That Awful Sound

This week my guest Leigh tells us about being “indoctrinated” into the world of New Kids On The Block by an over-enthusiastic Blockhead cousin, and we discuss the lyrically reprehensible and musically unreasonable “Give It To You” by Jordan Knight. We uncover Robin Thicke, Alan Thicke, and Donnie Wahlberg's roles in this supremely creepy “forced anthem,” we get an unreliable, secondhand account from Jordan Knight assuring us that his conquest did indeed “want this,” and how his history with NKOTB might've created the sense entitlement we hear in these lyrics. Movies(?!) We Like: Baby Drive and One More Time With Feeling

This week we’re revisiting “Barbie Girl,” the anomalous, insanely popular European dance song by Danish band Aqua.  My guest Angie remembers associating this song with “evil” and “pain,” Emma relates her thorough knowledge of Barbie and Ken’s anatomy, and together we explore the overall weirdness of this fairly sexual song built around a children’s toy. We’ve got courtroom controversy, misheard and misunderstood lyrics, an extremely interesting shaved head, lots of misguided rage in the youtube comments, and plenty of terrible parody videos. “I don’t think anybody liked this song. It just happened to all of us.”

This week we discuss our second Christian song in two weeks (the first of course being OPM’s seminal hit “Heaven is a Halfpipe”), “Pitiful” by Blindside, Christianity’s answer to Refused.  Emma shares her memories of relating to this song despite her secular upbringing, and guest Michael Muñoz describes not recognizing the religious themes of this song despite his Christian upbringing. We dive into amazing lyrics about nails being driven into “beautiful hands,” and try to figure out how a devout Christian band can be filled with so much angst. Also: we finally get to see whats going on outside of the “rotating room” music video trope, the uncomfortable master/slave dynamic between singer Christian and his namesake, and the lyrical twist that serves as the crux of these lyrics but also doesn't quite work.

This week we take on seriously chill Cali / stoner / Christian? / skater anthem? “Heaven is a Halfpipe” by goateed punsters OPM. We’ve got a blatant stab at radioplay that is as confusing as it is repetitive, comments from the singer 15 years after the song’s release, and a one-note music video that nonetheless leads to a 10 minute riff on JNCO culture. Also: the return of terrible band member nicknames & album titles, possible premeditated controversy vs. actual controversy, and tributes to Grandpa in the YouTube comment section. PLUS: Join the new Facebook group to get advance notice on which episodes we’re doing! Your memories and jokes might make it on the air.

After popping up on the show recently, we’re finally talking about (həd) P.E. and their y2k, Limp Bizkit sound-alike, “Bartender.” Misspelled lyrics, sexy football metaphors, singer Jahred’s unique beliefs, and my guest’s (and his parents') relationship with the band. Also: Completely improper bar etiquette, a youtube commentator remembers an uncensored version of this video that does not exist, and a strange Jethro Tull sighting  Music We Like: Decapitated, Samla Mammas Manna’s “Måltid,” Mizery’s “Absolute Light,” and Laughing Hyenas' "Merry Go Round"

Guest Matt Zeidner joins the show to talk about Godsmack’s “Voodoo,” his first foray into dark-lite (or XxDaRkLiGhTxX) music. WARNING: this video contains an Actual Wiccan Ceremony conducted by the Official Witch of Massachusetts. (for reals) Why is Godsmack-related Wikipedia always so good? Why does this song fit so well with last week’s Boyz II Men sex-jam? Is this song part of Kurt Cobain’s true legacy? Why wont we do Mudvayne’s “Dig” on the show? Is this the wildest comments section we’ve ever done? No Music We Like section this week. We don't like music this week.

This week we're taking on Boyz II Men and their super-literal, shockingly generous song about a man willing to make love to his girl on her special night. It's "Ill Make Love To You." We also have a weird, wonderful music video about a man brazen enough to threaten a woman with breaking and entering, but tender enough to write her love letter before he does it. What demands do Boys II Men imagine their interest making on her special night?  Plus: awkward mother/daughter singalongs to this song, gnarly youtube comments, and a “theory about blinking.” Music We Like: The Zombies, Emil Amos, and KEN Mode

This week it’s a super fun episode as Michael Munoz joins us to make fun of Disturbed and their tragic modern take on the story of Job, “Prayer.” We cover the religious and anti-religious lyrical themes, the 9/11 controversy surrounding the video, and the singer’s INSANELY dumb chin piercings. Seriously, these things are bad. Also: an evangelical in the genius.com annotations, a snide MTV article about the video, eerie similarities between the band and Refused, and INTENSE religious controversy in the comments section. Music We Like: Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger, Kendrick Lamar’s Damn, Land of Talk’s Life After Youth

It's fairly ironic (or is it appropriate?) that I was unable to release this episode yesterday, because Emma Maatman and I are revisiting “Blue Monday,” Orgy’s “aggro-fied-for-the-1990s” version of the New Order classic. We cover the angst-filled tone-shift in this incarnation of the song, harsh puns in the lyrics, and have an in-depth discussion about the intense makeup situation going on in this pretty-good music video. Plus: genius.com contributors argue bitterly over who the real victims are in these lyrics, Wikipedia credits Orgy for The Matrix, Buckcherry starts beef with the band, Rihanna releases a covert cover of the cover that we discovered, and of course, plenty of wild comments from youtube and songmeanings. Music We Like: Kamasi Washington’s “The Epic” and a huge helping of Afghan Whigs, including their new album, “In Spades”

Distinguished burps, political merit badges, shilling for Apple products, egotistical local businessmen, the horrors of modern feminism, an argument about Bono, and plenty more deranged comments about the Spice Girls. Hear the full 28 minutes and every weekly bonus episode at www.patreon.com/thatawfulsound

This week it's a ridiculously fun episode on Spice Girls' Wannabe from 1996. Emma laments having to be the Baby Spice in her friend group; I discover the stigma against my childhood crush, Sporty Spice; we reveal the strange and wonderful etymology of "zigazig ha," as well as the sordid pasts the Girls want you to forget. Also: charitable and WILDLY uncharitable interpretations of the song’s confusing message, the sociopathic behavior exhibited by the group in a music video with unsettling parallels to A Clockwork Orange, and an extra long, extra perverted comment section. Music We Like: Gnarwhal's Crucial, Animal Collective's 2009 EP Fall Be Kind, and Ides of Gemini's new album Women

It's the 100th Episode Spectacular! We're returning to our roots by covering one of our favorite targets: Metallica and another Load-era, mid-tempo slogger, "The Memory Remains." Possibly more importantly, we're also covering the new Hetfield-narrated, moralizing documentary "Addicted to Porn: Chasing the Cardboard Butterfly." That's a real title, and we don't know what it means. We find surprisingly competent lyrics (probably not written by James) as well as expectedly cliche lyrics (definitely written by James), all of which tell the story of an aging, washed-up celebrity desperately clinging to the vestiges of her fame, and played by singer Marianne Faithful in the video. Was it an insult to offer her this gig? Does Metallica realize the irony in the subject matter? Is Faithful the reason that the Rolling Stones pop up so much in this episode? Is Lars' drumming even worse than usual? Plus: we briefly go over the amazing aforementioned documentary that attempts to protect the "beautiful essence of women," a

A quick tease for this week's bonus Patreon episode: nearly an hour discussion of the mind-numbingly hilarious Fyre Fest Fiasco. Emma stops by to help me read from a  NYT article about the aftermath that left "upwardly mobile millennial influencers" looking for a "boutique live music experience" stranded on an island for days with no music and only cheese sandwiches to eat. Subscribe for only $1/month at Patreon.com/thatawfulsound to get a private feed with this episode as well as past and future weekly bonus episodes.

This week it's a thoroughly disgusting episode of That Awful Sound: we’re revisiting the undiluted raunch in Methods of Mayhem’s “Get Naked.” Tommy Lee flops around naked in a bucket hat. Lil Kim rides a giant mechanical rooster. Fred Durst, George Clinton, and Mixmaster Mike chip away at their varying degrees of dignity by making cameos.  Also: angry/horny youtube commenters, cgi nipples, plenty of racism, and Anthony Tomato responds to our Mest episode on instagram. “This music video is bad for you” “It’s bad. It’s not like junk food, it’s not like a Snickers bar, its like putting gasoline in your body”

This week we're revisiting the unreliable witnesses in Creed and their utterly sour lead single, My Own Prison.  We're chatting about how they fit into our christian (or non-Christian) backgrounds, the band's absurd claim that they aren't actually a "christian band," and how Scott Stapp’s narcissism seeps through these overtly pious lyrics. Music we like: The Mountain Goats and Pile's "A Hairshirt of Purpose"

Warning: very simple description for this week's episode on account of me being drunk for Easter, but let it suffice to say that this episode contains: mouth sores, a story about my guest getting her period during a slow dance at her christian school, at least 10 different misinterpretations of this song from the comments section, and listener responses to the Mest episode.

This week we cover the the copyright-respecting second single “Zip-Lock,” from Bowling Rock troubadours, Lit; It’s a song about pockets?  We have a broader conversation about how musical tropes seem novel when you’re younger, bands deliberately writing stage directions into their lyrics, and this director’s penchant for parodying better ideas from other videos (in this case, Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It and in last week’s case, Heavy Metal Parking Lot.) Also: Another kid president (but this time with more dads), a letter from listener and artist @JDRenaud, and a few words from our new sponsor, Roswell Mutual Insurance.

This week we cover Nice Guy Anthem(TM) “Flavor of the Weak” by American Hi-Fi. What kind of dirt does the singer have on this girl? How much does he know about her boyfriend? What does he have against marijuana and Nintendo, two things that are arguably very good? Also: We dissect the music video, a glamorized, sanitized version of the cult documentary “Heavy Metal Parking Lot,” and reminisce about how great the latter is. Music We Like: Baroness - Purple, Land of Talk - Inner Lover, and Thundercat - Drunk (again)

This week we dive back into Angie’s wheelhouse, “80’s songs that a lot of people hate.” We’re revisiting Toto’s Africa: a song about a man who sees “death and suffering” in Africa on TV and then compares the continent to a woman he wants to have sex with. We have a song with about 5 layers of keyboards pretending to be marimbas, drums dressed up like hand drums but being played with sticks, burning a book titled “Africa,” standing on a book titled “Africa,” and brutally tortured lyrics like, “I know that I must do what's right, as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti” Music We Like: Chavez’s Cockfighters EP, the new At The Drive In, Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War, The Native Howl, and Soft Kill’s “Choke”

This week we cover a music video so terrible, we had to do it twice. It’s Mest’s “Cadillac,” an early 2000’s pastiche of pop punk, hip hop, and cali beach vibes that is so unbearable, even those of us who didn't listen to the band are embarrassed.  Guest Nick Guenzler shares a wealth of entertaining stories including the time he ghosted a high school girlfriend for 4 months, catching the singer showing off to Warped Tour bands by doing donuts in his Mest™ brand Cadillac, and a very tumultuous Mest reunion. Also: the singer’s white power background and other ways in which “knowing right from wrong is what [he] lacks,” a member of the Mest family makes an appearance in the comment section, and a track from my old band with Nick, Shut Eye. Music We Like: Stove - Is The Meat That Fell Out, Yuck - Self Titled, and Them Crooked Vultures - Self-Titled Listen to Shut Eye's newest EP at shuteyeband.bandcamp.com