Everything at the moment is ‘90s this, ‘90s that. Everyone’s all about checked shirts and Pavement guitars and Pavement reformations. WELL, GUESS WHAT, WORLD? The ‘90s weren’t just about power-chords and upbeat, jangly melodies. They were uglier than that. They were about dreadlocks, and raving, and bondage clothing in public, and actually, most of the good stuff about music in the 90s was nicked from ‘70s power-pop. Here’s the cold, hard reality: if there’s one sound that was unique to 1990s rock, it was jock-funk.
Sugar Ray might not have slapped their bass guitars as hard as, say, The Rage Against The Machines or Incubus, but they took the pretty-boy appeal that Incubus’ Brandon “Shirtless” Boyd had going on and jocked it up with tatts, bucket hats and goatees. BOOM. Instant commercial appeal. How could they go wrong?
OK, so. It’s been brought to my attention that I may have been a bit harsh to certain bands on this blog. Maybe I was a little quick to make accusations of “worst rhyming couplet EVER”. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to declare consistent awfulness. I can’t vouch for any claims made in the comments that Barenaked Ladies are credible and worthwhile musical act, but I know this: while they may be both annoyingly energetic and Canadian, their musical crimes are minor compared to the atrocities committed by the Baha Men.
Definitely my favourite part of the whole nu metal schtick was their boner for misspelling words. As a genre, it was pretty heavy on gimmicks: not just the really obvious aural ones, like superfluous turntables and drop-D tuning, but also the visual ones, like sunglasses with coloured lenses, red baseball caps and porn star girlfriends.
The misspelling thing was their badge of pride, though. It started with the granddaddies, Korn, who took a humble cereal grain, added a K and flipped that R backwards. They passed on their Midas touch to Limp Bizkit, who sired the likes of Staind and Puddle of Mudd.
Cutest couple ever!
This tactic helped the already ridiculously popular rap-rockers bag extra fans. Those who weren’t drawn in by the fat-with-a-ph beats could dig the high Scrabble scores they racked up with letters like k and z dropping all over the joint*, or the fact that their out of touch, middle-aged parents thought they were listening to Corn and Limp Biscuit. (*FACT: the only time you can play a proper noun in Scrabble is when it’s the name of a nu-metal band.)
Ever wonder what happened to that late '90s band who had that one big single (it probably had scratching in it) that appeared in a teen movie before they disappeared because their second single didn't crack the top ten and their third single tanked? You know, that band?
This blog is about them. Get ready for some learnin'.
Cutest couple ever!