Two posts In One Day! Kneel Before Me, Freaks!

4. The Doobie Brothers - Black Water (1974)
(File under: The Theory Of Alternating Decades: The '70s & '90s)




If they're remembered for nothing else (and they shouldn't be), these shit-rock pioneers can at least lay claim to being the inspiration for the look of the rock band on The Muppet Show. Other than that, it should be noted that they were able to make some of the most truly wretched music of the 70s, which is quite a stunning achievement given the almost overwhelming competition.

The Doobie Brothers, ca. 1974

I'm actually at kind of a loss to describe why this is so bad; I couldn't even honestly classify the music - Southern Boogie Wimp Stoner Laid-Back Hard-Lite Rock? It seems easier just to say Doobie Brothers music, which implies all the shit contained in the grooves more succinctly than a thesaurus full of adjectives. Of course, this was before Michael McDonald took over and turned them into an equally useless ultra-bland MOR blue-eyed soul band. So, what can I say? Well, glancing at the album cover above, it would appear they had two drummers, a gimmick that, unless you're The Feelies, is pretty much guaranteed to pump up your suck-assitude quotient by at least 75%. I can say that my mom used to play this incessantly when I was a poor, defenseless child with no means of escape, and she used to do a deeply disturbing age-and-social-standing-inappropriate dance to the "Dixieland" segment at the end. I could say that their use of the word "funky" on the track is doubly misguided as it is used in what may be the most unfunky music this side of early Kraftwerk and as a description of Dixieland jazz. I could say that the use of "Mama" to describe a female love object completely creeps me out (possibly tied up with the image of my own mother dancing) unless I encounter it in, say, Otis Redding's "Hard To Handle" or The Beatles' "Happiness Is A Warm Gun". Maybe that's because Otis and John Lennon were geniuses. Needless to say, these dicks are not Lennon or Redding - though they did try to court the black audience not only by peppering their lyrics with "Mama" and "funky", but by appearing on the absolute worst episode ever of What's Happening!! The black audience, to its credit, never bothered to respond.

Warning: Video is just some guy's photo slideshow set to the song. Which is probably better than having to look at the band, come to think of it.




5. Iron Maiden - Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1984)
(File under: Heavy Metal Blunder: Hell's Jukebox)

Except for maybe prime Motorhead and one or two early Black Sabbath numbers, I have about as much use for heavy metal as I do for "contemporary country" - which is to say, none at all. Possibly it's because I bring my own prejudices to both forms and therefore am unable to listen objectively. More likely, though, it's because I'm no longer a 14 year-old obsessed with sci-fi/fantasy and utterly terrified of any human being with a vagina.

Even on a purely musical level, HM leaves me cold - like prog rock, its roots seem to lie more in classical music than rock (never mind rock and roll) - the obsession with technique; a premium placed on mastery over expression. Even the volume (and obviously the singing) owes more to opera than Chuck Berry (or even The Who). In fact, the only connection to rock is the electric instruments and the presence of a drum kit. And I'm pretty sure the drum kit only got incorporated because tympani are too hard to tune.

Oh, and did I mention the lyrical content? 10 times out of 9, it is to puke.

Well, here's a song that manages to combine the worst elements of decades of prog and metal into one heinous travesty of a "rock" song. You know, there are certain bands - The Stooges, The Ramones, even Devo - who have to be pretty fucking intelligent to make music that sounds so stupid. This is the converse equation: you've got to possess some special brand of dumb-ass to make music that appears so "smart". First of all, Rush already beat them to a 10+ minute song based on a Coleridge poem (and it was a better poem, too - whether or not it was a better song is for those with stronger masochistic tendencies than I to determine). Were they not content to have written one bad “epic” song based on a literary work of dubious merit (1983's “To Tame A Land”, a "musical" homage to Frank Herbert's Dune, which contained such scintillating lyrics as “He is the Kwizatz Haderach/He is born of Caladan/And will take the Gom Jabbar” - I swear to Christ I'm not making this up)? No, here they trot out a 13-minute musical re-telling of the poem, which isn't that captivating even as prose. And it comes complete with spoken-word middle section, unnecessary signature changes, over-the-top stentorian vocalizing and endless boring (though I'm sure difficult to play) guitar solos. That this kind of crap didn't die out with Jethro Tull is a testament to the massive amount of chromosome damage inflicted upon the post-Baby Boom generation(s). I should point out, in the interest of full disclosure, that I was a Maiden fan in my youth and saw the band on this particular tour (Cow Palace, San Francisco - Twisted Sister opened; look it up if you don't believe me, bitches), and I loved it at the time. Then again, I loved shitting in my pants as a (much younger) youth, too, but you wouldn't expect me to sing the praises of pants-shitting now that I'm a mature adult with a highly developed aesthetic sense, would you? Of course not. You'd expect me to hum the praises quietly to myself, which is exactly what I do.

Warning: This song had to be split into 2 videos.
Warning #2: The "videos" consist of the song being played to an image of the Powerslave album cover. Rock & Roll!






6. Dan Hill - Sometimes When We Touch (1978)
(File under: Days Of Whine & Roses: Singer/Songwriters [Or, Hypersensitivity As A Marketing Ploy])


Here's the real legacy of the hippie movement - not peace and love (which was just a euphemism for "Let's get high and fuck" anyway) or revolution, but New Agey psychobabble and the shifting of the image of the "ideal" man toward a more self-actualized being in touch with his emotions (and the image of the ideal woman toward a more - oh, wait, the feminine ideal still hinges on physical attributes, doesn't it? Nice going, Bella Abzug). Thing is, even a fully self-actualized man still wants to fuck (if not get high) a good deal of the time (every 2.9 seconds), only now instead of just admitting he's horny, he feels the need to rationalize it as some sort of spiritual endeavor. Hence, this asshole and his pieceashit "song".

At least cock-rock dildoes like Motley Crue or Poison come right out and say "I just want to fuck you", which, for all its frat-boy misogyny, still comes off as more romantic than this passive-aggressive sensitive puppy act. Seriously - "Sometimes when we touch/The honesty's too much/And I have to close my eyes and hide"? This guy's using bad singles bar pickup lines even after he's already snagged the girl! If I ever said any shit that flat-out stupid to someone during a tender moment, I'd consider them perfectly within their rights to immediately break my jaw with a table lamp. In fact, I doubt I'd be able to respect them anymore if they didn't. Wait, wait - he's got verses, too: "I'm just another writer/Still trapped within my truth/A hesitant prize fighter/Still trapped within my youth". Slow down there, Walt Whitman! Give me time to process the depth of the profundities you're forcing me to grapple with! You know what's funny? I got trapped within my truth once. Cost me $47 just to call AAA and have some smelly ex-con with a Slim Jim get me out.

Anyway, I've never heard anything else by the guy, but I don't think anyone could accuse me of making shit up when I say I'm sure that, somewhere in his catalogue, he's got a ballad lamenting the fact that he'll never be able to experience the miracle of menstruation.

Warning: This video may cause vomiting.