The Art of a Good Ass Ripping

I don't understand why but sometimes negative reviews are often more entertaining to read than positive ones. They are often packed with humorous put-downs so you get a bonus with the review. You learn about an album but you also get a few yucks.

With this in mind, a discussion on BigSoccer led me to two funny sites dealing with negative music reviews. The first site is called "I Despise You and I Hate Your Taste In Music". On the site, you enter the name of your favorite band/singer/album/song and it generates a review ripping the band. The lines in the review are pretty damn funny and the whole idea is a good mockery of hipsters' dour attitude towards other's musical tastes.

Here's what they had to say about my favorite album of the year:

The Go! Team? Oh my God. I thought The Go! Team's fans died out years ago. I remember Thunder, Lightning, Strike as being particularly awful...

Like the sickening crunch of fist into nose experienced nightly outside most nightclubs, track three, "Feelgood By Numbers" is a perversion that may actually appeal to a small group of sick fucks hiding in a basement somewhere in Illinois. The chorus of "The Power Is On" will haunt me for years to come, sounding as it does like the stomach rumblings of Miss 'Overweight Texas' 1994. The Go! Team will strike fear into your heart with possibly the worst song on a bad album, the appalling "Hold Yr Terror Close". It sounds like a road accident victim's squeal of anguish as he discovers he has only half a face.

The sound of Monica Seles' serve grunts looped repeatedly over three chickens attempting to play the drums that "Huddle Formation" so accurately reproduces is relieved only by the fact there are no pictures to go with it.

In fact, I despise every second of The Go! Team's creation.

I love that line about the sick fucks in a basement in Illinois.

It's just a silly and fun site to play around with.

The other site of negative reviews is Something Awful: Your Band Sucks. It's packed with cynical ruminations of bands and their music. Here is their take on indie fans:

Indie Fans

Identification: Although far more subdued and tasteful that emo kids, indie nerds still clothe themselves in thrift-shop vestments, dishevel their hair, and slap on an annoyingly knowing smirk for maximum Malkmosity. They hate every band anyone else has heard of and hate every band they haven’t heard. They’re allowed to like a band that another indie fan likes, provided that they heard it before the other guy did. They loved The Shins until Garden State came out. They don’t dance, unless they’re dancing to hilariously ironic C+C Music Factory tunes (their music of choice, of course, is to be taken seriously, and should not be marred with the savage iniquity of dance). They have radio shows on college stations, and they do NOT take requests. They share a genus with the pop nerd, but with a narrower focus, an active social life, and a girlfriend. After fake punks, they’re the most likely hipster breed to be in a terrible band. But the indie fan’s band isn’t “terrible,” it’s “avant-garde.”

Musical Taste: The latest 7-inch from Bumfuck Records.

How to Tame an Indie Fan: When he’s raving about some great new band, pretend you haven’t heard of them, but that they sound really interesting to you. They love that. Let them make you a mix tape, and be prepared to give notes on it the next day.

Benefits of Friendship: Science has yet to reveal a compelling answer to this mystery.

Drawbacks of Friendship: Being friends with an indie fan is the only reason you’ll ever have to hear the words “Pitchfork Media” not immediately preceded by “boy do I ever hate…” Also, be prepared for some ill-conceived rants on “selling out” and “authenticity.”

I think I'm more of a pop nerd than an indie fan based upon their description. I like the line about indie fan's having a college radio show and not taking requests.