Blender's 50 Worst Things To Happen In Music

False fire alarms... again! At least this was in the afternoon when everyone's up, including me. :P (now, where are my keys?!)

Well, I said I'd do this when I had the time, and that time is now. Next up: 50 Awesomely Dead Rock Stars.

Blender's 50 Worst Things To Happen In Music


50. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: Has any record's influence upon music proved so malignant? Concept albums, progressive rock, Brian Wilson's nervous breakdown, baby boomers yammering away about the Summer of Love, musicians taking themselves more seriously than cancer surgeons -- all the Beatles' fault. And is there anyone alive who hasn't suffered a collapse of the will to live during When I'm Sixty-Four?




49. The Dude That Yells "Freebird!" At Every Concert

48. Hip-Hop Skits: Smart rap fans know the drill: As soon as you burn a new album, instantly delete any track that's under a minute long. It's the best way to avoid the stupid banter, fake sound effects and unfunny phone calls that bog down 95 percent of all hip-hop albums. Except Snoop's Deeez Nuuuts bit -- that's classic.

47. Slash Quits Guns N'Roses: Paradise City officially became uninhabitable in 1996 when Slash walked out on Axl Rose, shattering one of the best, most rewardingly volatile relationships in rock history. Not only did the split force us to endure Slash's Snakepit, but Guns n' Roses became forever an ego-tripping punch line, with Axl -- stubborn ex that he is -- running through multiple replacements (including Howard Stern look-a-like Buckethead) in a vain attempt to prove he doesn't need his old partner.




46. Decency: In 1967, the Rolling Stones were forced to change the lyrics of a not particularly salacious song to protect the tender sensibilities of the American television-viewing public. Thirty-nine years and one stray Super Bowl breast later, the Rolling Stones are forced to change the lyrics of a not particularly salacious song to protect the tender sensibilities of the American television-viewing public. Viva progress!


What You Didn't See On TV

1957: The Ed Sullivan Show censors solve the problem of Elvis Presley's pesky pelvis by filming rock's new king from his waist up.
1967: Jim Morrison ignores instructions and sings "girl, we couldn't get much higher" live. The Doors are never invited back to Ed Sullivan's "big show."
1989: Pepsi pulls its Madonna commercial after religious groups object to her bleeding-palms Like a Prayer video.
2005: Nine Inch Nails pull out of the MTV Movie Awards after the network objects to the use of a giant photo of President Bush as a backdrop for their performance of The Hand That Feeds.
2006: Oscar nominees Three 6 Mafia are forced to change the word "bitches" to "witches" in their performance at the 2006 Academy Awards. They win!


45. Rootkits: In its desperation to make its new releases piracy-proof, Sony Music also managed to make them privacy-proof. The label was busted last year for releasing CDs with copy-protection software built in that, when played in PCs, could send data from your computer to the record company.

44. Rock Poets: Memo to aspiring rock stars: Lyrics do not constitute poetry. Neither do pedestrian observations your life coach thinks are profound. And despite what Jim Morrison seemed to believe, disturbed Freudian ramblings you howl while waving your d**k around onstage are also, alas, not poetry. Please "cc" Jewel, Billy Corgan, and Jeff Tweedy on this memo.

Five Poetic Injustices

The way you treat me / Takes me to another place / I want to wrap my arms around you / And gently kiss your face -- Ashanti, Foolish / Unfoolish: Reflections on Love

We Say: She wrote this in high school?

How my belly hollows and aches / Craving seed -- Jewel, A Night Without Armor

We Say: Ewwww!

And sometimes ... I cry / And no one cares why -- Tupac Shakur, The Rose That Grew From Concrete

We Say: Did he know Ashanti?

The gift of spit in his face / The omega, starting, to rust -- Jim Morrison, An American Prayer and The Lords and the New 27 Creatures

We Say: HUH???

At the bottom of my hole lies a soul so cold / Collecting aqua blue marigold -- Billy Corgan, Blinking With Fists

We Say: Stop whining and get the Pumpkins back together.


43. Fake Non-Lesbians: Don't get us wrong -- we love lesbians. Just so long as they're not playing music. From Melissa Etheridge to the Indigo Girls, real-life Sapphic rock stars are to blame for some truly awful trends: earnest coffeehouse confessionalism, the Lilith Fair, flannel. Now t.A.T.u., on the other hand...




42. Scott Stapp: Although he's rehabilitated his image in recent years by becoming an incorrigible drunk and trying to beat up 311, there's no getting around the music. The fourth-generation grunge he's peddled solo and with Creed might be harmless if it weren't swathed in quasi-religious pomposity and delivered with an arrogance that -- in light of his musical, er, gifts -- feels downright delusional.

Scott Stapp's Top Meltdowns (aka his best "Dammit, I'm not a Christian rocker!" moments)

February 2001: Threatens to beat the "ass" of a man outside a Florida tattoo parlor.
April 2001: Punches a Florida nightclubber who told him he "should have stuck with Pearl Jam."
July 2002: Runs his SUV off the road and is charged with reckless driving -- Creed cancels tour, and Stapp gets no Volvo endorsement deals.
December 2002: Wasted onstage at a Chicago Creed concert, he is unable to sing or even stand. Fans file a $2 million class-action lawsuit.
November 2005: Sucker-punches 311's Chad Sexton in a Baltimore bar on Thanksgiving.
February 2006: Deemed too drunk to board a plane, he's arrested at LAX for public intoxication en route to his Hawaiian honeymoon.
February 2006: Claims there's a conspiracy to destroy his solo career after his sex tape leaks.


41. Melisma: It's a fact: Words like "girl" and "baby" do not have 25 syllables. But thanks to that R&B-spawned, Idol-promulgated school of vocal histrionics -- wherein one overdoes gospel ululations like Whitney Houston with a noseful -- neither the shortest word nor sweetest melody can go unmolested by a uvula-spazzing "showstopper."




40. Parrotheads: For millions, Jimmy Buffett isn't just a guy who writes songs about putzing around the Caribbean -- he's a shining symbol of the "good life." That so few of them will get any closer to this life than hanging out in a dank bar called the Banana Boat, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, sipping a frozen daiquiri and waiting for their turn to karaoke Margaritaville is monumentally depressing.

39. AIDS: Although it was responsible for many deaths (Freddie Mercury and Eazy-E among them) and inspired one of the most insipid hits of the past three decades (That's What Friends Are For), the most significant musical damage done by the AIDS virus came with the subsequent demonization of sex and drugs, two ingredients without which rock & roll becomes practically pointless -- if not impossible.




38. Sting

37. Gilbert O'Sullivan: In suing Biz Markie for sampling Alone Again (Naturally) in his 1991 song Alone Again, this '70s British novelty twerp had a chilling effect on hip-hop's most basic musical technique, establishing a legal precedent for litigious, hip-hop-ignorant tight-asses. The Biz's follow-up album: All Samples Cleared!

36. Sean Combs is... Puff Daddy... is P. Diddy...


35. Van Halen Fires David Lee Roth

34. Van Halen Hires Sammy Hagar

33. Van Halen Fires Sammy Hagar

32. Van Halen Hires Gary Cherone?

31. Jazz Fusion: It's a rule of thumb that any music that uses "jazz" as a prefix will make you want to saw your head off from boredom (see also: jazz funk, jazz rap, jazz house). But none is as wearying as the genre that thought what rock really needed was monthlong bass solos and time signatures even Stephen Hawking wouldn't understand.

30. Braided Goatees: It seems so natural. Just grow those chin whiskers out a foot, part in the middle, and weave pube-like braids! Tragically, resultant blood loss to the brain knocks 80 points off your IQ, resulting in guttural vocals and misspelled band names.




29. Popera Soaring key changes! 53-year-old groupies! Incessant use of the word amore!




28. Disappearance of Indie Record Shops: Sure, the big-chain megamarts save you a few dollars. But do their employees know you by name? Will they hook you up with unexpected new imports? Will they ridicule you when you mispronounce Sufjan Stevens' name? For music geeks, losing the mom-and-pop stores is like losing a musty, nerd-filled home away from home.

27. Jukebox Musicals: Why is crowbarring classic rock songs into a play with a "plot" apparently written on the back of a matchbook so detestable? Not just because the results are creaky and insulting -- the Queen-themed We Will Rock You -- but also because they reveal that the rock stars involved don't care about art, only money. And, despite recent high-profile flops -- Lennon, Good Vibrations -- there's no end in sight. Coming soon: My Humps: The Musical!

26. Adam Duritz's Dreadlocks

25. Tribute Albums: Don't die. If you do, a dozen artists who ripped off all your ideas while you were alive (and one of whom will almost certainly be Sheryl Crow) will record overly reverent, roundly uninspired versions of your songs for a tribute album. This album will be ignored and / or quickly forgotten, or will spur a revival in your music that you won't be around to enjoy and profit from.


Sheryl Crow showed up on all these tribute albums:

Encomium: Tribute to Led Zeppelin
If I Were a Carpenter (The Carpenters)
One Amazing Night (Burt Bacharach)
Return of the Grievous Angel (Tribute to Gram Parsons)
Substitute(Songs From The Who)
Hank Williams: Timeless
Good Rockin' Tonight (The Legacy of Sun Records)
The Unbroken Circle (The Musical Heritage of the Carter Family)
I Am Sam -- Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture (The Beatles)


24. Mark David Chapman

23. Woodstock '99: The lineup was bad enough -- a lame attempt at multi-culti harmony mixing patchouli-soaked pied pipers (RUSTED ROOT) with brain-dead alpha males (INSANE CLOWN POSSE). When the event got going, the second sequel to the Summer of Love quickly degenerated into an ugly free-for-all of sexual assault, arson, ODs... and $6 pizza slices. No wonder those ATMs were looted.

22. Lists That Reduce Rock To A Series of Lists: (Sorry.)

21. Nearly Every Hip-Hop Video: We get it. Your ride is pimped, your crib is a castle and at the drop of an ice-encrusted hat, you can have tons of scantily clad hos pouring bottles of Cristal down your gullet while you kick it in the hot tub. Congratulations to a generation of hip-hop video directors for making decadence seem so... boring.

Main Offenders

Chingy, Balla Baby
Won-G, Caught Up in the Rapture
Fat Joe, Get It Poppin'
Lloyd Banks, I'm So Fly
Jim Jones, Baby Girl


20. Syn Drums

19. Electric Violins

18. Soprano Sax

17. Fred Durst

16. Replacement Lead Singers: AC/DC's impressive recovery from singer-vomit-asphyxiation is the exception that proves the rule. If the phrase "Van Hagar" fails to convince, consider Rock Star: INXS (winner J.D. Fortune pictured) and the macabre spectacle of Queen fronted by a leather-faced Paul Rodgers.

15. CDs: First, record companies made everyone rebuy their entire collections on newfangled "compact discs," promising sonic superiority and virtual indestructibility. Despite obvious drawbacks -- ever try to separate seeds and stems on a jewel case? -- everyone ponied up anyway. Then, once this digital format became the very means by which music could be ripped and distributed for free, these same companies cried poor. Boo. Hoo.

14. Florida: Let us be perfectly clear: We are not besmirching Florida, the strong African-American matriarch of TV's Good Times. We are besmirching Florida, the Sunshine State, unholy font of the BACKSTREET BOYS, 'NSYNC, O-TOWN, LIMP BIZKIT, 2 LIVE CREW, dangling chads and an army of drum-pummeling, grizzly-bear-mimicking death-metal bands with names too "evil" (i.e., moronic) to mention. A curse upon the balmy southern realm!

13. Light Aircraft: The first day the music died, it took BUDDY HOLLY, RITCHIE VALENS and The BIG BOPPER with it. The next day it took country star PATSY CLINE. And then JIM CROCE, half of LYNYRD SKYNYRD, STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN, JOHN DENVER and AALIYAH. There is, it seems, a good reason the tour bus is such a popular transportation option.

12. Kevin Federline: Golfing and wifebeaters? Whatever. Multiple baby mamas? Hey, do your thing. Even the rapping isn't that bad. But snatching away our favorite pop star -- that cannot be forgiven. Two years ago, BRITNEY SPEARS was America's sexy sweetheart, then the ex-backup-dancer pounced, and it was bye-bye Toxic, hello diapers and Cheetos.




11. "You Really Have To See Them Live": First heard muttered by a proselytizing GRATEFUL DEAD fan sometime around minute 13 of the studio version of Terrapin Station, Pt. 1, this reflexive, defensive cry has long been used as an excuse for the existence of reams of irretrievably dull PHISH, WIDESPREAD PANIC, and MOE. records. If your studio albums feel limp compared with your live show, don't put them out.

10. "Colonel" Tom Parker: Meet the Slobodan Milosevic of artist management: Before SUGE KNIGHT, LOU PEARLMAN or even ALLEN KLEIN came the "Colonel" -- inventor of ruinously exploitative rock management. Getting his hooks into ELVIS in 1955, the Dutch con man artfully steered the King away from making music (which he had something of a knack for) and towards the likes of Clambake, Kissin' Cousins, Kid Galahad, and the 30-odd other Hollywood forgettables he made instead of recording or touring for most of the next decade. Elvis' Greatest Movie Misses (and some hits)

9. Whitey: There are people who believe that this creature -- call him "honky," "ofay," or the "blue-eyed devil" -- was created 6,000 years ago by an evil scientist named Yakub via genetic experimentation on an island called Patmos in a ... lab or something. These people are music critics. In the first half of the century, Whitey took the kaleidoscopic music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington and begat LAWRENCE WELK and the couldn't-be-more-appropriately-named PAUL WHITEMAN. In the latter, he took Little Richard's gender-bendy, crypto-porn shout Tutti Frutti and begat its wan, Wonder Breaded anathema, PAT BOONE.

We see the Beast's essence everywhere.
There he is, a beefy blond youth in a Von Dutch cap, spilling keg beer as he shifts weight from one Teva to another to a Bob Marley song -- something he calls "dancing"; there he is, performing as MICHAEL BOLTON and VANILLA ICE or singing through the narrow, goateed visage of A.J. MCLEAN. The dreaded character George Clinton christened Sir Nose D'Void of Funk has had an anti-Midas touch on music for decades now, whether it's rockers copping the sexiness but not the subtlety of the blues in the '50s or lemon-faced mooks hijacking hip-hop's vigor to express the torments of suburban males who can't get laid in the '90s.

White folks: They ruin everything.


8. The Age of 27: For most of us, the Bermuda Triangle of morbidity lies between the ages of 50 and 53, after which, if you dodge cancer, heart disease and other bullets, you'll probably live for decades. For rock stars, the year to fear is 27 -- the checkout date for JANIS JOPLIN, JIMI HENDRIX, JIM MORRISON, KURT COBAIN, BRIAN JONES, and blues legend ROBERT JOHNSON among others. Honorable mentions to NICK DRAKE (at a wizened 26) and TIM BUCKLEY (at a boyish 28) -- who were, after all, eccentric.

7. Finding God: Once the Big Guy gets under an artist's skin, the work tends to suffer. AL GREEN went from making the sexiest music known to man to making gospel albums known to nobody. MASE quit hip-hop for the ministry, and when he returned, his skills didn't come with him. The less said about BOB DYLAN's born-again albums the better, but the idea of Jehovah's Witness PRINCE proselytizing door-to-door in purple pumps still brings a smile. Esther, née MADONNA, caused quite the mishegas by hopping aboard Kabbalah's Judaism-meets-New-Age-hooey bandwagon. And CAT STEVENS loved Islam so much, he named himself after it when he converted and then quit the music biz in 1979.

Silly rock stars -- you're supposed to be the ones being slavishly worshipped!


God Spells: The Biggest Religious Music Disasters

Beach Boy Finds New Love
After filling the airwaves with hits about California girls in the '60s, Beach Boys singer Mike Love dove deep into transcendental meditation and wrote Everyone's in Love With You in 1975. The ballad paid tribute to another long-haired, dress-wearing creature: The Maharishi.
Mike Love from the Beach Boys -- Everyone's in Love With You

Al Green Feels Heat, Sees Light
Some folks need to be struck by lightning to see Jesus. For Al Green, it merely took a suicidal girlfriend dousing him with a pot of hot grits and a tumble from a Cincinnati stage in 1979. The incidents inspired the legendary soul -- and ladies -- man to become a Christian minister and change his tune. Next album: The Lord Will Find a Way.
Al Green - The Spirit Might Come On and On

Bob Dylan Plugs In and Out of Christ
As illustrated when he plugged in and rocked out at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, Dylan has never shied away from pissing off his fans. He threw his disciples a curve by converting to Christianity and preaching the Gospel According to Bob on his 1979 tour. The former Mr. Zimmerman re-embraced Judaism for his 1983 album. Its title: Infidels.
Bob Dylan - When You Gonna Wake Up

Cat Stevens Sings for Allah
Two decades after he turned his back on his music career, converted Muslim Cat Stevens returned to the studio in 2000. Unfortunately, the album he crafted, A Is for Allah, is devoid of his trademark acoustic-guitar strumming -- or any instruments -- because the Koran frowns upon such indulgences.
Cat Stevens / Yusef Islam - Seal of the Prophets

R. Kelly Cries for Mercy
Nothing quite says "I'm done having sex with teenage girls" like an album of R&B spirituals ... and nobody sings 'em like R. Kelly. On his impassioned 2003 testimonial U Saved Me, the embattled crooner belts, "After I've been so bad, O Lord, how did you manage to forgive me?" God was unavailable for comment.
R. Kelly - U Saved Me


6. Madonna's British Accent: Enough said.

5. Ecstasy: As if convincing countless innocents to spend nights crushed into dilapidated warehouses, waving glowsticks and bouncing along to the same monotonous groove wasn't bad enough, ecstasy also taught a generation of dance-music auteurs that songwriting was as easy as looping a beat, then taking a nap.

E's not just for ravers anymore. These hip-hop lyrics give you that lovin' feeling:

"Some say the x / Make the sex / Spec-tacular" -- Notorious B.I.G., F-in' You Tonight

"Drunk off Crist', mami on E / Can't keep her little model hands off me" -- Jay-Z, I Just Wanna Love U

"F*** so fabulous on X / All night nothin' but sweat and rough sex" -- Ja Rule, Extasy

"I'm on E feelin ready and hot; I give 'em twenty a pop / You wanna roll, leave the panties atop" -- Fat Joe, We Thuggin'

"You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub' / Look mami I got the X if you into takin' drugs" -- 50 Cent, In Da Club


4. Neverland Ranch: It's not as though everything was hunky-dory for MJ before he moved here. But somehow, the star's retreat into a llama-stocked, Ferris-wheel-equipped, 2,600-acre Southern California funny farm in 1988 didn't help his psyche. WACKO JACKO may since have emerged from his rustic Xanadu -- dangling a baby off a balcony here, facing child-molestation charges there -- and moved to Bahrain, but the great pop star he used to be has been lost forever in this multimillion-dollar shrine to childhood.

3. The Star-Spangled Banner: Here's an idea: Let's have the theme song for the world's biggest and most diverse democracy be: 1) boring; 2) violently militaristic; and 3) next to impossible to sing. Not enough? OK, now let's bring in ROSEANNE BARR to perform. She's too busy? Get me WILLIAM HUNG!

2. Suge Knight: Here's some advice: If SUGE KNIGHT offers to bail you out of jail, wait for a better offer. After doing this for TUPAC SHAKUR, the bullying head of Death Row records molded a talented 24-year-old rapper into a doomed gangsta cartoon, fanned a preposterous coastal rap feud (f--k the Bering Strait, too, while we're at it!), and steered his young star on a confrontational course that ended in a bullet-riddled BMW 750. Whether or not Biggie Smalls' subsequent murder was related, Knight drafted a tragedy hip-hop never got over.




5 Reasons Why Hip-Hop's Bluto Should Be on Permanent House Arrest...

1. For fanning the East-West rivalry flames at the '95 Source Awards with the classic words "If you don't want the owner of your label (translation: Puffy) all up in your videos, come to Death Row..."

2. For stealing the shine from legitimate artists by getting shot at Kanye's VMAs after-party in Miami.

3. For allegedly hanging Vanilla Ice upside down from a hotel window, causing the rapper to lose control of his bodily functions (See Big Red from 'The Five Heartbeats.')

4. For signing vulnerable rappers to Death Row for publicity and then never releasing their albums, e.g. Petey Pablo, the late Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, MC Hammer, etc.

5. For causing the embarrassing melee at 2004's VIBE Awards that tarnished hip-hop's already damaged rep. Rumor has it that Suge paid a man $5,000 to punch Dr. Dre as the producer was accepting his lifetime achievement award. In turn, G-Unit's Young Buck allegedly stabbed the man with, of all things, a fork.


1. Kids Today!: Back in our day, we didn't have any of yer fancy iPods and ringtones and downloads. We didn't have the luxury and convenience of your scrotum-rings and your World Wide Web logs. When we wanted to steal the new URIAH HEEP album, we couldn't just troll the Internet for it, we had to do it the old-fashioned way -- by hiking to the store (uphill, both ways) and shoving 12" of vinyl under our sweaters (which we had to knit ourselves). That's why you sniveling whipper-snappers don't appreciate the real value of music. Or Uriah Heep. Now get the hell off our lawn!