That Awful Sound

This week Michael Muñoz returns to dissect childhood favorite “Slide” by the Gru Gru Dolls and its long-winded promises, half-assed marriage proposal, and very aggressive statements about abortion. We run down the ultra-literal music video, Johnny Goo’s terrible, “tattooable” quotes, and also just his terrible tattoos. Plus: Now That’s What I Call Music Vs. Kidz Bop Vs. Jock Jams, more Simpsons references than you could ever want, and Alien Ant Farm renounces the IE. Good music: O’Brother’s “Endless Light” and Autolux’s “P*ssy’s Dead”

Warning! Explicit Adam Sandler content! This week we have a first for the show: a song by fart-comedy legend Adam Sandler called “Steve Polychronopolous.” My guest Leigh shares her storied personal history with the comedian, including the time his jokes grounded her for a year. We also discuss a few of the eight-minute, one-note sketches found on this album, the merits of Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, and the inexplicable hold he has on talented actors and comedians. How was there a clean version of this song? How is Will Forte in Ridiculous 6? Why do sharks exist? Good music: Flight of the Conchords’ “Hurt Feelings” and Mastodon/Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s “Linoleum Knife”

This week Travis Duscay returns for our “spiritual” sequel to the Woodstock ’94 episode: Woodstock ’99! We revisit the festival that qualified as an EPA Superfund site and was described by Kurt Loder as a “concentration camp” to analyze Creed and Robby Krieger's butt-rocking interpretation of "Riders on the Storm," as well as the band's christ-channeling, sex-shaming, mid-tempo slog, "What's This Life For." Also: An Adam Baldwin/Mel Gibson/Simpsons Conspiracy Theory, Travis’ dad buying him a Phish album for his birthday, and misunderstandings of satirical news articles.

This week we have a very special episode: our unofficial Awful Band Spotlight on AFI. Devyn Trujillo (voted “most goth” by the AFI message boards) and Travis Duscay (voted “most frequent guest” by me) help turn what was supposed to be an episode on “Love Like Winter” into something much bigger. We discuss the band’s interesting career arc, from classic albums like Shut Your Mouth, All Hallow’s EP, and Black Sails in the Sunset to the random electronic elements of the homophobe trolling(?), “post-goth,” nu-wave anthem in question. We cover the many voices of Davey Havok, the Duchovny-esque lyrics on this track, and Devyn remembers knowing, even at 12, that the band’s credibility had been damaged by Sing The Sorrow. Also: insufferable AFI fans, making life-long friends on their message board, camping out overnight to see the band, Sing The Sorrow-era press releases, and Warped Tour stories from both sides of the railing. Good Music: Daughn Gibson’s “The Pisgee Nest,” All Human’s “And So Peter Dances,” and Frank

This week we're working through Anney, aka Booty Rising's complicated relationship with the Avril Lavinge song by the same name. She recounts living a double life, calling Avril a poser in AOL chatrooms but listening to her in secret, and we examine the mean-natured pranks in this video. (possibly directed at America herself??) Also: a throat-clogging secret regarding Alien Ant Farm, a digital necronomicon, and "unflattering" butt pix.

Episode 50! Two brand new guests join me to confess their middle school love of edgy pop punk(?) band Good Charlotte and the very 80's "Girls & Boys." One remembers this being her perception of "hardcore" music, while the other grew too cool for the mainstream popularity that the group achieved. Also: celebrity crush protocol, unsuccessfully trying to spike your luscious hair with egg yolks, and tales of the bro-smashing chair of my philosophy department.

This week Aimee-Beth returns to dissect “Take A Picture” from Definite Industrial Rock band Filter. Are these the most soaring and pretentious lyrics ever written about a naked alcoholic terrorizing an airplane? Would this video be better with our modern mermaid-tail technology? What does Patrick’s dad think about his son now? Also: Our twee-est Kimya Dawson impressions, #PolingRock, and a youtube comment takes us on an oddly specific tour through the 90’s Good music in this episode: NIN’s “Perfect Drug” and Filter’s “Nice Shot”  

This week Aimee-Beth Diamond returns to revisit the inexplicably well-known band Alien Ant Farm and their single "Movies." We bask in the glory of living adjacent to these guys and argue about whether the singer's annoying stage presence and persistent vocal tic are a result of an overabundance or extreme lack of confidence. Also: We do a tight 15 minutes on the singer's hair, fat bass guitar impressions, and Aimee remembers getting felt-up by a future christian. Good music: The Strokes' Is This It

Today we’re dissecting Ozzy’s “Dreamer,” a bland rehash of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” which somehow manages to be even cornier than the original. Add 11 year-olds in Maxim Magazine makeup, and you get this truly cringeworthy video. I also vent the issues I have with Ozzy in general, including his Prince of Darkness moniker, his terrible ballads, and being the weakest link by default in one of my favorite bands: Black Sabbath. Good music in this episode: the new Faith No More and Sumac's The Deal

Cahn returns to talk about witnessing the “atrocity” that was Metallica’s 1996 album, Load. We focus on the grunge-era chugger “Until It Sleeps,” the limitless GIF potential in its music video, and Cahn reveals far too much about his dad.Is this what James meant when he said Lars and Kirk were “pretending to be gay”? Did Napster and Some Kind of Monster ruin the goodwill necessary to tolerate the stylistic choices on this album? Should Metallica be allowed to experiment with their sound? (No)Next week: Ozzy's Dreamer

Today we're revisiting the triple-produced, lyrically incoherent, y2k teen movie staple "Right Now" by aging pop-punkers SR-71. Is the subject of this song clingy or controlling? Is the singer super cool or super pathetic? And did he ever recover from the PC Feminism of the 90's?Also: The too-big-to-fail hair and makeup industry of the era, our favorite "Megedeath" albums, and another ridiculous HS newspaper story, but this time I'm the victim.Good music in this episode: The Offspring's "All I Want" and Drug Church's "Bagged" 

Today we’re revisiting the sex jokes, cool-guy one-liners, and the anti-psychology crusade of Dexter Holland in The Offspring’s She’s Got Issues. Zooey Deschanel has a completely different take on her character in the music video, we remember confrontations at Thrice and Mars Volta shows, and we reminisce about the issue of our high school newspaper that got Albert “311” Albanez and myself fired from the staff.

Awful Spotlight #4! We’re covering three videos from Scott Weiland’s eclectic career, hand-picked by my guest, a feral human raised by a family of Wildmen. We dance the Musty Queer to Weiland’s Bowie-inspired single “Barbarella,” feel confused on behalf of titular “Sour Girl” Sarah Michelle Gellar for her part in the Stone Temple Pilots video, and we “Slither” down a toilet in Prague to watch Velvet Revolver perform the same riff for 3+ minutes.

Today we enter new territory as we revisit two mesmerizing videos from late 90’s/early 2000's rap giants Birdman and Lil John. We’re talking platinum football fields, custom PT cruisers, 3/4 of the Kings of Comedy, ridiculously graphic lyrics, and I reassess my adolescent hatred of the Lil John club banger.  Stuff we like: Kanye West’s Life of Pablo and Kendrick Lamar’s Untitled Unmastered.You can find Michael Tesauro's piece about the terrorist attack in our hometown of San Bernardino at http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/12/16/my-hometown-crisis-before-terror-san-bernardino-attacks-column/77429758/

Listener response time! It’s a special episode today as I respond to the huge reaction you guys had to our Lit episode (still kind of surprised people remembered them). I’m reading emails, Instagram and Facebook comments with stories of angry letters to the Guitar World editor, Lit’s MTV Cribs episode, the band’s 2000 Spring Break performance, and Jeremy Popoff freaking out about negative Yelp reviews for The Slidebar.Thanks for writing in! Continue to do so at AwfulPodcast@Gmail.com, Instagram & Twitter (@AwfulPodcast), and the Facebook page (facebook.com/AwfulPodcast)

Today I'm talking with Nick and Matt about another "truly Californian" band from Orange County (sorry). Mark McGrath knocks his four front teeth out and breakdances on broken glass, we examine the band's secret funk metal past, and co-writer and director McG is probably Eurotrash. Good music dicussed on this episode: Royal Canoe's "Button Fumbla," David Bazan's "Wolves at the Door," Lee Ranaldo's "Ambulancer," and Thundercat's "Song for the Dead."

This week we're revisiting "My Own Worst Enemy" by 90's #bowlingrock stalwarts Lit. We chat about how unfortunately influential this video was to our younger selves, touch on their evolution from hair metal act Razzle to grunge band Stain to the band that America briefly fell in like with, and remember their horrible connection to the Kelly Thomas incident.Also in this episode: a hard stance against Journey's Kids and vodka, an embarrassing story about covering this song in a middle school band, an edgy bowling ball named "Headhunter," being too chubby/old to do the worm, and we somehow manage to talk about Friends, Married with Children, Clarissa Explains it All, Dharma and Greg, and Frasier.

This week, my guest and I dissect Real Slim Shady, perhaps the goofiest of sound fx wizard Eminem’s interchangeable shock-rap tracks, and Get Back by Zebrahead, a rap-metal song which, much like Real Slim Shady, is a nonsensical mishmash of pop culture references.My guest discusses being a closet Eminem fan, his father being an outspoken Eminem fan, and somehow growing up to be a halfway decent human being after listening to this in middle school. I argue that being a dorky version of Limp Bizkit is worse than the real thing and discover a line-for-line christian parody of our Eminem track.Good music discussed on this episode: Savages, Death Grips, and some of Eminem’s better material

Today we return to the metalcore/fashioncore/brocore scene of the early 2000's with Atreyu's Ain't Love Grand and Bleeding Through's On Wings of Lead. We remember the strange phenomenon of tough guys in eyeliner and bleach-streaked mohawks busting MMA moves and singing melodramatic lyrics about being drowned in blood by ex-girlfriends.We also discuss merch-buying protocol, listening to these bands while far superior bands were playing at the same venues, how terrifying a mosh pit was to a fourteen year-old first timer, and getting a snarky email from Jacob Bannon of Converge.  Good bands discussed on this episode: Converge, Integrity, Disembodied, Cave-In, and many more

To celebrate the return of the show, we're dissecting two unlikely songs and videos from the cast of The X-Files: the titular track from David Duchovny's Weather Channel inspired, cliche-ridden debut album, "Hell or Highwater," and Gillian Anderson's hyper-sexual, spoken-word nonsense for Hal's Extremis.  Also: A review of Duchovny's ridiculous children's(?) book, Holy Cow, my guest relays a story about in-laws from Roswell, these two "red-blooded males" find Gillian Anderson attractive enough to acknowledge her personhood, and, as always, a selection of delicious YouTube comments.