Last week, my co-editor Ken Ilgunas took a critical look at the movies that dominate the interests of our school's population. Basing his findings on hearsay and Facebook's Pulse, he concluded that many movies UB held so dearly to their hearts were, in fact, crap.
Well, the same thing goes for UB's taste in rock music.
Personally, I try to keep an open mind about the genre. I don't lock myself in my room and cry to obscure chamber music, nor do I drool over Pitchfork's "Top 20 Bands That Are Acceptable at the Moment" list. However, there are some groups whose popularity with the college crowd is simply baffling.
My Chemical Romance - My 13-year-old sister listened to them last year. She would continually blast the song about the lead singer's dead grandmother through her earphones, write chilling phrases like "I'M NOT OKAY" on her arms in permanent marker, and was subject to fits of hormonal rage. That was all right, as young pubescent teens are entitled to rock out to emo crap while doing immature things for attention. Twenty-year-olds are not.
Yellowcard - Yellowcard aren't blatantly awful, nor are they good. In fact, they're not really anything. Their music is the boring filler that passes time on The Edge or serves as background faux-punk on ABC Family shows so that the producers can sell a few extra soundtracks. I was shocked to find that friends I normally respect actually rock out to this in their car. Why? They're not even going to remember this band in a year.
Death Cab for Cutie - Before an enraged reader tries to retaliate by saying, "Wtf your a stupet music snob yellowcard ROX," the indie scene has some really overrated bands on its palette as well. I've really tried to like Death Cab, but between the castrated lead singer's cringe-worthy vocals, the pretentious band name and the overly assured "poetic" lyrics, the band is just too much to tolerate. Some of the instrumentation is cool, but for the most part, Death Cab just have a very average "indie" style that's too weak to deserve all the attention it's been getting.
The Killers, The Faint, The Bravery, Shiny Toy Guns, etc. - Enough with the fake '80s bands already! For a while it seemed like the sea of Duran Duran-wannabes was beginning to ebb, but for every band that falls out of popularity another one seems to pop up. Even bands like Interpol or Franz Ferdinand that came out towards the beginning of the trend now sound like repetitive noise in this played-out genre.
The Beatles - I don't care if I'm treading on sacred ground here - I think The Beatles are overrated. Though the '60s boy band is respectable in that it broke the boundaries of rock and pop culture, the quality of many Beatles songs is mediocre at best. Fans would take a bullet to the chest before they let someone criticize the group, but why? For fun but ultimately pointless songs like "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" or "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds?" I'm tired of being forced to repeatedly acknowledge, commemorate, and praise them. John Lennon was a great innovator, but he wasn't Jesus.
Coldplay - Coldplay were good at one point. Their initial album "Parachutes" was a refreshing day at the beach. Five years later, however, they've changed nothing on "X&Y" except make their sound slightly more synthesized for the masses. Now everyone and their mother loves a band that didn't even live up to its potential. Sorry, Chris Martin, you sold out.
Slipknot, 3 Doors Down, P.O.D. - I wouldn't have put these bands on the list as I thought that people had stopped caring about them half a decade ago, but apparently they're on the Spring Fest itinerary
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
