There are certain things that are inevitable in this life. Death. Taxes. Dummies getting lucky and failing upwards. And, of course, never getting away from terrible songs. This last one has been something that I have noticed for the last few weeks with more and more frequency. When bad songs exist, they live in a sphere that orbits our lives in such a way that they come in and out intermittently, like phases of the moon. When they are originally released, we, as humans with good taste, recognize the horrid nature of these tunes and figure them for a shelf life of untenable length. Ear worms that get on the radio, Pandora, satellite, or whatever music listening product we are going to use. Then it shows up in commercials, because a terrible song is going to sell cars.
The problem with most terrible songs, other than the fact that they are terrible, is that my taste is different than that of the popular gentry. So is my knowledge of musical history. I am versed in the pop, rock, and whatever else of the last 60 years. It's just something I do. So when I hear some crappy song I can instantly recognize it as crappy and think of a dozen better versions of said song. Not that all pop songs are bad. There are plenty of contemporary pop artists that have skills and songwriters good enough to make quality music that is digestible for the masses.
Enter The Red Hot Chili Peppers. A once mighty rock outfit that played interesting and dangerous songs. They were adept showmen and stellar musicians who used varied influences to mesh together a funky rock sound that was both interesting and commercially appealing. That last part being the least important, they focused on making the best songs that they could. They were jazzy, heavy, and most of all, different. For about a decade spanning the mid 1980's into the middle 90's, whatever they did was anticipated and, for the most part, delighted at by anyone with an FM radio or MTV (and fuck MTV, by the way).
Then, in the summer of 1999, it all fell apart. They released Californication in June, and for the next year we were bombarded by shitty song after shitty song. Our ears were tortured as a once exciting act was transformed into the worlds worst Adult Contemporary band. They were as toothless as John Mayer, and as boring as brown carpet. The title track being the worst of them all. It speaks about the dark side of the film industry with crappy pop culture references and the most banal set of musicianship I have ever heard from people so accomplished.
It's not that they sold out, it's not that. It's that they just stopped writing good songs. This particular song is everywhere and it FUCKING SUCKS. Fuck this song, and fuck this band for writing it. If Matchbox 20 wrote it, fine, I would expect that. But for a band that used to be dangerous and interesting, this has all the power of wet bread. I would rather listed to Gary Cherone era Van Halen. I was never a huge fan of The Red Hot Chili Peppers to begin with, but this was the final nail.
And this audible garbage is what I have been constantly hearing for about 2 months now. Everywhere I am, this song is playing. At work, someone puts on a perfectly fine Pandora station. This shit shows up. Watching some television. Boom, slapped in the brain with this shit. In the liquor store searching for something tasty. This shit smashes a bottle of disappointment over my skull.
Fuck this song. I hate a lot of things, especially in music. But this....this is the worst fucking song. This is worse than St. Anger by Metallica, and that was so comically bad I thought it was a joke at first. This is worse than anything off of Be a Man by Macho Man Randy Savage (may he rest in peace) which is a rap-metal album by an over the hill professional wrestler. "Californication" is this bad because of history.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers used to be something that was at the very least interesting. At this turn in their career, they have become bland. Their once revered live act, when I saw it, was so dull that I left. I LEFT! This is still the only show I have left due to anger. I was so pissed about how flat bad they were that me and my friend, after we spent $40 in college freshman money (which is about $500 in adult money, adjusted for inflation) left because we were so bored with the show. I have seen Supergrass in concert, on purpose, and they were terrible. At least they had the decency to get drunk before going out on stage and not playing any of their good song. Yea, Supergrass only had the one good song and they didn't fucking play it. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had some really good songs early in their career, and they just played soul crushing bullshit for at least 45 minutes. I have no idea how much more they played, because that show had no business being finished.
It was the last season of Dexter. Completely stupid and a massive waste of my time. And they played that fucking song as I was walking out. As if they were taunting me with their new shitty outlook. I don't suggest getting back on heroin, but maybe they should go back to when doing heroin was a good idea and write songs like that again. Because fuck this band, and fuck that song. That fucking song had been out of my life for a while, and life was okay. I was moving forward, day by day, not thinking about this fucking song.
Then it showed up. Out of nowhere. And it hasn't gone away for weeks. It's the worst chest cold I have ever had. Hanging around, coughing up phlegm, blowing snot rockets. That's what this song is. It's a big phlegmy pile of bullshit that you hear over and over and over.
Until you are so pissed off that you pound 1000 words on your keyboard and force people to read about it.
Sorry. Blame that shitty band and their shitty songs. They haven't gotten any better, by the way. Still shit.
Fuck The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
SD
