10 Songs that Annoy Matt, Part 2

Today, I had an interview to get an internship at Grooveshark. If you don’t know about Grooveshark, it’s a site where you can listen to all your favorite tunes. Just go to the website, and type your favorite musician into the search bar. If you’re feeling it, create an account. It’s good stuff. Either way, today brings us to the second part of 10 Songs that Annoy Matt. If you missed the first part, read it. Then come back and read this.

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6. Queen – “Bohemian Rhapsody”

Oh, but this is one of the best rock songs of all time! Truly an epic rock opera! That may be, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that the typical ignorant Top 40-obsessed self-proclaimed “classic rock genius” will download this one song, slap it on their iPod, and think they’re the shit because they have QUEEN on their mp3 player. Or maybe they’ll memorize the little “mama mia” part in the middle and scream it at the top of their fucking lungs whenever it comes on the radio in order to give the illusion that they enjoy and know a thing or two about “good music”. Bull. Shit. They probably can’t name the album this song was off of, and they probably can’t even name any member of the band itself (wait no I know this! Frankie Muniz? Fred Durst? Fred Flintstone? It starts with an F…his last name is a planet…Venus? Jupiter?…I know this…wait…he had AIDS right? OH I KNOW IT! Magic Johnson!). Name a Queen song not named “We Are the Champions”, “Another One Bites the Dust”, or “We Will Rock You” and then maybe we can talk. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is a fine enough song, but it isn’t even Queen’s best. Put on “Radio Ga Ga” if you want to hear an outstanding song by these guys (better yet, watch their performance of the aforementioned track at Live Aid, it’s definitely on YouTube somewhere) [Editor’s Note: Check it out. If you stop it at 0:36, you’ll see Freddie wears white Adidas Sambas… also my shoe of choice. Money!]. And until you memorize the names Freddie Mercury, Brian May, and Roger Taylor, don’t act like you know shit about 1970-1980s classic rock.

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7. Nirvana – “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

This song is borderline atrocious, yet no music critic can resist putting this piece of shit track in their “Top 50 Songs of All Time” list. It feels like the Top 10 of these lists get so cluttered with songs from 30-50 years ago that a panic sets in; there’s a need to put a relatively new song up there, and “Teen Spirit” is the apparently agreed upon best song of the 90s. This isn’t even Nirvana’s best song, not even close. Kurt Cobain himself stated he HATED playing this song live, even he thought it sucked, and he was right. The vocals are borderline inaudible and that famous riff is migraine-inducing at best; overall, it sounds like Cobain wrote this song in 45 seconds while he was getting a blumpkin from Courtney Love backstage before the VMAs. The absolute worst part of “Teen Spirit” is the line “Our little group has always been and always will until the end”…perhaps the single most misinterpreted lyric in the history of music. Kurt Cobain hated life. He had no “little group”. He never did. He was being sarcastic. I don’t think I’ve ever been more pissed off at anything in my life than when I read this lyric as 6 or 7 “Senior Quotes” in my high school yearbook two years ago. If Kurt Cobain saw that shit, he’d probably double or triple his heroin kick just to avoid shooting all of them and then himself (God knows he was willing to do it). I almost needed an opiate myself that day.

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8. Hootie and the Blowfish – “Only Wanna Be With You”

Rumor has it, my family bought their CD in like 1995 and played it on a long car ride. Rumor has it, even then at 5 years old I hated it so much that I had a fit until they turned it off. There really is nothing wrong with the song, in fact, when I found out the lead singer was black, I was so mind-blown that I almost garnered some respect for ol’ Hootie. I just think this falls in the same category with “Photograph” as a generally irritating and vastly overplayed alternative rock song that brings nothing new to the table. Alright, sure, this song is from like 15 years ago or whatever, but still, there is just so much better out there that I don’t see why this song blew up the charts, or why the album this song was from was certified diamond with somewhere around 18 million sales.

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9. AC/DC – “Thunderstruck”

Truth is, as much as the opening riff kicks ass, Brian Johnson sounds like he has to sneeze during the entire first like 2 minutes. Come to think of it, he ALWAYS sings like he has to sneeze, it’s just especially bad here. Go watch it on YouTube if you haven’t heard it in a while; I guarantee you’ll laugh once you realize how much it sounds like he’s about to just spew saliva and mucus all over the place.

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10. Dave Matthews Band

Alright, I said that I wouldn’t put Fall Out Boy on here because there was no particular song that irritated me, but my God, there’s something about DMB that just kills me. Maybe it’s just an acquired taste, but there are so many similar bands out there with a better sound, more poetic and meaningful lyrics, and overall better technique and showmanship that I can’t see how anyone can justify this band being one of the most popular groups of the 90’s and 00’s. There are actually other bands out there that generally irritate me (U2 being the biggest in my mind at the moment), but not enough to make it on here. As much as I love to hate U2’s endless liberal philanthropy and copious album sales, they are pretty goddamn catchy and pretty goddamn talented. I just do not find DMB to be either.

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So, that’s it. I expect some people to think I’m a raging moron at this point; but I beg of you to realize that this is solely my opinion, no better than anyone else’s, but no worse either. It would be cool, though, if someone agreed with me on some of these…oh well.