It’s rare that music can upset me, but when it does, things become dangerous. Even though almost all of popular music conveys sentiments and emotions that I’ve never felt and never wish to feel, somehow I’m able to remain tolerant. I try to be a peaceful man, but every so often a song will come along that fairly pleads for a violent reaction. Certain songs are unforgivable. There is no plausible rationale for their existence. They beg the listener to wreak vengeance on the cruel, evil tricksters who cared so little about our feelings that they willed such hurtful songs into being.
These “killing songs,” as I call them, convey emotions which are so repellent to me that I feel obligated to end the lives of the musicians who inflicted them on me. For legal reasons, I need to remind you that this is all “funny talk,” and that I really don’t intend to bash these musicians’ skulls, nor would I ever encourage anyone else, through direct instruction or vague suggestion, to do my dirty work for me. But I still think it’s within the parameters of my free-speech rights to insist that it’d be a better world if I were allowed to kill them. That’s all I’m saying, really.
I’m sure your list is different from mine. Different music tortures different people. Back in my Boy Scout days, I had a friend who couldn’t get “Kung Fu Fighting”—the song he hated most—out of his head for two weeks! I knew a girl whose loathing for “Who Let the Dogs Out?” was so fulsome, she’d get upset if you even mentioned the title, so I made a point of not only mentioning it, but of downloading the MP3 and torturing her with it.
“Keep on Lovin’ You” by REO Speedwagon
If such indiscretions were legal, I’d really like to roll up my sleeves and personally beat up their singer Kevin Cronin,
especially the way he rolls the last syllables of lines in the above-mentioned power ballad:
But you didn’t lisssuuuuuuuuuuuhhhnnnnn.
And I don’t ree-mem-berrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Have you ever seen pictures of that big-schnozzed, poofy-curled, elfin pole-smoker dressed in aquamarine spandex pants, a black fishnet wifebeater, and suspenders? If someone were to take it upon themselves to cause him physical harm, it’s not like I’d really feel bad about it. It wouldn’t be exactly legal for somebody to smash his entire front row of teeth through a curb, but hearing about it might give me a small squirt of joy. I will never forgive what his music has done to me.
“Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey
And everything else they ever recorded. No, I can’t even appreciate them ironically, and I’ve never met a chick who doesn’t like ’em, and I guess their lead singer IS cute, but his voice sounds like cheese doodles to me. Whenever I hear a Journey song, I see orange and taste cheese doodles. Lamebutt combos such as this are what caused a need for punk rock, pissing me off thirty years later because punk rock refuses to gently crawl into a ball and die already. I hope the Wheel in the Sky grinds Journey to death.
“Bang a Gong” by T. Rex
I absolutely refuse to get it on, and there’s no fucking way I’m banging anyone’s gong. No, Marc Bolan, you simpering, poofy-floofy poodle boy, I’d like to bang your head against a wall and “get it (your blood) on” my clothes.
“Too Late For Goodbyes” by Julian Lennon
Makes me wish Mark David Chapman had shot Julian instead.
Urban Mating Songs
There are too many to mention, so I’ll indict the entire genre. You know what I’m talking about. I don’t want to get too offensive or stereotypical here, but we both know what I’m talking about. I love black music more than the average white guy, but Urban Mating Songs are where I draw the line and begin to segregate myself. Smooth, silky slow jams. Whiny male eunuch barnyard goats bleating a surfeit of “shawty” references to the latest electronically programmed drum beats. Dumb girls gurgling dumb lyrics about their dumb boyfriends. I’m working on highly secret sonic technology that will render anyone who willingly chooses to listen to this music sterile. It has to be done.
“Everybody Hurts” by REM
Everybody who listens to this song hurts. This yowling cat-screech of a tune made me permanently incapable of ever relating to anyone’s pain again, not to mention offering them any much-needed comfort and/or succor. Michael Stipe, I wish those rumors about you having AIDS were true.
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somebody needs counseling but in a good way though
jim your screeds are wonnerful, seriously.
05.16.08 at 10:12 am
cut and paste?
http://www.jimgoad.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=1168979995
05.16.08 at 12:02 pm
you did cut and paste. you suck.
05.16.08 at 12:47 pm
I can see calling bullshit if someone cut and pasted someone else’s words and called them their own. But this was based…NOT cut and pasted, o ye cretinous ones…on something he’d already written. How is that a foul?
05.16.08 at 1:08 pm
Yeah, there’s hardly a single sentence that’s exactly the same from what you hyperlinked. And I’m not sure how it’s possible to plagiarize one’s self. I call bullshit on the “cut and paste” bullshit-callers.
05.16.08 at 1:11 pm
But appreciating Journey ironically has gotten me laid at least a half-dozen times.
05.16.08 at 1:16 pm
I call bullshit on everyone who called bullshit before me.
05.16.08 at 1:29 pm
I saw this band the other night and was really enjoying their set until I realized they were cutting and pasting songs from their latest album.
05.16.08 at 2:06 pm
urban mating songs do you mean contep. r&b
u gotta hear it screwed up mane
05.16.08 at 2:10 pm
Yes! Finally somebody else who agrees that Michael Stipe should pay the piper for his years of getting sympathy listens because he looks like the poster-boy for a benefit @ Liz Taylor’s house!
05.16.08 at 6:53 pm
I agree with the above comment! Fucking brilliant!
05.16.08 at 6:54 pm
Yes, T Rex is WAY worse than the shitty racist trucker horseshit Jim Goad has been pimping for more than a decade.
And worse than all of Boyd Rice’s stupid bands.
Jesus – go punch a girl or something.
05.16.08 at 10:55 pm
these are the songs you hate? how old is jim goad?
05.16.08 at 11:12 pm
have to disagree with one thing, how could you not like Journey ironically? its an entire band based around absolute shit
05.16.08 at 11:18 pm
I hate muthafutha, can his sister get murdered or something? make it happen god
05.17.08 at 12:18 am
Personally, I prefer Jim’s screed about why The Raspberries are the Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band of all time…
http://www.xmag.com/archives/12-02-aug04/feature2.html
Cheers,
Greg.
05.17.08 at 5:30 am
P.S. The Dead are my personal favorite band of all time. So you know that Jim’s writing is powerful when it inspires me to forsake my idols…
Cheers,
Greg.
05.17.08 at 5:47 am
Why is nobody mentioning “We Built This City” on Rock and Roll? That bouncing bass line and that stupid fucking crescendo chorus like we care or even understand what building a city on rock and roll even means? This song is living proof bands can’t go on forever. I fucking hate its guts.
And how about the video? With their one-sleeved jackets and their fucking boots.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TxGGckAc1rs
05.17.08 at 12:01 pm
Just watched it again. WOW.
“Eating up the hooplah.”
I guess Cleveland made some money from the Rock and Roll hall of fame and Seattle made a buck from grunge but what does this song mean? The footage is from Vegas, Tokyo, New York. Are they saying all cities have rock and roll to thank.
Oh my God. The Lincoln Memorial just got up and started singing!
“Corporation games”
This sounds like they were forced at gun point to come up with a song.
This is the worst video I’ve ever seen.
He looks like my gay uncle (who is also a nerd).
http://philhateswebuiltthiscity.ytmnd.com/
05.17.08 at 12:09 pm
Jim Goad is a thousand years old!
05.17.08 at 2:05 pm
I’m a chick and I’ve always hated Journey, with a hatred pure and true. I concur:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxxOyGK1pMk&ftm=18
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and had Journey shoved down my throat for over a decade. I turned to drugs, alcohol, bad relationships–anyything to numb the pain.
Thank god we also had The Dead Kennedys to even things out around there.
05.18.08 at 12:11 am
finally, someone who understands how terrible that vile “built this city” caterwaul of a song is….
05.19.08 at 1:52 pm
“We Built This City” was #1 on Blender’s list of the 50 worst songs ever:
http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=819
05.19.08 at 2:21 pm
it belongs there. no, actually its too tinnitus inducing to be #1 of anything… and where was ashford and simpson’s (shudder) “solid as a rock”?????
05.19.08 at 4:22 pm
@anon
don’t u bitch ’bout boyd pussy.
05.20.08 at 6:36 am
@anon, we may come n’ find you.
05.20.08 at 6:37 am