Usually people who love music want to like to write about music they love (for me that would be musical geniuses like The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Band, & The Flaming Lips.) But sometimes it’s fun to talk about bad music. In fact in some ways it’s more fun. And it’s certainly much easier to find. Just check out these MySpace music reviews to see what I mean. The worst thing to me is that most of the absolute most horrible music I’ve listened to on MySpace is also the most popular.
Hollywood Undead has to be the worst example of this. They are incredibly bad and even more incredibly popular. I know it’s nothing new for “the kids” to love crap music, but I think Hollywood Undead just takes that concept too far? Usually the really awful music in the past had some sort of musical quality to it. Sure Milli Vanilli was cheesy but their songs were catchy and had some good production values.
But they are just one of many awful “artists” in the big wide world of awful music
How about country star Dierks Bentley? Have you heard this guy? He’s incredibly awful. I had heard his name before but had never checked out his music before as I have absolutely no interest in country pop but one day I came across his latest single “Feel That Fire” and I was just floored because it was so much worse than I thought it would be. And that’s saying quite a bit because I assumed it was be flat out terrible. But no, it’s much worse than that.
It’s no big deal that guys are recording bad music. There’s nothing new about bad music. The big deal to me is that so many people actually think this is good music. Why is that? Why are people just so incredibly clueless about what constitutes quality?
The easy thing to blame would be American Idol. And I’m sure that does have a part to play. Now millions of people think that having a pretty voice is the only thing that matters.
But really it must go much deeper than that. After all, it’s not like people liking bad music is an entirely new thing. The masses are always attracted to the easy to swallow garbage that usually fills the top 40 every week. And it’s the true music that real music lovers listen to and that lasts for years.
Obviously no one will be listening to anyone from American Idol or Hollywood Undead in 20 years (except out of pure nostalgia or as a joke) while people will still be getting into the music of true musical geniuses like The Beatles & Radiohead.