So there are a lot of really terrible bands out there. But it’s the job of this post to determine, very scientifically, what the worst ones are. The parameters: bands will be judged on volume of sucking (more albums of sucking released, the worse the total suckitude). Bands that didn’t make it into the mainstream will not count (aka the “local music is awesome” adjustment). Sucky bands that have people of talent in them (i.e. Paul McCartney should probably issue a formal apology for Wings) won’t count, because just their presence drags them out of total suckitude.
Without further backtracking:
5. Hinder. While I wanted to include Hellyeah for having their name be Hellyeah, I chose Hinder here because their songs truly are abysmal. “Lips of an Angel” is quite possibly one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard. I think it’s supposed to be touching, but I wouldn’t want a man who sounds like that or thinks like that to be anywhere near me. But it might be a girl thing. Girls might be attracted to dudes who think it’s a good idea to make this album cover:
frown
Also, it’s worth note that the DVD in the expanded edition of the above album was titled You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up. Unfortunately, Hinder, you did make it up. And then you recorded it.
4. Michael Bolton. Having been quite young in the early nineties, it is easy to remember Michael Bolton solely for his worst atrocity (and greatest hit) “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Humming this in any situation is equivalent to playing the Canada card in Apples to Apples: people laugh and you win, no matter if you were earnest or not. It’s easy to forget that he was inexplicably famous in the early nineties, reeling off a string of hits for no apparent reason. I mean, Office Space uses his lameness as a running gag for the entire film. He’s that bad. And he released a new album last week. The suck never stops.
3. Sheryl Crow/Melissa Etheridge. I am convinced that these women are the same person. Not only do they look almost exactly alike, I cannot tell their music apart. This is bad for both of them, because it seems that all terrible, generic acoustic-based pop with a mature female vocalist has been their fault in the last decade. One of them is probably taking the blame for the other. Or maybe they’ve covering for each other. One of them recently made Cat Stevens’ work sound about as exciting as a cereal box with a cover of “The First Papercut is Slightly Annoying.”
2. Kid Rock/Uncle Cracker. Also probably the same person. When one of you is mostly famous for wanting to be a cowboy, and the other for a song about how awesome infidelity is, you’re really in trouble. Also, it thought this was a good idea:
Classy.
But that doesn’t even begin to note how terrible their/its music is. If I hear a totally unoriginal song come on the KHITS with an obnoxious, obviously white male, it is almost certainly one of the two personas of this man. If it’s KROK, it’s almost certainly Linkin Park, but that’s a different post (i.e. how to write multiple hits and be awesome at the same time). Back to the point: if it sounds vaguely like Jason Mraz but way more annoying, and you come away feeling trashier on the whole, you’ve just been Kid Kracker’ed.
1. Nickelback. There are six Nickelback albums. Six. Seeing as all of them sound the same, and none of them produced a good song, this is an unprecedented amount of sucking. In fact, so many of the songs sound the same that a guy played two at the same time just to revel in how much they can’t write new stuff. Wow. Also, if you search “Nickelback sucks” on Youtube, the first caption on a video is “I threw a rock at Nickelback while they were playing in Portugal.”If you type “Nickelback sucks” into Google, it pulls up a page that says “you’re right.” Wow. Just….wow.
30/09/2009 at 7:29 am Permalink
I have to weigh in here and say you forgot Creed, who may also be Nickleback. The one decent thing Creed did it’s whole career was to break up.
30/09/2009 at 9:23 am Permalink
I am going to have to disagree with the above statement. Creed, while terrible, is excluded by the “famous persons” act, and that famous person is NOT lead-singer Scott Stapp, but Lead-guitarist Mark Tremonti. Don’t believe me? Go listen to Alter Bridge (Creed – Stapp + Myles Kennedy) and tell me he isn’t one of the greatest Hard Rock guitarists of that/this generation.
30/09/2009 at 9:53 am Permalink
This makes my morning. And the Nickelback back-to-back clip only cemented the awesome.
30/09/2009 at 10:25 am Permalink
I agree with Raus. Alter Bridge is one of the best rock bands, and they’re practically Creed after they learned how to play their interments and got a new singer.
30/09/2009 at 11:05 am Permalink
Mark Tremonti is NOT one the the greatest hard rock guitarist of any generation.
Alter Bridge is typical at best…
30/09/2009 at 12:04 pm Permalink
I just think the best thing is that two of these people have a duet together (Sheryl Crow & Kid Rock’s “Pictures”). Essence of a terrible song.
30/09/2009 at 3:20 pm Permalink
While I agree with most of your choices on this list, your arguments are flawed. You need concrete reasoning to support your claims of “Worst Bands Ever.”
“Seeing as all of them sound the same, and none of them produced a good song, this is an unprecedented amount of sucking.” Need I say more? Have you listened to every song on every album Nickelback has ever released? What do you define as “Sucking”? Does every song recorded by this band use the same chord progression, drum pattern, and recording techniques? No. Pop-rock isn’t exactly my cup of tea either, but history shown us that bands do not stay successful by recording the same sound on every album (System of a Down is a great example of evolving musicality, i.e. “Toxicity” has a strong, clean, semi-artificial sound, while “Mesmerize/Hypnotize” makes use of rough, loose, and more “real” musicianship).
Also, have you actually HEARD Hellyeah? They aren’t Pantera, they’re not Damageplan, and they’re not Mudvayne. No, they are their own sound created by legends of metal.
With that being said, I have to say: I have a strong distaste for Uncle Cracker and Hinder as well 🙂
01/10/2009 at 10:39 am Permalink
Okay, maybe The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus has a worse name than Hellyeah. But seriously. Their name is Hellyeah. They couldn’t come up with anything better? That alone merits disdain.