The Last Whiny Man Presents: My Opinion is Different to the Widely Held One!

There are too many bands, not all of them good. In fact, that sentence could just read "there are too many bad bands". You turn on a commercial radio station and it's a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet of banality and vapidity. Then there are good bands, who generally aren't on the radio and are interesting and for winners. However, I've observed an interesting phenomenon recently; bands that are somehow both. Well, not really both, but bands that seem to get folks throwing steaming hot globs of love on them while I sit there, hemorrhaging indifference. Without further ado, here is the comprehensive (read: thrown together this morning based on whatever the hell I was thinking at the time) list of bands that get more love than they deserve.

Foo Fighters: I do not get why these guys are so very very loved amongst rock fans. I understand and accept that Dave Grohl is a nice guy, and he was in Nirvana and all that crap, but judging them on their music alone (the way you should judge any band) I don't see what all the fuss is. People go absolutely spastic over them, but they're just so... generic. They're the dictionary definition of a generic rock band. The weird thing is, it's almost as if they've gone out of their way to stay generic with the times. When they started they were just another post-grunge band cashing in on the death of Kurt Cobain (more cynically than most, I might add) and from there they've slowly de-evolved with the times, touching on all flavours of generic. Maybe that's their appeal, being so inoffensive and bland. But if that's the case... *shudder*

Lamb of God: Describing LoG as "pure American metal" is a pretty harsh thing to do, not for them but for every other metal band in America. It must suck to be associated with them. The sound of Lamb of God could very accurately be described as "what your mum thinks metal is". Chuggity-chug riffs, heavy kick drum and growly vocals are the foundation of metal, I'll give you that, but without anything on top of the foundations, you've just got a big empty space with a bunch of cement in there. And that's what Lamb of God are, musically. The unadorned foundations of a genre without anything on top to make it at all interesting. Lamb of God are the "I'll listen to it if it's on" band for metalheads, inoffensive background chugging while you wait for someone good to play.

The Arcade Fire: For a while there, these guys were indie royalty. Every indie fan I knew loved these guys. I figured to myself, "better see what the fuss is about" and god fucking dammit, I've never been so bored by so many instruments. There's like ten of them, and they're all swapping instruments and playing mandolins and hurdy-gurdies and violins and it should be awesome, but it's just not. No amount of instruments can really hide three boring chords and a samey vocal melody, but good effort for trying, guys. Take a leaf out of the book of Pulp: Common People has 2 chords (count 'em!) and it's about fifty million times more exciting than anything you could do. There's more to music than lots of instruments playing the same thing, and one day you'll come to realise that.

So, that's only three bands, but I have to keep some material in reserve for future issues (read: I ran out of ideas then got bored) so that'll have to do for now. The lesson here is; everyone is wrong but me. Carry that wisdom with you for the next time you get into some crappy band.