So you wanna talk about music?

I kinda stopped listening to a lot of newer music shortly after my stint in the record store came to an end, but I can read the interwebs, and occassionaly I'll hear about this new band or that one. I know you all probably hate Justin Beiber, Nickleback, and Coldplay. Maybe your disdain is for Creed, or Taylor Swift and Rebecca Black make you want to tear your own ears off and begin making a nice necklace. Well here's where you're all wrong...
I'll pick on Nickleback for a second first. Pretty much every song they make has a "commercial" feel to it. They are all fairly short for radio playability and seem designed to be "risque" but not offensive. Sort of like they are "pushing the envelope" but really they are just resting on the edge of it comfortably while other artists take actual risk. Overall it has made them extremely wealthy, and oddly popularly unpopular. Good for them.

A friend of mine the other day posted "Coldplay is awful." I responded with "Water is wet." Admittedly I have not listened to a great deal of Coldplay, but they sound like every generic watered down commercially successful band that has been throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks since the 70's. They aren't original in that idea, it's made them a bunch of money and that's OK.

The real villian in all this is not Nickleback or Coldplay. They are simply following a formula designed by the root of all that is evil in Rock and Roll. In the 1950s parents were concerned that Rock and Roll was the devil's music. What they didn't know is the devil is patient. He is timeless. He can wait and bide his time.

In the 1960s there was a musical explosion. New ideas flourished. New styles were created (generally due to the popularity of new drugs that weren't really around as much in the earlier years). Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin, The Who, Bob Dylan, and countless others stretched the boundries of both music and free love. They took music to new and interesting levels.

Then came the 1970s. See here's where everyone probably thinks I'm going to attack Disco or something. But no, disco was OK, it's a little fun, it's a bit awful, but overall there is an innocence to disco. People just wanted to dance and dress awful. Go look at pictures of you in high school, you'll probably want to kick your own ass, you dressed awful too, yep all of you did (not me though, those Baja's I wore all the time were totally awesome). No Disco is not to blame. It is not the devil.

The real culprit of evil. The bane of all decent music. The creature that spawned generations of bubblegum friendly softcore crap rock. The demons that made sure John Tesh would someday have a popular radio show. This group was the one that really did it. They paved the way for Nicklback, Creed, Coldplay and every other horrific group out there. You might think I'm talking about the Monkees, but hey they were just trying to have some fun. No, this is no Johnny come lately. They spent their life in the fast lane. They both took it easy, and took it to the limit. They begged a desperado to come to his senses, and even got stuck in the hotel california. They promised they were done till "hell freezes over" but alast they couldn't hide their lyin' eyes.

In case you haven't figured it out yet. I'm talking about the Eagles. There is really only one way to articulate just how awful the Eagles are. I'll let the Dude fill you in on how I truly regard the Eagles.