The Music Elitist


Jonas Brothers Want to Collaborate With a Hip-Hop Artist
Photo: Theo Wargo/WireImage

Photo: Theo Wargo/WireImage

I’ll wait for you to stop laughing at the headline….

Done? OK. The Jonas Brothers said that they would like to work with a hip-hop artist like Common, Lupe Fiasco or Mos Def for one of the songs on their new record:

“There’s a song we wrote recently and we were thinking … it does sound different and kind of strange, and [we'd like to work with] a rapper who has some real meaningful lyrics,” Nick, the self-proclaimed “most hip-hop” Jonas, told MTV News. “[Someone who] has some real depth to what he’s saying — someone like a Common or a Lupe Fiasco or a Mos Def. Someone who takes more of a spoken-word approach. That’d be really cool.”

Kevin said that they definitely appreciate hip-hop, hinting that adding that type of vibe to the album is definitely a possibility. “We have a hip-hop bone in us somewhere,” Joe added.

Saying you’re the “most hip-hop” Jonas means about as much as saying you were the “least beaten” Jackson. Seriously though, if any of the artists he listed actually ends up working with these douchebags, I stop listening to said artist. The problem is that the hip-hop artists he listed have too much integrity to blatantly sell out like that. However, I will make the prediction that either Kanye West, Lil Wayne or 50 Cent offers to work with them after reading this news. Those guys’ll make a guest appearance on ANYONE’s song.



10 Worst Pop Songs of 2008

There has been a severe lack of musicians doing stupid things for me to make fun of, so I decided to start my 2008 Top 10 lists beginning with….drum roll please…The 10 WORST Songs of 2008. I tried organizing these by level of the degree of hatred, but it was just too hard. These songs are all equally awful:

10 . “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles – If you managed to avoid hearing this song this year, I am VERY surprised. Especially those incessant Rhapsody commercials. Not that I would ever consider using Rhapsody anyways, but this TV ad basically ensured that I will never even consider using their services. She’s just the latest female piano-playing singer-songwriter who will no doubt fade away like Vanessa Carlton. At least we can all hope.

9. “Paralyzer” by Finger Eleven - To be honest I can’t remember EXACTLY what this song sounds like. I think I only heard it once on one of my few occasions where the radio was all I had available to listen to. I remember groaning and thinking, “this must be Finger Eleven or some other terrible band along those lines”. Sure enough, the dude-bro DJ confirmed my suspicions by identifying the artist as Finger Eleven. I had no idea this band was even still making music, let alone that enough people cared for them to play it on the radio.

8. “Sorry” by Buckcherry – Again, I can’t remember exactly how this song goes, but I’m sure I’ve heard it and I’m sure it sucked. This is the kind of band you hear being blasted from about 15 different over-sized pick-up trucks at a NASCAR tailgate party. Not that I would ever be caught dead near one of those things, I just assume.

7. “Shake It” by Metro Station - Ok, so the first time I had ever heard this song was when I saw the video for it on Fuse one day. I had heard the band’s name mentioned a lot and the band I was currently in was even compared to them in a review of our record. Boy was I furious at that reviewer after the video was over. But I was even more furious over the fact that there was clearly a full band playing in the video (two guitars, bass, synth, drums and vocals) yet all I heard the whole song was a sequenced drum beat, synth sounds and auto-tuned vocals. And to top it all off, the song itself was annoying as all hell.

6. “When I Grow Up” by Pussycat Dolls – This song is just plain irritating. In fact, I don’t think there is a single song that this female version of Menudo has put out that I HAVEN’T found irritating. Please go back to being a burlesque troupe and STOP singing….or pretending to sing….or whatever it is you call that.

5. “Gotta Be Somebody” by Nickelback – I don’t really need to tell you why this song sucks, the artist name should already make it abundantly clear. It boggles my mind that enough people listen to this crap to make their last album go 7x platinum in the U.S.. That’s right, at least 7 million people in this country have horrible taste in music.

4. “Womanizer” by Britney Spears – This song makes me want to take my own life. I’ll watch the video on mute though because she’s pretty much naked in some parts of it and they somehow managed to make her look hot again. The Britney phenomenon just fascinates me, because no matter how much of a white trash trainwreck she (and her family) make themselves look like, she still sells tons of records, plays huge sold out shows and wins awards. IT’S BRITNEY, BITCH!

3. “Burnin‘ Up” by Jonas Brothers – These guys sound like a shitty version of the All-American Rejects. As if this song wasn’t lame enough to begin with, the Jonas boys had their bodyguard, Robert “Big Rob” Feegans, make a guest appearance rapping on the track. Hey guys, next time you wanna try roping in some of the hip hop crowd, why don’t you have someone that said hip hop crowd actually wants to hear make a guest appearance. In fact, I’m hearing its going to mandated that if you release an album in 2009, Lil’ Wayne HAS to appear on at least one track. So there you go.

2. “7 Things” by Miley Cyrus – Miley Cyrus is Britney Spears Part Two: Electric Boogaloo. The girl is 16 and she’s dating guys in their 20s. I actually predict Miley will be even worse than Britney since she was forced into stardom at an even younger age.

1.  “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry – I know I said at the beginning that these weren’t ranked in order of how much I hated them, but I lied. This one is definitely at #1 for a reason. First off, this girl is a straight up bitch. And I’m not just saying that to say it, she really is. I have a story from being on Warped Tour this summer to back this statement up, but in all honesty I don’t feel like typing it all. I shall save it for another time that I am pissed off about something related to Katy Perry. The other reason this song is #1 is because of this singer’s past. Well, not so much because of her past, but the fact that she probably hoped it would never come out because it would ruin her “bad girl” image. Katy Perry used to be a Christian rock singer. She released an album in 2001 under her real name, Katy Hudson. How does someone go from being a Christian singer to singing songs about kissing girls unless all they care about is what makes them the most money? Bottom line: Katy Perry is a money-grubbing whore.





The Grammys Still Suck

The Grammy nominee announcements once again proved how out of touch the more-than-likely 85 year-old voters are with whats really going on in music. However, I will say that this years nomination leaders are a just a little better than usual (Lil’ Wayne, Coldplay and Radiohead). But let’s focus on a few specific categories here.

For once they nominated someone who deserved it

First, lets start with New Artists, because this award ALWAYS disappoints. This years nominees are:

  • Adele
  • Duffy
  • Jonas Brothers
  • Lady Antebellum
  • Jazmine Sullivan

Ok. Its really sad that the only artist on this list whose name I recognize is the Jonas Brothers. Who the hell ARE the rest of these people? After doing some quick internet research (i.e. – going to Wikipedia and checking these artists numbers for the past year), I found that the only one of these artists that’s really done well in THIS COUNTRY (the country where the Grammys take place) are the Jonas Brothers. Which would be the reason why they are the only ones I have heard of. It amazes me that a decent amount of people in this country still watch the Grammys every year given the majority of nominees aren’t even popular here. Not that I am saying only popular music should be nominated, but something’s not adding up here.

Lets move on to something I am more at liberty to talk shit about: the rock category nominees. Here are the nominees for Rock Album of the Year:

  • Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends
    Coldplay
    [Capitol Records]
  • Rock N Roll Jesus
    Kid Rock
    [Atlantic]
  • Only By The Night
    Kings Of Leon
    [RCA Records]
  • Death Magnetic
    Metallica
    [Warner Bros.]
  • Consolers Of The Lonely
    The Raconteurs
    [Third Man/Warner Bros.]

Ok, now I have to give them props for the nominations of Coldplay, Kings of Leon and the Raconteurs. Three bands I have absolutely no problems with. HOWEVER, its clear that two of these artists do not belong here. Kid Rock???!!!! Do people even still listen to this guy? Nominating Kid Rock for a Grammy is like nominating George W. Bush for a “World Leader of the Decade” award. And don’t even get me started on Metallica. Death Magnetic is (as I predicted before its release) the most god-awful piece of shit I have ever heard. The fact that it was even CONSIDERED for being nominated is a tragedy.

While we’re talking about Metallica, let’s talk about the category that pissed me off the most: Best Metal Performance:

  • Heroes Of Our Time
    DragonForce
    [Roadrunner Records]
  • Nostradamus
    Judas Priest
    Track from: Nostradamus
    [Epic]
  • My Apocalypse
    Metallica
    Track from: Death Magnetic
    [Warner Bros.]
  • Under My Thumb
    Ministry
    Track from: Cover Up
    [Megaforce Records]
  • Psychosocial
    Slipknot
    [Roadrunner Records]

Wow. If I had to pick one category that these voters DEFINITELY know nothing about, it’s metal. However, I once again have to recognize that they did pick Dragonforce and I don’t care what anyone says about that band….YOU try playing “Through The Fire And The Flames” on Guitar Hero 3. But seriously, SlipKnot???? I can name about 10 other metal bands that released music this year that should have gotten Grammy noms over these ‘tards. in fact, here they are:

Underoath

Lamb of God

Bullet for My Valentine

Protest the Hero

Shai Hulud

Walls of Jericho

Norma Jean

All That Remains

Trivium

Haste the Day

In any case the bottom line is, the Grammys are still lame. I won’t be watching them. But here is a list of the rest of the nominees if you wanna check it out.




Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.