Category Everything is Terrible

An Open Letter To Swollen Members

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Dear Swollen Members,

I bought, not downloaded, your new album, ‘Armed to the Teeth’. I’ve given it several listen-throughs, and not half-assed listen-throughs while doing other things, but actual, concentrated listening, so believe me when I say I’ve given it a fair chance.

I hate it. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever done. It is an enormous step backward from ‘Black Magic’ in every sense.

Lyrically, the new album hurts me. Almost physically. What happened to the intellectualism? The D&D-playing bookworms? How do you go from this three years ago:

Asymmetrical trajectory as seen by Galileo Ride the horse color pale, reminiscent of Rembrandt Pyrokinesis, enjoy the taste of the kickback Red forbidden planet, amulets that conjure souls Doomed to float forever in the threshold of the crossroads

to

Last night I left the club with a pornstar, she gets around, but I like the way she go hard, yeah, left the club with a pornstar, love to get down, but I like the way she go hard.

You can get a pornstar, you can get a stripper, but I know the difference when it’s quicker on the zipper, she likes it a little thicker, she’s a nasty freak, my energizer bunny she could last for weeks, she can buy her own drinks, she can spin on them poles, she’s a real professional when she hops out them clothes…

I’m a real high rock, I’m a hip hop rock star, we on the block, throwing rocks at cop cars, getting my buzz on, drinking a rock star, my girl wild, ya she party like a rock star, yaaaa, party like a rock star, pound like a pornstar, lamboghini doors, 24’s on my form car, my crew all thugs and goons, we got war scars and everytime I leave the club I got 4 broads, maybe more broads cause we goes hard, busting nuts, popping shots and a ghost car. We getting high like the drace space coaster, come on show some pride and throw your fucking west coast up. ?

Gee, I like the way you rhymed ‘porn star’ with ‘rockstar’, in both its beverage AND personal iterations. And don’t forget ‘car’ with ‘car’ and ‘broads’ with ‘broads’, which is right on par with Evanescence rhyming ‘me’ with ‘me’, except Evanescence is a shitacular pop-rock-faux-goth-I’m-sooo-vewwy-vewwy-sad-all-the-time band and you guys are supposed to be RAPPERS. Rhyming is what you DO.

 

Were you going for a rap-metal sound with that song? For fuck’s sake, you might as well just give up and collaborate with Fred Durst and all of you can do it for the nookie and cookies and milk. And auto-tune? Really? Not only are you not Rihanna, but it’s about six years removed from sounding fresh. Yes, as artists, use the tools available. Please don’t abuse the tools available, and recognize that when you hop on a trend a decade after the fact, it reflects negatively on you.

Guys, this album hurts because it feels like a cash-grab. It’s so mainstream, and I don’t just mean you’ve turned your back on your signature style; it’s mainstream in the sense that it has embraced all of the negative things in rap culture–glorifying violence, drug use and greediness, demeaning women, advocating violence against gays and using expletives as placeholders. I fucking don’t have a fucking problem with fucking swearing but fuck, be fucking constructive with it, for fuck’s sake. You’re better than that. You’re also better than using the same shitty shit shit shit guitar riff in two separate tracks. (See? I can do it, too.) And if you’ve got to reach into the archives to grab a track you put on a b-side album to make this new one recognizable to fans or as filler, maybe you should’ve taken another year off and worked on some more material. I’ll still check out Beautiful Death Machine when it comes out next year, but my hopes aren’t high. If you wanted to lower the bar, this was a fantastic way to do it.

Stop making me sad.

Love,

Mellzah Dildarian

Oooooh, that smell! Can’t you smell that smell?

10 Comments read Everything is Terrible

Mardi sent me stuff for hosting Chicken & Porn Night. One of these things is ‘Pure Instict’, the pheromone perfume that supposedly morphs into the scent that makes you most attractive. It’s different for everyone, and on some ladies, it smells very, very pretty. This is something I will never, ever use, as we determined at Chicken & Porn night that Pure Instinct makes ME smell like Play-Doh. Not even good Play-Doh. The cheap homemade kind that’s crumbly and funky and no one likes. Two things: One, anyone I attract with this will either be an emotionally stunted man-child OR get me sent to prison for Pied-Pipering ACTUAL children, and two, I will never, ever in my life be bold enough to utter the phrase ‘wanna play with me?’ so this whole thing is very clearly not for me.

Is there anyone reading this who wants to try it? I will ship it anywhere on this wide earth. Claimed by the lovely girlpirate!

Invisibility Cloak For Sale

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One thing I harp about over and over and over again until people want to shake me to death (this method isn’t very effective: I may be child-size but I have adult-strength bones and organs) is courtesy. Basic manners. RSVPs. Thank you notes. ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ in general. Being a good guest. Being a good host. Holding doors and not spitting or scratching yourself in public. Not cutting in line or being an asshole to people in service-industry jobs. Not ignoring someone who is disabled who obviously needs assistance carrying a bag or opening a door. Respecting the property of others. Not shouting things at people out of car windows. Not vomiting down someone’s heating vent or sticking your dick in the mashed potatoes.

I would like to add to this list: Yield to pedestrians.

I almost got creamed twice on my walk home yesterday, both times when I had the crosswalk light, both vehicles turning right. One simply didn’t look; I’m glad I was looking for him. The other made eye contact and then gunned his SUV so he could cross in front of me, nearly running over my foot. The fact that I injured my hand punching his rear quarter-panel is inconsequential if I didn’t actually damage the asshole’s vehicle, and thus doesn’t, in my mind, constitute a breach in my basic courtesy rules of conduct.

The day before, also as I was walking home, on the half-width sidewalk on the bridge over highway 167, over the music on my headphones, I heard someone screaming “BEHIND YOU”. I looked back, and was faced with a split-second decision–a bicyclist was bearing down on me rapidly, and I had two options for getting out of his way: dive into traffic, or fling myself onto the blackberry-bramble-covered chain-link fence over the highway and pray it was as sturdy as it looked.

…As thorns scraped at my face and I clung desperately to the links and the cyclist blasted by, I was overwhelmed by the urge to jump down and kick him into traffic. I mean, I get it. I’m on foot and thus the low man on the totem pole. But I have a right to the streets and sidewalks, too. I shouldn’t have to play Real Life Consequences Frogger twice a day.

Shaking with adrenaline, I continued on my way home. The lady who drove right through a stop sign and almost hit me, half-braked and mouthed ‘sorry’ at me through the window barely got a reaction, by which I mean, I only flipped her the finger instead of launching into a profanity-laden tirade. ‘Sorry’ won’t count when you t-bone someone or flip me over your hood like so much roadkill, lady.

All I’m asking is not to be mown down in the street. Is that too much?