Shitty Music Monday 5

I've said it once and I'll say it again....Today's music is all incredibly same-y. I'm not talking about tunes...I'm talking about lyrics. Listen to 90% of popular music out there and you will begin to hear the same themes pop up again and again. And that's fine. I don't much care about that. Pop music is fun to listen to and dance to. Then there is the less mainstream stuff, the music that you parents warn you about, the stuff that thrives on being different. Granted this covers quite a wide margin of music, and I've come to realize throughout my long and venerated career as a professional music critic, that this margin can typically be divided into two further sub-groups, those that could survive the mainstream but for whatever reason hasn't, and those that rely on their fringe status to survive. Does anyone remember the band Slipknot? Yeah...that's the kind of band I'm talking about. While this band doesn't quite reach the same levels of batshit insanity that Slipknot does, they definitely have something else going for them. Wanna guess what it is? Did anyone else guess skeevy white boy rap? Good job!

I present to you:

Bitches by Hollywood Undead

1) Music: I will admit, the beat is pretty catchy. It's unusual for me to think that, especially because everything about this beat evokes images of a carnival of horrors in the absolute worst way possible. (Then again, I guess that's the whole goddamn point...) That said though, it was a nice break to be able to listen to something outside of the generic synth-hop tracks again and again. Still though, there is something innately unnerving about it...I keep picturing something out of ICP...Dark Carnivals and Juggalos wandering around wondering how magnets work and the like...anybody with me on this one?

2) Vocals: THEY'RE WHITE. Again I don't mean that rap should have only one sound, but even Vanilla Ice had to fake it a little bit. There's just something about rap that, when "sung" with no accent, just kind of makes you want to pat them on the head and go "Oh you! You're so silly!" Until someone truly spectacular comes along and "changes the game up", I'm going to stick by this clearly narrow-minded point of view. And no, Lonely Island doesn't count, though I do like them quite a bit.

3) Lyrics: Here's where we run into some real problems. Normally when I listen to rap, and they claim to have drank, fucked, and murdered their way to success, some internal safety mechanism stops that thought process and goes full reverse into complete and utter denial. Somehow though, when Hollywood Undead says these things...I totally believe it. With such choice lyrics as "This girl is seventeen, now I'm a pedophile", "Then she munched on his dick like a macho burrito", and "Undead dick", you know you've already hit the bottom of that massive bucket of cocaine you keep in the corner (for "creativity") and have started licking the sides out of desperation. But back to my original point, somehow when these masked hooligans talk about fucking underage girls and zombie penises, I really do believe they're telling the truth...(also zombie penis is probably the most abhorrent thing I've written on this blog to date...)

4) Video: There isn't one. The use of speech bubble youtube annotation was adorable though.

5) Summary: Maybe it's the masks, maybe it's the fact that they all sound like serial killers, maybe I've been watching wayyyy too much TV recently and my overactive imagination is starting to take over, but either way, these kinds kinda freak me out at some base, core level, and I'm not easily unnerved. OH Maybe it's actually just the fact that I'm doped out of my mind on allergy meds and don't have a solid grasp on reality right now. Either way, in trying to merge the psychotic fringe look with the mainstream lyrical subject matter, Hollywood Undead has only managed to create a weird circus of John Wayne Gacy impersonators drinking 40s in my mind. Thanks for giving me nightmares for the next month you assholes.

Suggested Audience: Juggalos looking to "broaden their horizons" and who don't want to pursue an elementary school level education to do so. Fucking juggalos...