
and in Genesis. Listen to “Man On The Corner”, “In the Air Tonight”, “I Don’t Care No More”, and not get swept away
in the sound and atmosphere the songs create.
28 NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK
CHARGE AGAINST: Laboratory-assembled, faux-R&B pin-ups
co-opting the cutest parts of B-boy culture, opening the door for everyone from
Color Me Badd to 98 Degrees.
CASE FILES: From 1986 to 1991, nobody could turn on a radio,
watch Saturday-morning cartoons, or even drink from a damn McDonald's cup without
stumbling upon a piece of New Kids propaganda. Their ubiquity became their
defining characteristic, well beyond their admittedly infectious tunes.
"Blockheads," as devotees were known, were shoved into school lockers
while the rest of the culture kicked in some larger-scale hate: New York's
biggest Top 40 radio station whipped up a Christmas parody, "New Kids Got
Run Over by a Reindeer"; The “Fall of the New Kids” comic book imagined
their demise; and a producer who worked on one of the New Kids' albums accused
them of lip-synching (which they rushed to disprove on the Arsenio Hall Show).
Donnie Wahlberg, continuing to believe he was a viable rapper, led the band
through a reinvention as the grittier, lamer NKOTB.
THE DEFENSE: "You Got It (the Right Stuff)" is
pretty great, made even better by the fact that Jordan Knight was wearing a
Bauhaus T-shirt in the video. The deep bonds forged with their fans in the '80s
paid off in 2008 when the original members reunited for a series of tours that
brought in a boatload of cash. Literally: Their annual cruise has sold out
three years straight. CARYN GANZ
My Take: The songs overall were a bit weak. You could almost see where they were stitched
together by a song writing committee and the 1980’s tropes (synths, drum
machines, no guitars) have not worn well.
My favorite songs was “Step By Step” but I enjoy laughing at the lyrics
almost as much as I like hearing the song.
27 JOHN MAYER
CHARGE AGAINST: Huge d-bag.
CASE FILES: He joked that his dick was racist, but his mouth
used the N-word in Playboy. He broke Taylor Swift's heart. He equated the words
"Jessica Simpson" and "sexual napalm." He wrote a song
called "Your Body Is a Wonderland." He tried his hand at stand-up
comedy. He has a Stevie Ray Vaughan tattoo. He makes dumb faces when he plays
guitar. He broke Jennifer Aniston's heart.
THE DEFENSE: The guy is no stranger to poor judgment, but at
least he's a legit guitarist who isn't afraid to speak his mind (or give his
publicist a heart attack). He dresses up in a bear suit and messes with fans in
the parking lot before his shows. He wore a very revealing, Borat-style thong
to get a laugh. If his songwriting ever catches up to his quick tongue, he
could become a viable voice for good rather than evil. C.G.
My Take: I’m more jealous than I am a Mayer hater. Why does he get to bed and discard some of
the hottest chicks of his generation?
Within his style, he writes good songs but few are things I would ever
listen to more than once.
26 CANDLEBOX
CHARGE AGAINST: Trend-hopping Johnny-come-latelies; the first of
the second-wave grungies to stretch the definition of "alternative"
CASE FILES: At a moment when even the credentials of seasoned
Seattle punk scenesters were up for close inspection, Candlebox didn't stand
much of a chance in the authenticity race. Their sound was grunge-lite — a
safe, wrinkle-free, artificially sweetened classic-rock stand-in that scrubbed
away all the feedback-flecked grime. It also didn't help that after a massive
bidding war — typical of the early '90s — they were the first alt-rock signing
to Maverick, Madonna's fledgling major-label imprint. The tight-knit Seattle
scene made much ado about not knowing who they were: local journos sniped and
Courtney Love perpetuated a rumor that the band was from Los Angeles. Said
bassist Bardi Martin: "Musicians are some of the shittiest, most insecure
people on the planet. It seemed a lot like high school." The attitude
spiraled out nationally, and in the span of three issues in the mid-'90s, SPIN
called them "predictable, compromising grunge metal" and "as likely
to endure as Queensryche."
THE DEFENSE: Though Candlebox clearly were influenced by
pioneering, older-brother-like Seattle bands (see Mark Yarm's recent oral
history of grunge, Everybody Loves Our Town, for an account of lead singer
Kevin Martin warming up his vocal cords to Pearl Jam), they were very simply a
bunch of guys whose timing was good for business but bad for credibility. DAVID
BEVAN
My Take: Who would bother wasting time hating this
band? Life is too short to waste on
insignificant bands.
25 LANA DEL REY
CHARGE AGAINST: Vapid, prefabricated glamourpuss pretends to be
indie rock, reimagines Nancy Sinatra as a preening, Lynchian style zombie.
CASE FILES: Despite absorbing indie rock's love of decaying
footage and swampy reverb, the former Lizzy Grant flaunted a pop personality
guaranteed to irritate punk purists. The Internet embraced her and then
immediately cried that everything was "fake": the name change; the
major-label funding; the (allegedly) augmented lips; the fact that her dad, Rob
Grant, had scored millions as a domain-name prospector, debunking the singer's
claims to simply being the product of a Jersey trailer park. A year of online
LDR-bashing climaxed with the most roundly mocked Saturday Night Live musical
performance in recent memory; it wasn't clear whether Del Rey was petrified or
hypnotized. Twitterers complained that she seemed like a third-tier Kristen
Wiig character, and the following week she became one.
THE DEFENSE: Says our own Jessica Hopper: "The issue with
Lana Del Rey is not whether she is some corporate test-tubed ingénue, but why
we are unwilling to believe that she is animated by her own passion and
ambition — and why that makes a hot girl so unattractive." And the album's
not that bad, honestly. KEITH HARRIS
My Take: She is hot and her songs are exactly as she
promises with her vocal style so what’s to hate? Who cares where someone comes from? If you don’t like her music, it has more to
do with that style of torch/gloomy/noir-ish songs that it does with her personally.
24 THE BLACK EYED PEAS
CHARGE AGAINST: The dumbest pop act in America.
CASE FILES: There was a time when the BEP were conscious
rappers riding the major-label backpack bubble. But after releasing two albums
of benign feel-good rap, the group added Fergie to the mix and started chasing
a mainstream audience with increasingly mindless pop-hop. How mindless? Their
song titles could double as a fourth grader's dis list: "Let's Get
Retarded," "My Humps," "Boom Boom Pow." They started
dressing like actual clowns and dancing awkwardly practically everywhere —
every awards show, every sporting event, every commercial on TV — fueling their
reputation as the ultimate sell-outs. Will.i.am seemed to relish being
annoying: appearing as a hologram on CNN, painting himself black for a VMAs
performance, wearing a tiny slice of metal as a hat, and spewing a ridiculous
theory about music only being successful when it's "put out on
circles."
THE DEFENSE: Will.i.am actually has a master plan: engineering
music to appeal to the most people on the planet. The Peas have extraordinary
international appeal, largely because their nonsensical lyrics mean nothing not
just in English, but in every language. Plus, Will was hip to dance music way
before it permeated every song on Top 40 radio. This is music for the masses.
Turn it up. C.G.
My Take: They are so much fun to watch. Their earnestness overcomes any hatred and
why bother disputing their credibility? They
have none- they just want to please people.
That’s what I want in my entertainers- someone trying to make ME happy,
not themselves. Plus, didn’t you bust a
gut laughing when hearing the lyrics to “My Humps” and “Let’s Get Retarded In Here”?
23 SMASH MOUTH
CHARGE AGAINST: Kindergarten frat party.
CASE FILES: In October of last year, Smash Mouth lead singer
Steve Harwell attempted to eat 24 eggs, prepared by his good pal Guy Fieri, at
a Johnny Garlic's restaurant in a Dublin, California strip mall: And thus
concludes the Smash-Mouthiest sentence ever typed. Yes, the stunt in question
was for a pediatric cancer charity, but this is as succinct a summation of the
band's frosted-tips, wallet-chain appeal as anything a sniveling critic could
conjure. Smash Mouth's breakthrough was 1997's ska-punk butt-nugget Fush Yu
Mang — say it slowly, man — and its ubiquitous, organ-driven lunkhead anthem
"Walkin' on the Sun." But the success of 1999's "All Star"
as a movie-trailer and arena mainstay has kept the band on the shelves long
past their expiration date, as they discovered the formula for coughing up
wheezy, breezy covers ("I'm a Believer," "Why Can't We Be
Friends?") less for fun than for profit. Comedian Neil Hamburger asks,
"What do you get when you put a penny in the asshole of each of the
members of Smash Mouth?" Answer: Nickelback.
THE DEFENSE: AOR covers for kids: Better than ska punk. S.K.
My Take: Pop lightweights. Again, why waste the
time. It’s not like they pretend they
are Bob Dylan.
22 CHRISTOPHER CROSS
CHARGE AGAINST: The Marianas Trench of yacht rock, a beacon of
flaccid sentimentality borne by a gentle cushion of hackneyed studio fluff
sinking what was left of the '70s singer-songwriter model into the quicksand of
1980s radio schlock.
CASE FILES: Is there a more cloying, nut-tickling hit single
than "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)"? (Answer: Yes. James
Blunt's "You're Beautiful." But it's close.) Christopher Cross'
biggest hit, four minutes of high-pitched sap, was ubiquitous in the early
'80s. On the back of his debut album's unavoidable singles "Ride Like the
Wind" and "Sailing," he won five of what are widely regarded as
the most indefensible Grammys ever, while "Arthur" hoisted an Oscar
onto his mantel too. All of which stranded a mediocre talent on a peak where he
didn't belong, wildly overvalued for his modest gifts.
THE DEFENSE: Rather than turn into a bitter jerk unable to
regain his fame, Cross remained pretty grounded, freely admitting that his
"early songs were possibly a little bit simplistic. The ones that did real
well…they're not timeless." IRA ROBBINS
My Take: I really liked “Ride Like The Wind” but then
again, I’m probably the only one who didn't have a dislike for 1970’s and early 1980’s
“soft rock”. Sometimes I want soothing
pop instead of dance pop or EDM. It
nicely fills the niche between ballads, which I generally dislike, and real
rock.
21 DURAN DURAN
CHARGE AGAINST: British neo-colonialist fops whose clunky dance
pop kept funk off '80s radio.
CASE FILES: In the early 1980s, Duran-bashing was the
favorite pastime of insecure, jealous high school dudes (and insecure, jealous
dads) policing the sexual fantasy lives of teenage girls who craved swishy
pretty boys. In Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, author Rob Sheffield says
the band inspired the most venomous arguments around his high school cafeteria
tables. But even to hard-core music fans, they often seemed like a blight: At a
time when George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" was struggling for airplay,
radio programmers insisted that young Americans dance to these limp Brits, who,
to make matters worse, had shouldered past more interesting new-wave countrymen
like ABC and the Psychedelic Furs on their way across the Atlantic. Said Robert
Christgau: "These imperialist wimps are the most deplorable pop stars of
the post-punk if not post-Presley era."
THE DEFENSE: The '60s generation can keep "Like a Rolling
Stone." Our text is poptimism, cool synth sounds, and "Save a
Prayer," and we're not apologizing for it. K.H.
My Take: They were/are awesome, especially the
videos. I enjoyed them (“Planet Earth”,
“Girls On Film”, “Rio”) immensely and then they became a guilty pleasure
(during the “The Reflex” era) and then a great launching pad for my favorite
Taylor (Andy) who went on to co-create the incredible Power Station and their 2nd
comeback album (Astronaut). The only
time I hated them is when they did the worst James Bond theme ever- "A View To A
Kill"- although it was fitting since that is also the worst Bond movie ever. George Clinton’s "Atomic Dog" should have been
a big hit but that is not Duran Duran’s fault- clueless DJ’s and radio
audiences are to blame for that.
20 THE OSMONDS
CHARGE AGAINST: Impossibly wholesome Mormon choirboys out to
reassure square America that entertainment could be as trivial as ever.
CASE FILES: Mike Curb, the Reagan crony who dropped the
Velvet Underground from Verve for singing about hard drugs, recast the Jackson
5 as a quintet of squeaky-clean white siblings and hoisted them to stardom with
the shameless J5 soundalike "One Bad Apple." Later, starring in a
variety show with his sister Marie, Donny would insist every week that he was
"a little bit rock'n'roll," helping reduce the legacy of '50s
nostalgia to cloying camp as surely as Grease or Happy Days' Fonzie (who Osmond
also impersonated on TV, as "the Donz"). Writes Osmond in his
autobiography, "I have been made painfully aware that my so-called 'teen
idol' career is considered by a persistent, vocal minority as a blight on the
history of rock....One rock magazine proclaimed my birthday one of the darkest
days in rock history; another found my parents remiss for neglecting to drown
me. You know, some people just take this all way too seriously." In the
spirit of not taking his reputation too seriously, Weird Al Yankovic called
Donny in for a cameo in his "White & Nerdy" video because, he
says, "if you have to have a white and nerdy icon in your video, like, who
else do you go for?"
THE DEFENSE: Sure, the Osmonds ripped off Motown songs, but so
did Motown half the time. Plus, Hanson fans should pretend "Yo Yo" is
the B-side of the "MMMBop" cassingle they never bothered to flip. K.H.
My Take: Mostly before my time although I did watch
their show and wanted a pair of purple socks as a result.
19 LAWRENCE WELK
CHARGE AGAINST: Fighting against change in the 1960s, stiffly
genial representative of the far end of the generation gap existed only to give
great-grandparents a reason to live.
CASE FILES: Like other old-timers wielding media power a
half-century ago, Welk ignored (if not hated) rock'n'roll, clinging to old
standbys, watering down the occasional contemporary hit, and reassuring the
audience of his weekly TV show (imagine a cast of singing and swinging Stepford
Wives) that their anti-youth enmity was well-placed. Those who were young in
the '60s and '70s recall excruciating Saturday-evening Welk-watching at an
elderly relative's house. A few weeks after Woodstock, Welk donned hippie garb
and introduced a rock band called the Babbling Baboons to frighten his fans
into thinking he'd gone over to the other side. His real impact, however, was
to sell easy-listening music to millions of fogies, thereby preparing the world
for the twin horrors of modern Republicanism and smooth jazz. Nearly 30 years
after Welk went off the air, Fred Armisen is still making fun of him on
Saturday Night Live.
THE DEFENSE: Welk did allow one rock group on his show. On May
18, 1963, the Chantays — looking like a quintet auditioning for the zombie
dance squad at Disney World — cranked up the reverb and performed their
surf-instrumental hit "Pipeline." I.R.
My Take: Definitely before my time. No opinion here.
18 KC AND THE SUNSHINE BAND
CHARGE AGAINST: Disco group that embodied every monotonous,
escapist, indulgent thing that haters hated about the genre; still too flimsy
and superficial to satisfy the core constituency.
CASE FILES: The disco backlash didn't exactly single out
individual artists, instead painting them all with the same brush of racial,
sexual, and cultural intolerance, reaching an antagonistic climax in 1979 at
the "Disco Demolition" event in Chicago's Comiskey Park. But beyond
the angry townspeople carrying "Disco Sucks" signs in the mid-'70s,
songs like "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" were numbing to
even the dance-floor faithful, thanks to their repetition and aggressively
D-U-M-B lyrics. Like the title of "That's the Way (I Like It)"? Hope
so, since it's sung 20 times in three minutes. In 2001, the baseball executive
behind Disco Demolition issued a public apology to Harry Wayne "KC"
Casey himself, who stood in as the music's general representative. He accepted,
saying: "It wasn't a very nice thing to do. It was a direct hit on myself
and other artists who did that for a living. I didn't bash his baseball
team."
THE DEFENSE: The band could do a lot better than its biggest
hits, and even those have gained the warm glow of nostalgic familiarity. Also
Casey cowrote the lovable "Rock Your Baby" for George McCrae. I.R.
My Take: the second best disco-era act, behind the Bee
Gees. The songs are not meant to be
enjoyed for the lyrics. They are
masterpieces of pummeling beats and massive layers of sound. The lyrics are just something you hum along with
while dancing yourself into a frenzied trance.
17 BARRY MANILOW
CHARGE AGAINST: The unbearable catchiness of the TV commercial
jingle with the show-tune banality of a Las Vegas revue .
CASE FILES: Snobs always have sneered that pop songs are just
jingles putting on airs. Former adman Barry Manilow, the guy responsible for
"Like a good neighbor / State Farm is there" and "I am stuck on
Band-Aid / 'Cause Band-Aid's stuck on me" couldn't have done more to
support their argument if he'd tried. Though sometimes merely insipid
("Mandy") or tasteless (the glitzy disco cash-in
"Copacabana"), at his worst ("Looks Like We Made It,"
"I Write the Songs") Manilow embodied the sort of hollow Vegas
bombast that only the emptiest souls manage to survive undamaged. Observed Bill
Hicks, dejectedly: "We live in a world where John Lennon was murdered, yet
Barry Manilow continues to put out fucking albums." And even his fans
can't handle it: In 1997, an Arizona man sued the singer, claiming that a 1993
Manilow concert had damaged his hearing.
THE DEFENSE: Manilow not only got his start as Bette Midler's
pianist back when she was playing New York's gay bathhouses—he coproduced and
performed on her earliest (and best) albums. K.H.
My Take: Some good mid-tempo songwriting and
performing. If you don’t like the songs,
you don’t like this style because the songs were flawlessly executed.
16 WINGER
CHARGE AGAINST: Prettiest of the pretty-boy hair-metal softies
CASE FILES: Winger's CV really was no different from that of
any other high-gloss rock band who adopted Aqua Net and spandex drag by 1988,
and their hit single "Seventeen" was a harmless-enough rumination on
statutory rape. But the band became emblematic of poodle rock's cookie-cutter
hit-making and pre-grunge death throes, enmity due in no small part to
singer-bassist Kip Winger's cheekbones, shirtless photo shoots, and, really,
his name. They were immortalized as the ultimate signifier of uncool when Mike
Judge had Stuart, the dweeby neighbor kid on Beavis and Butt-Head, always wear
a Winger shirt. "We had a character devoted to us who they hung by his
underwear in almost every episode," guitarist Reb Beach lamented in 2007.
THE DEFENSE: Singling out Winger for crimes against taste
seems arbitrary, and the band's legacy ultimately feels like more of a
testament to the power of Beavis' withering asides than any distinctive
shittiness. Despite rumors that Winger himself wasn't pleased about becoming
the perfectly chiseled face of a fading genre, the classically trained ex–Alice
Cooper sideman has a sense of humor about it now. "The record took off,
and it was like, 'What do we wear?'" he told SPIN in 2007. "So we
turn on MTV and decide to dress up like Whitesnake. When you're a kid, you want
to dress up like that; you want to lose yourself in fantasyland." S.K.
My Take: Why bother hating a one-hit wonder?
15 PUFF DADDY
CHARGE AGAINST: Shiny-suited huckster milking the unquenchable
greed of the Jiggy era.
CASE FILES: Like Suge Knight notoriously explained, Puffy was
the "executive producer all in the videos, all on the
records…dancing," i.e., ostensibly a backstage figure who clearly wanted
more attention for himself than the artists he was promoting. He would ultimately
get it through wanton appropriation of enormous chunks of the Police, Led
Zeppelin, and David Bowie: A karaoke-rap style that was sacrilege to rock fans
and just plain hackwork to hip-hop heads. His champagne-pouring,
speedboat-driving, Jacuzzi-soaking antics were essentially the reason people
started paying attention to indie-rap labels such as Rawkus. Also, no one likes
a guy who forces you to call him by his self-imposed nickname.
THE DEFENSE: "What's the 411?," "Flava in Ya
Ear," "Juicy," "Hypnotize," "Fucking You
Tonight," "Victory," "It's All About the Benjamins,"
"Feels So Good," "Dead Wrong," "That's Gangsta,"
"Bad Boy for Life," "Let's Get It," "Special
Delivery," "Roc Boys (and the Winner Is)...," "Ass on the
Floor"…. CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN
My Take: A master rip-off artist. Every big songs of his was built on someone
else’s work. He stole from the best but
that doesn’t make him good, except as a producer and businessman. He sucks as an artist. And pick a name already.
14 BILLY RAY CYRUS
CHARGE AGAINST: Singing mullethead who ratifies Garth Brooks'
deliverance of Nashville to pop's promised land.
CASE FILES: Yankovic wrote a whole song about how annoying
this guy is, and Bill Hicks used to openly fantasize about a TV show called
Let's Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus. At the time, it would have been worth
watching. Some Gave All, his cloddish, seven-million-selling 1992 debut,
borrowed enough from Jimmy Buffett, Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, and John
Mellencamp to indoctrinate a huge audience into country's new style-blurring
ways. Whether they admit it or not, some of the manly truck-driving hat models
who currently fill the country charts owe Cyrus a debt. So does someone else.
After his fleeting musical moment, Cyrus became a TV actor, but his
not-exactly-talented teen daughter Miley dwarfed his success.
THE DEFENSE: He was friendly with Kurt Cobain! That's more
than you can say about Axl. I.R.
My Take: Again, why hate a one-hit wonder.
13 JOURNEY
CHARGE AGAINST: The nadir of studio-buffed, soulless, corporate
AOR.
CASE FILES: Even more than the robot-obsessed Styx, Journey
were never interested in appearing remotely human: Steve Perry's weirdly
androgynous, stratospheric vocals; Neil Schon's pristine guitar sound; and
those electric blue scarabs bursting into outer space on their album sleeves
(Lester Bangs put "Any Journey cover" at No. 7 on his list of the ten
worst LP covers ever). Indeed, when they morphed from a hippie-ish Santana
offshoot to a steely hit machine, critic Dave Marsh wrote that the band
"was a dead end for San Francisco area rock." By comparison, other
corporate-rock goofballs acts (Foreigner, Toto, and REO Speedwagon) seemed
warmly nuanced.
THE DEFENSE: Time has shown "Don't Stop Believin'"
to be a cross-demographic cultural touchstone. The song was used in the last
shot of The Sopranos, was the showstopper in the Broadway hit Rock of Ages, and
became a rallying cry for the Detroit Red Wings, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles
Dodgers, and San Francisco Giants. Perry even appeared in the Giants' victory
parade after the team won the 2010 World Series. Honestly, don't you sing along
when it comes up at karaoke? D.M.
My Take: Masters in production and craft, just like
Styx.
12 MICHAEL BOLTON
CHARGE AGAINST: Perma-frizzed goon constantly melting down Motown
and Stax 45s for lukewarm easy-listening spa treatments.
CASE FILES: There isn't a song this guy can't soften into a
flavorless, gray paste. Combine that with Bolton's general ubiquity (more than
50 million records sold!), and he's simply fated to be one of the easiest punch
lines available. In the cult flick Office Space, no destiny was crueler than
being software programmer "Michael Bolton," who shared his name with
"that no-talent ass clown." Conan O'Brien has been working him into
his monologue for years, and Dave Attell once said, "I listened to a
Michael Bolton tape and I got my period." Even the softball throwers on
Whose Line Is It Anyway? do Bolton bits. Hell, we'd make fun of him a little in
this paragraph, but, honestly, it seems pretty hacky.
THE DEFENSE: Bolton's teaming with the Lonely Island for the
gently self-mocking "Jack Sparrow" received the first Grammy
nomination he actually deserved. C.W.
My Take: Since I hate ballads, I can’t defend Bolton.
11 NICKELBACK
CHARGE AGAINST: Jock-rock oafs.
CASE FILES: After lucking out with "How You Remind
Me," maybe the catchiest song Candlebox never recorded, these dunderheaded
Canucks showed their true colors with the repulsive "Figured You Out"
("I like the dirt that's on your knees / And I like the way you still say
please"). In a long decade of peeved grunts that followed, they slowly
moved from Nerf Neanderthals to formulaic flyover jammers, representing
everything arrogantly gluttonous about post-Creed modern rock: pristine Mutt
Lange production, immaculately styled hair, collabos with at least two American
Idol losers, and even more entitled songs about blowjobs. America fought back
online. One careful listener posted audio of "How You Remind Me" and
2003 single "Someday" playing simultaneously as scientific proof that
this band writes music like they're filling out Mad Libs. The Facebook page
"Can this pickle get more fans than Nickelback?" received an
affirmative. Our nation's true, pathetic answer to the Arab Spring was the
much-supported (if ultimately failed) petition to prevent the band from playing
the halftime show at the Detroit Lions' 2011 Thanksgiving Day game. Said Black
Keys' Patrick Carney in an interview: "Rock'n'roll is dying because people
became okay with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world."
THE DEFENSE: It takes a special kind of rock star to write a
song as hilariously self-aware as "Rockstar," and these dudes do it
while being more famous than Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show ever were. K.H
My Take: Not worth paying attention to, like
Creed. They are the Grand Funk Railroad
of their generation.
10 YOKO ONO
CHARGE AGAINST: A screeching, incomprehensible boho who broke up
the Beatles.
CASE FILES: Even her most ardent admirers would admit that
Ono's penchant for warbling, exploratory vocal workouts is tough sledding. Her
singing is the kind of thing that makes people think conceptual artists are
hucksters without much natural talent and, worse, willing to drag others down
to their level. That stance was aired out in a classic episode of The Simpsons
in which a Yoko-like avant-gardist forces Barney's Lennon figure into
perplexing experiments. As recently as 1999, a BBC documentary about Ono
featured the British art critic Brian Sewell arguing that "she's shaped
nothing, she's contributed nothing....If she had not been the widow of Lennon,
she would be totally forgotten by now."
THE DEFENSE: Only people struck with (the vaguely sexist and
racist) hysterical, Beatles-post-breakup deafness could fail to understand that
Ono is one of the most forward-thinking artists of our time. Over a massively
influential 40-year recording career, she has proven herself a giant of
downtown minimalism (all the greats played her loft), a skilled pop poet
("Listen, the Snow Is Falling," her half of Double Fantasy), an
ever-searching sound radical ("AOS," which featured Ornette Coleman),
and even a modern club-queen (her 2011 dance hit "Move On Fast"). D.M.
My Take: Her crimes are many but the music is only
about fourth on the list.
9 PAT BOONE
CHARGE AGAINST: : Wholesome as a glass of milk, smooth as a
laxative, happily shouldered the white man's burden of ruining the songs of
black artists for "mainstream" audience acceptance.
CASE FILES: Boone's lazy swims through Fats Domino's
"Ain't That a Shame," Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally,"
and Joe Turner's "Chains of Love" diluted and drained every last
trace of life (or, more accurately, sex) out of the songs. Not surprisingly,
his soul-free renditions outsold the originals, taking money out of their
creators' pockets and impeding the spread of innovative music. Pat later passed
his sanitized baton to daughter Debby, whose "You Light Up My Life"
spent ten weeks at No. 1 just as the punk era hit its stride. Boone the elder
finally capped his culture crimes with the absurd 1997 album In a Metal Mood:
No More Mr. Nice Guy, containing tongue-in-cheek big-band renditions of
"Paradise City," "Enter Sandman," and other hard-rock
numbers. These days, the genial 77-year-old supports the Tea Party, believes
Obama is an alien, and has likened liberals to cancer.
THE DEFENSE: In spite of it all, there are genuine
rock'n'rollers who don't hate him. DJ Fontana, Elvis Presley's original
drummer, believes Boone belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and reckons
his boss would too. "They were friends," he told Roctober magazine.
"I think [Elvis] recognized Pat's talent for what he was doing." I.R.
My Take: Yeah, he’s a joke. I agree here.
8 MATCHBOX TWENTY
CHARGE AGAINST: Floridian FM wangos feasting off '90s grunge
leftovers, ushering in a deeper morass of toothless, modern "adult
alternative."
CASE FILES: Matchbox Twenty's Rob Thomas (a shorthair, it
should be said) offered a neutered take on Eddie Vedder's marble-mouthed
mewling, but kept his lyric book clean of any wild-eyed abstractions or
chest-beating psychodrama. In turn, his band's hookless, faceless brand of
alt-gone-soft-rock was every bit as portentous and plodding as grunge at its
worst. Critics massacred the band (Quoth the NME: "Musically, this is the
sound of middle America at its most ugly and nauseating"), ultimately
prompting Thomas to tell CNN: "I say, if you're going to bash us, just be
clever." Prior to their 1998 SPIN cover (sorry!), MTV sent a camera crew
to a Matchbox Twenty show to ask audience members to name the band's members.
The network would later air a montage of puzzled expressions. Thomas' star
would rise even higher with "Smooth," the inescapable Grammy-winning
collaboration/abomination with Carlos Santana.
THE DEFENSE: Matchbox Twenty never sought to project an image
any different from what they actually were. Thomas, in particular, made light
of the fact that they were punching bags, appearing on an episode of It's
Always Sunny in Philadelphia and hilariously calling their latest album Exile
on Mainstream. D.B.
My Take: Yawn.
7 EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER
CHARGE AGAINST: Hollow virtuosos who took prog rock to its ill,
logical extreme.
CASE FILES: In addition to dressing like medieval gentry, ELP
incurred charges of self-important muso-mania via countless pompous gestures:
unending solos, the Freudianly oversize kit of drummer Carl Palmer, the
spaceship-sized keyboard rig of Keith Emerson, the haughty ballads of bassist
Greg Lake, and snooty interpretations of works from the "high art"
canon. Desirous of a solo-larded, electric version of Mussorgsky's
"Pictures from an Exhibition"? Look no further! Want the most
accurately titled album in history? Might we direct you to 1974's triple-LP
Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends? Not for nothing, a common
joke of the era suggested that "pretentious" was spelled
"E-L-P."
THE DEFENSE: There's not exactly a world of difference between
the time-signature intensity of ELP and, say, the rhythmic assault of Battles.
Additionally, Lake's gentle, humble "I Believe in Father Christmas"
is one of the few holiday rock songs worth humming sincerely. And the H.R.
Giger–designed skeleton-queen cover for 1973's Brain Salad Surgery is
undeniably fucking awesome. D.M.
My Take: If you like prog-rock, why wouldn’t you like
them. Are they any worse than Yes or
King Crimson?
6 VANILLA ICE
CHARGE AGAINST: Shiny-suited white interloper hell-bent on
watering down and commercializing the greatest African-American invention since
peanut butter.
CASE FILES: For a while it seemed like dude would do anything
to cross over: Lying about where he grew up, clumsily parroting hip-hop slang,
borrowing African American fraternity chants for his hooks, trying to pass off
a one-note difference in a sample as thrilling and unique songcraft, and of
course, dancing around in a sequined American flag suit. It clearly worked, as
To the Extreme ended up selling 15 million copies worldwide, but the hip-hop
nation was not exactly excited to be represented by Pat Boone in a streaked
pompadour. Some choice disses came from Del ("Dance all day, while I'm
pissin' on your steps"); Tim Dog ("Rap is nothing you can put in a
movie with a bunch of turtles!"); Kid 'N Play ("The brothers always
boo you, and we know it hurts"), and even fellow honkies 3rd Bass, who
performed a baseball-bat beatdown on a Vanilla imposter (played by Henry
Rollins) in their "Pop Goes the Weasel" video.
THE DEFENSE: After his weird VHS-smashing quasi-meltdown on
MTV's 25 Lame in 1999, Vanilla has maintained a pretty decent sense of humor
about everything: appearing in viral videos playing indie-rock covers and
clowning around on countless reality TV shows (including Celebrity Bull Riding
Challenge). Also, as sample-ganking pop-rap goes, we'll take "Ice Ice
Baby" over anything Flo Rida does. C.W.
My Take: Another sample stealer. I have no respect for him at all.
5 INSANE CLOWN POSSE
CHARGE AGAINST: A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer
down society's pants
CASE FILES: They call themselves the "Most Hated Band in
the World," and it ain't for nothing: As of last year, the FBI officially
considers their fanbase a "gang" worth monitoring. In 1998, a
notorious SPIN comic strip compared their act to blackface minstrelsy. Blender
dubbed them the "Worst Artists in Music History" while also
describing them as "two trailer-trash types," personifying a
pervasive and unconcealed classism that haunts almost all criticism of the
group. Their "Miracles" video was a laugh-and-point Internet meme,
and The Guardian called them "a magnet for ignorance." Okay, guys, we
get it, you went to college.
THE DEFENSE: Recent collaborator Jack White knows what's up: If
you can't laugh and bounce along to high-spirited knuckleheadery like
"Fuck the World," you have an enormous stick up your ass. Their music
gets more irresistible as it gets more melodic; 2009's soda-sweet popfest Bang!
Pow! Boom! was easily their career best. Plus, these dudes are serious rap
heads who are constantly giving pioneers paychecks to perform at their annual
Gathering: E-40, DJ Quik, Paris, Scarface, Above the Law, Kurupt, Digital
Underground, and Dayton Family have all made the trek into the craggy woods of
Illinois. Stroke your goatee to the Shins at Bonnaroo; we'll be lighting
fireworks and spraying Faygo in the forest. Whoop whoop! C.W.
My Take: From what I’ve heard, the music sucks and I
always hated the makeup (Kiss rip-offs) and the attitude.
4 CREED
CHARGE AGAINST: Watered-down grunge as a platform for messianic
egomania; Nickelback before there was a Nickelback
CASE FILES: These ham-fisted ding-dongs represented the grim
nadir of post-grunge's third wave: Somehow, everything about their music
offended. Philadelphia Weekly even went so far as to run a 2002 cover story
with the all-caps headline "WHY CREED SUCKS," and the
authenticity-obsessed argument that "Creed — and their torpid,
halftime-playing, self-congratulatory type — are a cancer on the most beautiful
thing God ever gave us in the 20th century: rock'n'roll." To make it
worse, frontdouche Scott Stapp couldn't keep from shaming himself: He brawled
with 311 in a Baltimore hotel, was rumored to have been punked by college kids
while trawling for groupies at a Florida Denny's, and found himself at the
center of a (Kid Rock–enriched!) sex-tape scandal in which he allegedly sighed,
"It's good to be king." Creed's moment in the sun is when the trail
blazed by Nirvana eventually dead-ended, a place where antiseptic,
quasi-religious, self-serious bombast assumed all the rock clichés that grunge
was meant to usurp.
THE DEFENSE: If we close our eyes, we can pretend the
particularly melodic opening 12 seconds of "Higher" is really Candlebox.
D.B.
3 KENNY G
CHARGE AGAINST: Making elevators seem safe since 1982.
CASE FILES: While the tenor sax honks with a satisfying
bellow and altos wail out the depths of humanity, soprano sax — an essential
tool in the easy-listening lexicon — is at once soothing and irritating, like a
bath in boiling honey. Kenny G is the man with the tubular bell. Over the
course of some 20 soporific albums, he's eased his way through virtually every
Christmas song and movie ballad you'd care to name. The Seattle native took the
liberty of dubbing himself on top of an old Louis Armstrong record and releasing
the resulting "collaboration." That got people out of their
recliners: Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny called it "unbelievably
pretentious" and "cynical," and attacked the saxophonist's
playing as "lame-ass, jive, pseudo-bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped-out,"
and "fucked-up."
THE DEFENSE: Sorry, the only plea here is nolo contendere.
Nobody who makes such worthless, repugnant, soft-serve music should be so
monumentally arrogant. The guy's not even in Sting's league, but how's this for
tone-deaf twattiness? "I've always thought it would be fun to do classical
music, but I wouldn't want to do a famous classical piece. I'd want to write a
piece of music that sounds like a classical song, but is my own
composition." A Foster the People co-sign ain't helping. I.R.
2 LIMP BIZKIT
CHARGE AGAINST: Soul-patch minstrel show, a hissing valve for
pointless Cro-Magnon boy-rage, the 'roided-out Altamont stabbing of the '90s
alterna-dream.
CASE FILES: Their macho, crowd-surfing, dunderfuck Woodstock
'99 hulk-out session coincided with wanton property destruction and multiple
sexual assaults, and Limp Bizkit were subsequently seen as single-handedly
destroying all the hard work that alternatypes like Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails
did creating a more sensitive space for heavy music. To wit, Reznor remarked,
"Let Fred Durst surf a piece of plywood up my ass," and Courtney Love
said, "He brought about the worst years in rock history." The list of
dipshittery Durst involved himself in throughout the following decade seemed to
have no end: Haplessly covering the Who, leaking a sex tape ("Touch my
balls and my ass," he instructed), and proving his indie bona fides via
Cobain chest tattoo. A Metallica crowd in Chicago rained a hailstorm of water
bottles and coins on the band and chanted "Fuck Fred Durst." Also
thank him for getting Staind and Puddle of Mudd record deals.
THE DEFENSE: Wes Borland is a tip-tapping Zornophile whose
talents may be put to better use eventually. DJ Lethal has permanent immunity
because he was in House of Pain. John Otto and Sam Rivers were a leaden rhythm
section, but could hold down a groove. One of these things is not like the
other. C.W.
My Take: I liked a little of the rap-rock from this era
(but very little) but wasn’t a fan of Limp Bizkit.
1 MILLI VANILLI
CHARGE AGAINST: Didn't even sing their fucking songs.
CASE FILES: The wizard's curtain was pulled back thanks to a
skipping backing track, and it quickly became apparent that wiggling bike-short
advertisements Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus were lip-synching on stage — you
know, just like dance stars have been doing since time immemorial? But the real
hammer blow came when it was revealed that the Teutonic twosome hadn't sung as
much as a syllable on their chart-topping multiplatinum album Girl You Know
It's True. Grammys were rescinded, records were taken out of print,
class-action consumer lawsuits brought, and shock feigned over how pop-star
sausage gets made. Milli Vanilli were never exactly loved to begin with —
Rolling Stone named them the Worst Band of 1989 before the fallout — but the
controversy made arguments about "authenticity" fly around like their
luxurious dreadlocks. Pilatus died in 1998. "The press says Rob died of an
overdose," Morvan commented. "I say no, he died of a broken
heart."
THE DEFENSE: As Morvan gives more interviews, it becomes increasingly apparent that Milli Vanilli were just some good-looking, eager, broke kids who signed their lives away into a Draconian contract, remaining forever trapped in the cold gears of music-industry machinery. "We're victims," said Pilatus in 1990, "and we're portrayed as crooks." C.W.
My Take: Who cares who did the singing? The songs were excellent, thanks to Diane
Warren. If you liked the band because of
their looks or who did the actual singing then you didn’t care about the songs
which means it wasn’t about the music.
Did you really believe in the integrity of Milli Vanilli because you
identified with the lyrics of “Blame It On The Rain” or “Girl You Know It’s
True”? That’s a sadder statement than
any that Rob and Fab ever made.
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