Albums you must stay away from

Since I did albums you must have, why not albums you must stay away from? I'll tell you what not to spend your money on. These albums make Guantanamo bay look like a vacation. These albums are the worst combination of sounds ever created by man. These albums should have never even been made. Never, ever, ever even think of buying these albums ever. I haven't heard these entire albums, I don't need to, i get a few songs in before i cant stand the "music" anymore. But i don't need to, what I've heard is proof enough.

St.Anger-Metallica
I've referenced this album many times before on this site. So I'll go into more detail about it. The production; terrible; the music; awful; the lyrics; a 5 year old could write more intelligent lyrics. This is a very, very poor attempt to get back to their roots. Thankfully Death Magnetic was much better and came close to succeeding, but i hardly ever listen to it any more because of its extreme over compression. Anyway, let me list off why this is so terrible. First of all, the drums sound terrible, the snare especially sounds like trash cans inside a empty metal dumpster. They tuned the guitars all the way down to C making them all guttural. It sounds like Nu-metal. Now, I kind of like the guitar sound, but seriously, play them in the right order. These aren't riffs. Fingers go up the neck, fingers go down the neck. That's it. The lyrics are so stupid, but not only that they repeat them over and over again and pound them in your head. The songs don't flow at all. The other instruments are often buried under the terrible drum sounds. It seems like if he bangs on them even louder it'll make a better song. It does the exact opposite. Also theirs no solos anywhere on this album. Why?? It sounds as if Kirk Hammett just gave up trying. Their are only two moments on this album that would even qualify as being listenable to the human ear. The intro to the title track, which sounds kinda cool until the singing starts. That intro is the only good part of the song. And "Frantic"; does it suffer from extremely stupid, unbelievably repetitive lyrics? Yes. Terrible snare sound that overpowers everything? Yes. Guitars that do almost nothing? Yes. But is it the best song on the album? Yes. Its listenable. and that says alot on this album. On another note, this is from the band that made Master of puppets? Seriously. Its unbelievable how much they declined. Thankfully, the next album was much, much, much better. If your at the store and you see this album. Don't even think of buying this. I wouldn't even take this if they gave it to me for free. Absolutely horrendous abomination.

Cut The Crap-The Clash
Ah yes, the clash, a staple of classic punk. Except this, this was their last studio album. Good thing too. Its hard to find a bigger joke then this from a formerly respectable band. The songs have random, inappropriate boing, ping, thwack and other ridiculous sounds that drown out everything else half the time. They got rid of their drummer and replaced him with an ultra fake sounding drum machine. There are a million cheesy 80s synthesisers all over the place and the guitar has a slicked over pukeish sound. The chorus's always have like 100 people singing it with no singing voices that probably got pulled off the street. This is a complete joke. Now to be fair, even though "This is England" has all those terrible things, their are less ridiculous noises and its a decent song. But other than that. This album is a bunch of vomit random 80s noises that should never be listened to by any creature in the universe. What idiots made this? Seriously? Did they honestly think this was good? An exaggerated but true example of how mainstream pop music can absolutely destroy the sounds formerly known as music.

Marti Gras-Creedence Clearwater Revival
Here's another example of a formerly great band sucking badly before breaking up. So after the rhythm guitarist left the other band members wanted to get more song writing in, except your John Fogerty and you almost single handedly are CCR, you write all the music and lyrics and you could probably play every single instrument with little to no change in musical quality. But you let your remaining band mates write and sing on some songs. Except they are absolutely terrible at writing songs and cant sing to save their life. One has the range and charisma of a monotonous drone. Another just sounds plain terrible. The songs would suck even if they wernt sung by these people. If you can find a worse hoe down song than "tearin up the country" I'd like to hear it, or maybe i wouldn't. This is one of the worst examples of a rock band going country I've ever heard. Thankfully John Fogerty does sing on some songs. They arnt quite up to the standards of their earlier material but they are honestly decent songs. Truly the last breath of CCR. For some reason these ended up on
Chronicle but "Born on the Bayou" didn't why? If you are ever going to buy a CCR album, don't buy this one ever. I recommend the greatest hits contemplation Chronicle volume 1. Their studio albums are filled with a few hits surrounded by airless blues jams that go nowhere. Until Cosmos Factory they weren't good at it. But since 7 out of 11 songs on that are in Chronicle you might as well get that. It made my "albums you must have" list, which you can read if you scroll down some. Bottom Line; Stay away from this.

Van Halen 3-Van Halen
I love Van Halen back when they had David Lee Roth (Still do i guess since he came back). Then Sammy Hagar came and ruined it. But this is worse. This has Gary Cherone. He sounds terrible. Really. I cant say it better so I'm going to quote Brad from Brads Completely Useless Record Reviews. "What does it sound like, you ask? Well, picture Sammy Hagar at 80 years old. With laryngitis. And LUNG CANCER. That’s what Gary sounds like." and he also said "...it feels like someone has taken a large piece of sandpaper, stuck it inside my ear, and started grinding it violently against my eardrums. It’s AWFUL. If one looks solely at vocals, this is the by FAR the worst album I’ve ever heard, and it has no real competition." That's nuff said. Don't buy this album. Start with the self titled Van Halen or a greatest hits contemplation. Not this.

Some bands to stay away from entirely:

Limp Bizkit
Creed
Godsmack (complete rip-off of Alice in Chains)
Linkin Park
Korn
The Naked Brothers Band
Hannah Montana
Fallout Boy

King of the Hill has Been cancelled

So one of my favorite TV shows has been cancelled. I was probably going to happen eventually, but why now? Yes, its not as funny as it used to be but its far better than any other cartoon on Fox. The Simpson's started sucking years ago. I love the Simpson's before then. Ive seen almost every episode. I don't make it a priority to watch the new ones anymore. Family Guy is a stupid show made for immature 13 year olds where almost all of the jokes are flashbacks starting with: remember when...or remember that time you... and so on that has nothing to do with the story that's strung together by a weak plot. American dad is an even worse version of family guy. Just replace the dog with an alien. They've also made the Simpson's dumb down their material which is a large part in why they suck now even though family guy blatantly rips off the Simpson's plots and characters. King of the Hill was the only thing left that was worth watching. This is sad. That shows a classic. Has it been declining some lately? Yes. But has it made a comeback? Yes it most certainly has. I don't have much more to add without repeating myself so later.

I-pod Music download quality

I dont normally download music, but with this particular album, i already did along time ago with rhapsody. Im not getting rid of rhapsody, you get 25 free plays a month, so i can review an album for free. But for the most part iv'e switched to I tunes because i got an I-pod touch. This album i couldnt transfer becasue of copyright protections embeddded. I had a giftcard and thought, it wouldnt matter if i downloaded it again. So I do. I look at it on my computer. 128 bit rate! Thats bad. I like to have the highest quality sound i can get. Now I try to set all my music the highest it will let me, 320 Kbps. Now, when i downloaded this album the first time, i came as 193 bit rate, acceptable in my eyes. Of course thats before i relized i hadnt set it to a higher bit rate. But 128 is bad. Good thing I didnt pay for it. Im just gonna but a physical copy of the album like i always do. 128 bit rate is unnacceptable. I-tunes needs to get higher quality download quality.

Video and song of the week

This is hilarious, this lady calls 911 and wants to have a cop come over because burger king got her order wrong.

Lady Calls 911 Over Wrong Burger King Order


This is a great song off Superunknown, gets played all the time still.
Soundgarden-Spoonman

Guitar hero world tour is disappointing

Edit: okay, maybe i was a bit too harsh. Its fine on multiplayer, its a good game, but the set list sucks. GH 3 had tons of classic rock. This is full of new stuff and just plain bad stuff. Korn? Breaking Benjamin? Paramore? Why? Its all whiny emo-ish stuff. That's not rock. They do have some good bands. But not enough. And the only metallica song in this is trapped under ice. I was hoping for a good song after all the terribleness. but they give me that? Why not "Creeping death?" or "For Whom The Bell Tolls"? or maybe even "Fade to black". There from the same album as that. Why? I'll just have to wait for the expansion. And i hear theres a Jimmi Hendrix one coming out too. So theres that. Good game, bad songs. Rock band 2 did it better, its not worth $200 in my opinion. Anyway, now that that's out of the way, read my original review below.


So, flushed with Christmas money, about 2 $50 visa cards, $20 in cash, a $50 gift card to Barnes and noble, a $20 check and a small $10 gift card to borders, i like books. But anyway, i didn't ask for much so i got a ton of money. So i go to the store to spend some. I got 2 books. I was going to spend the rest of the money on albums, but i got an X box 360. I figure, why not get a game? After arguing over rock band 2 or guitar hero: world tour, we got GH. Yes, i knew rock band had better songs but i figured, stick with guitar hero. Big mistake. I pay $100 because me and my brother split it. it cost more than i thought, i thought id have some money left but no, both the gift cards are used. This better be good, I thought. I get home, i set it up. It was disappointing. Its not very user friendly on multi player. Some things you cant tell. And the songs, terrible choice. Rock band 2 nailed it. Guitar hero missed. There are some good songs, but many of them I've never heard of. Some just suck. Why is Korn here? Why? Blink 182? They don't deserve a spot. The thing with Guitar hero 3, which was great, was that every song was a classic. Even the new stuff was really popular at the time. And another thing, id heard of almost everyone on there. On this, i don't even know who half these people are. HushPuppies? Stuck in the Sound? NOFX? Who are these people? Your supposed to be doing songs that actually have something significant about them. Another thing, Why does Tool have 3 songs?? Why? I don't have a problem with Tool, but why 3 songs? O yeah, one of them isn't forty six & 2. In comparison, Rock Band 2 features Pearl Jam, Joan Jett, Kansas, AC/DC, Alice in Chains, Tenacious D, Megadeth, Ratt, Billy Idol, Soundgarden and a better Metallica song than GH. ("battery" from master of puppets as opposed to "Trapped under Ice", one of the few songs off Ride the Lightning i don't like.) Not the Hushpuppies. To be fair, its an alright game, its got Creedence clearwater revival, Nirvana, Ozzy Osbourne, the smashing pumpkins, jimmi Hendrix and even a Willie Nelson song, but so much stuff that tries to appeal to the casual gamer. Instead of Black Sabbath, we get Blondie, instead of Slayer, the mars Volta, seriously, the mars Volta. Some songs on GH are the same as on rock band 2, and there are some of the same artists with different songs, for instance, system of a down, its great there on there, but rock band 2 has "Chop Suey!" this has "B.Y.O.B". Both are good songs but "Chop Suey!" is clearly the more classic song. Ive also heard complaints about the note chart being way off what it is in real life, and how sometimes theres a note that isn't really there or something. Its not worth $200. Worst $100 I've ever spent, possibly the worst purchase I've ever made. At least I have the Metallica Expansion to look forward too. That's gonna be great. Probably alot harder too. At least i got that. GH world tour is overrated, its clearly slipping, i cant believe they screwed up like this, if the next one isn't better then they've clearly jumped the shark. Buy rock band 2 instead, it has much, much, much, better songs.

Movie review: Four Christmases

So yesterday i saw Four Christmases, what did i think of it? I thought it was hilarious. Its about a happily unmarried couple who doesn't want kids or to be married, gets stranded at home and has to visit their parents who are all divorced and dysfunctional. I wont go into the details but it was a funny movie, a laugh out loud funny movie. Funny moments include two "semi professional" cage fighters who beat up their older brother, not realizing a $10 cap on presents so one kid gets an X-box and another gets a flashlight and destroying a house trying to install a satellite dish because of stubbornness. Its funny throughout and I enjoyed it. It wasn't perfect, no movie is, but it was quite funny. In album review terms, high 8 out of 10.

Video and Song of the week

This is this guys non-fiction story about a run in with the cops at age 5, I dont know if its actually true, but its hilarious, the way he narrates is hysterical.

911 Call by 5yr Old



Hard to choose, maybe next week I'll do Soundgarden.

System Of A Down - Toxicity

Movie commercials

Whats with advertisements for movies? They always have a similar sounding narrator every time, do they only have 3 guys they pay to do movie advertisements? Also, they claim every single movie advertised is number 1 or "the best of the year" or something like that, i bet if you played 2 in order, they would both say that. You cant both be the best! Choose 1 jerks! Another thing, they always claim its the film every ones talking about, but I've never heard of it, who's talking about? Stop making yourselves look stupid, seriously. Movie advertisements should be about enticing you to see the movie, not spouting a bunch of overused, cliche phrases that do nothing.

Albums You Must Have

Since Christmas is coming up soon, and as a way for me to get alot of album reviews in, I'm going to be doing mini-reviews of some albums which I believe are classics in every sense of the word. Not in any particular order.

Back In Black-AC/DC

If you don't have this album you're missing out on alot, if you don't like a single song on this album you're a complete idiot. I should just stop there, but I wont. Every song is perfect, some are lesser but not even approaching mediocre. My only complaint is that its AC/DC and the songs all start to sound similar after a while, but individually every song is near perfect. 10 out of 10

Master of Puppets-Metallica

This is the pinnacle of early Metallica. Yes, its pretty much a remake of Ride The Lighting, but it takes side 1 of that album and perfects it. People say side 1 is the best collection of metal songs ever written, and it may very well be, but side 2 is good too, though it can be kind of a disapointment when you get 3 or 4 perfect songs on side 1, you cant be better than perfect. The first track is the shortest at 5:12. Its really fast. Its got an acoustic intro, then a little flurry of electric before exploding. The next song is the title track. Its been called the best heavy metal song ever. I'm not going to argue there. Words cant describe it. There's also the best instrumental they've ever done on here, "Orion" is excellent. The rest of the songs are great also.
10 out of 10.

Superunknown-Soundgarden

Soundgarden is one my favorite bands,this album is in my opinion, one of the best albums of the 90s, the amount of diversity and songwriting skills on this is stunning. Its got 15 songs and is more than 70 minutes long, but it deserves to be 70 minutes long. It sounds like a greatest hits album half the time. "Black Hole Sun" and "Spoonman" were huge radio smashes back in 1994 (Black Hole Sun still is.) But anyone of these songs could have been big too, including the title track. Its got all sorts of psychedelic stuff too. Like "My Wave" which starts out as a great poppy rock song (but NOT pop-rock) that's ultra catchy but then morphs into a psychedelic freak out that doesn't loose its catchiness. "Head Down" is mind blowing, just 6:09 minutes of pure moody brilliance. "Mailman" and "Limo Wreck" are grindingly slow. "Spoonman" was huge and got played every 20 minutes practically, I still hear it on the radio, great song. Only two things are unnecessary, "kickstand" is a 1:34 minute throwaway tune with punk speed and "half" is just weird and I've listened to it maybe once. Absolute classic in every sense of the word. Very High 10 out 10.


Toxicity-System of a Down

SOAD is one of the very few modern bands I like. I used to think they were just another crappy Nu-Metal band, until I actually listened to them. If today's bands put even half the effort these guys do in their songs, maybe 96% of it wouldn't suck. Did I mention, they're all Armenian? Only one of them was actually born in America, and his parents are Armenian or something. Serj Tankian is one of the more versatile and interesting singers of today, he goes from melodic singing, to grunting, to yelping, to all sorts of weird stuff without blinking and it makes sense. The guitarist and back up singer has the exact opposite voice, almost 80s metal type, hard to describe, but it counterbalances his perfectly. They have all these thrashy parts combined with all this balladish melodic stuff usually in the same song. They use a bunch of ethnic instruments, like all those Armenian instruments and gentle soloing at the end of "psycho" intertwined with the "Psycho! Groupie! Cocaine! Crazy!" part in the chorus. But theirs more memorable chants and such. We got "Science! has failed! our world!" in "Science. and we got "Pushing little children! with they're fully automatics! they like to push the weak around!" in "Deer Dance". I think its about some riots in turkey or something about the Armenian genocide, idk. But the highlight is the title track, easily one of the best songs in years, just the way they have that little 2 second drum fill and then the drums working against the guitar is genius, its the little things that anyone could have done but they were too stupid too do that's part of the appeal. You'll be jerked around between all these emotions during this album, you'll be banging your head during the thrashiness, then think "gee, that's pretty." and then laughing at the lyrics and vocal mannerisms in the same song. Excellent album, possibly one of the best of the decade. 10 out of 10

Chronicles-Creedence Clearwater Revival

This is a greatest hits album, i haven't listened to it fully yet, so I'm not going to rate it. But I have listened to alot of it. It has most of their hits and singles, except "Born on the Bayou" instead of which we have 2 of the better songs from the awful Marti Gras. At least their the ones that John Fogerty sings on. When he lets the rest of the band try solo, like on that album, its absolutely awful. If it had "Born on the Bayou" of course it'd be perfect. But really, its missing why?! It makes no sense to leave that song out. But anyway, i will say this. This album is essential for anyone with any interest in classic rock what so ever.

Paranoid-Black Sabbath

This album is an absolute all time classic, its got "Iron Man" and "Paranoid" in the same album! Every song, except the instrumental "Rat Salad" is great. Yes, maybe the lyrics arnt great at times, but think about how many bands wouldn't have existed without this album, really, most of them. These guys and The Beatles (who I'm not very familiar with) pretty much created everything you hear today. "Planet Caravan" is a weird song that's really psychedelic. "Fairies Wear Boots"
is a great song and its got "Iron man" and "Paranoid" That speaks enough about this album. 10 out of 10

Honorable mention

Powerage-AC/DC 9 out of 10

...And Justice For All-Metallica 9 out of 10

Badmotorfinger-Soundgarden 9 out of 10

Ride The Lightning-Metallica 10 out of 10

Americas funniest home videos

Its a TV show that has become a staple of television, it has gone through many time slots, channels and hosts, it has become a classic in its own right, except one thing. It outdated. Yes, Americas Funniest Home Videos is an outdated show. With websites such as youtube and others, we dont need a TV show to watch people's hilarious videos anymore. And the humor is outdated also, its pretty much the last holdout of 70's style shows which are so cheesy. and the videos, where do I begin, the videos are so repetitive, oh look, that guy fell, that kid got scared, and so on. How many times can you watch someone fall or a kid get scared of santa during the kids scared of santa montages? The show is obsolete, period. If i want funny videos, i go to youtube where theirs more than physical comedy, although it is funny, and youtube is of gennerally of a funnier quality than anything they show there. Another thing, the video that wins is never funny. Its just something with a baby or an animal thats supposed to be "cute". It's so rediculous. America's Funniest Home Videos is nothing but a relic of an era that is long gone, its time to get rid of this outdated show.

Video and song(s) of the week

yeah, i know i missed the last one or two but I'm really here for the rants, this is a side thing i started due to popular demand, well maybe 1 or two when i told them my idea, anyways here's more videos.

Now this is funny, a kid gets hit by an exercise ball and flys 3 feet back. I showed it to kids in my advisory class and they thought it was hilarious.


Kid gets owned by exercise ball



So for song of the week i figure, why not Metallica? But which song, so hard to choose. Well, i skipped last weeks, so why not two?

This song is very simple compared to their earlier stuff, i can guarantee you've heard it at least once, still a good song though.

Enter Sandman-Metallica


I will not hesitate to say this is one of the best power ballads ever made, the whole song is brilliant, it has one of the smoothest transitions I've ever heard, it goes from a ballad to a heavy thrash metal song so flawlessly. The music video has clips from the movie Johnny got His Gun which is similar to what this song's about. Its about a soldier in World War I who's wounded when a mortar shell lands right on top of him, he survives, but he losses his arms, legs, eyes, ears, jaw, and nose. So he's essentially trapped in his mind. His wish is to either die or be put on public display to showcase the horrors of war. But enough of that. Its a good song, period. (edit: it looks like all the music videos for "One" are gone due to a copyright claim, so I've been forced to use this video of just the band logo with lyrics. But it has the song. Unbeleivable.)

One-Metallica

Other people that do rants that I like

besides doing my own rants, i also read and watch other peoples as well, many of these people inspired me to start this blog.

62365

This guy, with his strange name of a few numbers, is the guy who originally inspired me to do this blog. And i admit, i steal some of his points on things too, in fact, i liked his NASCAR one so much, i decided to use alot his talking points, cause its so true, yeah, my best rant isn't even completely mine. I admit, alot of my really early posts, were not completely my own ideas, but really, this guys hilarious, o yeah, i started using his Later thing too cause i liked it so much. It works doesn't it?

http://www.youtube.com/user/62365

Angry Video Game Nerd

I like this guy, he's very funny, he also cusses alot, but i try to keep this clean, which is why I don't post his videos. I did however, take some of his pens at the post office rant. Off his you know whats Bull$*1* series of videos. He normally reviews really old games and are hilarious. But besides for that pens at the post office, i don't take any of his ideas or reviewing style.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesNintendoNerd


Brad’s Completely Useless Record Reviews


Now this guy is called Brad, and hes not my cousin. He inspired me to do albums occasionally, even though he admits he ripped of 99% of Mark Prindles writing style. he also used to cuss in alot of his early reviews, but he almost never does anymore, hes matured alot. He also seems to be really slow in updating lately, but whatever, I also adopted his simple 1-10 rating system, instead of letters, grades or such. he also likes Led Zeppelin alot for some reason. Other than that he seems to have somewhat similar tastes to mine.

http://www.geocities.com/bradreviews/

Theres also some random teens who did some things on HSM that i can't pinpoint.

Those 3 are ones i like alot. Theres probably more, but i'll edit this list over time. Later.

Kids who text people when they're sitting right next to them

Whats up with kids texting people on their cell phones when the kid is sitting right next to them???? really! why??? Are you too lazy to talk??? Its a waste of money, i don't care if you have unlimited texting or not, its ridiculous. What ever happened to passing notes? If you get caught you don't lose your phone. But really, whats wrong with you? electronics destroy your social skills or your ability to speak English fluently? Don't text when the persons right next to you. Its ridiculous and absurd.