Another Musical Rant

Okay, so I know I went on record saying that Rock in general stinks these days...well, I guess my more precise point was that the tripe they play on the radio stinks... Through many helpful avenues, I've become aware of the pretty decent stuff out there right now...but I had also totally spaced on one of my favourite segments of the non-radio world. Hard rock.

SlipKnot

Now, I had never really had much time for heavy stuff back in the day, but I did learn to appreciate it on a "humourous" level. For example, SlipKnot's lyrics....they are comically glorious. Stuff like "I wanna slit your throat and fuck the wound" is beyond hilarious! (assuming, of course, you just ignore the maladjusted teenagers who take the shit seriously) And honestly, I'm still not sure Trent Reznor wasn't joking. Like, maybe he saw a market and just knew how to write stuff that appealed to pissed off teenagers.... "I wanna fuck you like an animal"??? Get real....he can't be serious...

Mudvayne's Kud a.k.a Chad Gray

However, more recently (tho still a few years ago), I was introduced by someone who honestly liked stuff like the Deftones and old Staind (back when they were harder than fucking nails...before they turned into ballad writers...an admirable niche, which they are very good at, but not within the scope of my larger point here) to a band called Disturbed. Now, their name implies that they were in on the same joke as Mr. Reznor, and later Mudvayne (did you see whatever the hell award show it was when they showed up with bullet holes painted on their foreheads?), but their music was just plain cool...and so I was sucked in.

This led to me attending Summer Sanitarium a couple summers ago, which had a line-up of Mudvayne, The Deftones, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit on the undercard with Metallica headlining. Well, we missed Mudvayne completely cuz we were having a few afternoon beverages at Neil's cousin's place, and Deftones didn't much interest us, so we mostly missed them, too. Linkin Park was actually startlingly good live (I had them pegged as a "harder Good Charlotte" or something, but they're pretty decent...more of a lighter/poppier Prodigy, really, with the two guys going back and forth...). Now, Limp Bizkit tore the fucking roof off the Skydome...it was IN-sane... Pat and I were right in the middle of the mosh pit, close enough to practically get singed by the fire, but it was worth it...the place was going berserk after just two tracks, and then just as you got the feeling they were going to calm down, Fred Durst (one of those "can only be referred to by both names" celebrities) went around to the band, whispering in their ears...then yells into the mic: "Fuck the setlist...it's time to BREAK STUFF!!" And somehow it got crazier from there.... Anyway, Metallica was good, but they just couldn't keep up.. comparable to the Stones following AC/DC at Sars-stock, I'd imagine...almost unfair....

Now, more recently Disturbed have actually started to gain commercial acceptance with their third studio album, Ten Thousand Fists, and the track "Stricken" (granted on 97.7, about the hardest mainstream station you can find, but still...) tho they haven't really changed much of what they've been doing....so I have to give them "mad props" for making it while "keeping it real".


Wow. Do I even have a point anymore?

Meh...