Five Worst...Bands/Artists I Used to Listen to

(Before I begin, I apologize for the picture that was posted along with my entry on Cosmo’s Factory. I had taken a picture of the album cover from some website, and when they found out about it, they instead put a picture of a woman with poop on her face in its place. I guess that second picture is what inspired this posting…)

I don’t mind my having listened to matchbox twenty, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer, and I’m not ashamed of it. It doesn’t have the same quality of the Stones, Kinks or Howlin’ Wolf, but it sounded great to me during high school, and still occasionally does now.

Every so often, I’ll put DMB or Mayer on in the car while I’m driving (which I did during my last visit back home with my friend, Nadia), and it’ll be the perfect choice. Other times, I’ll listen to “Tripping Billies,” and it just sounds terrible.

(The band that escapes this sometimes good/sometimes bad problem is the Counting Crows. I still play them regularly, and songs like “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” and “Round Here” are actually great tracks.)

Having listed all those bands and artists as favorites at some point doesn’t phase me, but some of the other junk I listened to during that time does:

Five Worst…Bands/Artists I Used to Listen to

#5. Backstreet Boys/Britney Spears/NSYNC

Although they might actually be worse than my other selections, I put this trio at #5 because I still sometimes occasionally listen to them. Not on my iPod (although I am a proud owner of No Strings Attached), but rather at parties or with friends. And I know each and every lyric to each and every hit. Oh, and for what it’s worth, Britney’s best song is “Lucky.”

But that doesn’t mean I think they’re good; in fact, I know they suck. People like Dylan or Louis Armstrong or Captain Beefheart force you to think and pay attention while listening to them, and groups like BSB don’t want you to think. If you did, you’d realize how terrible they actually are.

#4. Dashboard Confessional

Another tricky one to explain because although they (well, he because the band is really only one guy, Chris Carrabba) stink, I still occasionally listen to them while I’m bored on YouTube or when I’m with my friend, Kayley. Dashboard is an example of a band that I can remember the first time listening to them (sad, I know) and that terrifies me. Can’t remember my first real exposure to Muddy Waters or John Coltrane, but I can remember watching MTV and “Screaming Infidelities” came on.

#3. Blink 182

A memory of mine: My Mom and I were at the mall, and she said I could get one album from Best Buy because she was getting one too. Our choices? She picked out a two-disc Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers anthology, while I instead went with Blink’s classic live album, The Mark, Tom and Travis Show. Of those two albums, guess which one I still listen to today…

#2. Limp Bizkit

Do I even have to bother?

#1. Nickelback

It isn’t that I owned an album of the worst current band out there, but I did (and still do) know the songs. Whether it was hearing “How You Remind Me” on my friend Kyle’s portable CD player while walking to another friend’s house or “Too Bad” or that horrendous song “Hero” from the Spiderman soundtrack, this band epically sucks. But try telling that to my roommate, who seems to only love generic rock songs, like their more-current hit “Rock Star” or Weezer’s worst song ever, “Beverly Hills.”

I’m ashamed of even knowing a single lyric from Nickelback, and all the good music in the world couldn’t make up for it.

Perfect Pop Pantheon, Vol. III

"Bye Bye Bye" by NSYNC is meaningless, stupid, overproduced, has terrible lyrics, way too self-referential to be sung by a boy band, and actually has Joey Fatone singing some of it. But I love it.

This past season of Scrubs began with Dr. Turk trying to bring "Bye Bye Bye" back because it had slipped out of the public consciousness since being released in early 2000. His colleague, Dr. Reed, is skeptical but when it's played as his ring tone, the whole hospital gets up and starts dancing. Right after their boss, Dr. Kelso, tells them that they work at a hospital, not a "discotech," he is soon caught under the song's spell when the phone goes off again.

So, can someone actually bring it back?

"Bye Bye Bye" was written by the team of Kristian Lundin, Jake Schulze and Andreas Carlsson and was originally supposed to go to 5ive, a shitty boy band even by boy band standards. When they passed, the song went to *NSYNC and appeared on their No Strings Attached album. It would soon become the best song of any BSB or *NSYNC or Britney or Christina. Granted, that's like saying you'd rather die through lethal injection instead of drowning because it'd hurt less, but it's still a compliment.

The song is mostly sung by Justin Timberlake, the one with the talent, and JC Chasez, the one who's first solo song was about lesbians, while the rest are pretty much on background harmonies. The lyrics, although quite shallow, talk about *NSYNC's breakup with their manager, Lou Pearlman, King of the Creeps. Sample:

“Just hit me with the truth,
Now, girl you're more than welcome to.
So, give me one good reason,
Baby, come on
I live for you and me,
And now I really come to see,
That life would be much better once you're gone.”

As I typed that, I was listening to “Maybellene” by Chuck Berry, so I think I died a little. But although they’re lines someone as horrific as Phil Collins could write on a bad day, it really doesn’t matter because the song is catchy as all hell. And isn’t that an indicator of a great pop song?

Here’s what I’m calling for: A few years ago, Richard Thompson took a stab at “Oops…I Did It Again,” the title track of Britney Spears’ second album. Basically, the Britney version is terrible but when Thompson sings it with nothing more than his acoustic guitar, the song sounds fantastic. So, Mr. Thompson, I plead that give “Bye Bye Bye” a try and see the gem buried underneath the thick beats and bad lyrics.

Perfect Pop Pantheon:
"I Love LA" by Randy Newman
"Train in Vain" by The Clash
"Bye Bye Bye" *NSYNC