0 star review

Week 32 Review (18+ Only, NSFW)

All-American Rejects – All-American Rejects (2003)

Bottom Line Up Front: This is a 0 out of 5 stars album. And that’s being incredibly fucking generous. I reached into the deepest depths of my humanity to pull that zero out of my ass. It truly deserves a negative rating because those motherfuckers owe me at least 3 stars as compensation for making me miserable for an entire week.

Artist Background: When the album was released, AAR was a two person band. They currently have four members. And I hope for the sake of humanity that the band has improved since their major label debut in 2003. I have two more of their albums in my collection but I’m scared to listen to them. I start physically trembling if I even think about the other albums. And rightfully so. I’ve been given the equivalent of late 19th century shock therapy for 5 straight days. I’m surprised I’m not curled up in the fetal position right now while my editor lightly strokes the top of my bald head and softly tells me everything is going to be okay. So back to the two jackasses that created this monstrosity. Tyson Ritter and Nick Wheeler formed the band in Oklahoma. Look, I’m not blaming Oklahoma for this mess, but where the fuck were you guys? Why didn’t somebody nip this shit in the bud? Well, what’s done is done. Let’s move on and get this shit over with.

Album Background: This album (I’m not sure it qualifies as one honestly) is pop punk emo bullshit at its worst. It runs 43 intelligence-insulting minutes long and came out in 2003. It went platinum and actually got some decent reviews. Lots of 4/5 stars. And honestly, this has some really catchy material. But in reality, this album is a cruel joke. It’s a grape tootsie pop with a diarrhea stank center ready to explode onto the tastebuds of an unsuspecting listener. There should not be this many positive reviews. I think reviewers got far too hung up on liking this album because the duo was so young at the time of recording. Sure it’s impressive for their age but how long are you impressed with your newborn pooping? At some point, shit is shit, right?

Favorite Track: I know you’re all thinking I’m going to pick their massive hit Swing Swing which got all the way up to #8 on the charts for my favorite track. But the best song is My Paper Heart. Why? Because it is the first track on the album. When I first heard this song on Monday morning as I pulled out of my garage, there was so much promise here. It was going to be such a great week. Nice upbeat pop punk tempo mixed with poignant lyrics about a broken relationship. And then there’s this little bell thing they do combined with sugary sweet sing along moments. Bop. Bop. Bop. La-la, la, la. Bop. Bop. Bop. Unfortunately, it’s all a prison-style shower raping from there on out. Every subsequent listening of this album has been a soapy prison dick right in my ear.

What Works: 

  • Nothing Fuck this album. Nothing works. It’s a tragedy it’s just MP3s instead of a physical CD. I’d fucking set it on fire if I could. Melted plastic fumes never smelled so good. Like god damn roses on a dewy spring morning walk with your mother.

What Doesn’t:

  • Everything I could go into great detail about how I hate the phrasing the lead vocalists uses. And the drum machine. FUCK the drum machine. I could bitch about how they keep using the same tricks over and over throughout their album. That little bell thing in the first track I talked about? I think I counted probably three other songs where they do the same thing. I’d go back and look at my notes to get an exact count but my notes look like the diary of a madman with ‘fuck you’s scribbled over everything. But really, I just want to focus on what pissed me off most of all: Track 1 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 2 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 3 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 4 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 5 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 6 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 7 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 8 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 9 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 10 is a song about a failed relationship. Track 11 is a song about a failed relationship. The cherry on top of this shit sundae was that I have the version of the album that included a bonus track which is a song about…you guessed it…a failed relationship. How fucked up was Tyson and Nick’s high school experience that this is the ONLY kind of song they could write? Fuck the band for making this album. Fuck the record label for releasing it. Fuck the radio for playing it. And fuck the public for buying it. I hold all of you responsible for making 2003 a music tragedy. Hopefully, we can all learn a valuable lesson from this so it never happens again.

In Conclusion: Even some of the best albums, I can be tired of hearing on repeat by the end of work on Thursday. But this album? By early Monday afternoon I desperately wanted to stop listening to it. I actually didn’t have a real good idea of why I hated this album until I started doing my final listen and began taking notes on each song. I spent most of the week scared I wouldn’t be able to explain what went so wrong here. Like most worrying, it was all in vain. It’s pretty fucking clear why this album is a shit stain.

Please note this entire review was written purely for comedic purposes.  I don’t actually hate the album that much. Fuck that. I do actually hate the album that much. I really really really hope these guys got better with their later albums. There’s obviously a lot of potential talent there. It’s just the execution could not have been any worse. Praise Jebus that the rest of their albums are only in my collection and not on my MP3 player. I really can’t take the chance of going through this again.

Music Video Links:
All-American Rejects – Swing, Swing (Official Video)
All-American Rejects – The Last Song (Official Video)
All-American Rejects – Time Stand Still (Official Video)

Streaming/Purchase Links:
Amazon Music
Google Play
iTunes
XBOX Music
Spotify

Information Links:
Wikipedia Artist
Wikipedia Album
Facebook
Twitter
Official Site

Week 15 Review (18+ Only, NSFW)

90125’s fantastic performance in the US in 1983 is likely what kicked the War on Drugs into high gear in the 80’s as Nancy Reagan could only conclude that most Americans were snorting lines of coke off a stripper’s tit and heading to their local record shop to buy Yes’ latest album while their minds were still completely obliterated.

90125album

Artist: Yes {Jon ‘Are You Fucking Kidding Me?’ Anderson – vocals; Tony ‘Keep Piling That Shit On’ Kaye – keyboards; Trevor ‘I am So Sorry’ Rabin – guitars, vocals, additional keyboards; Chris ‘I’m Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today’ Squire – bass, vocals; Alan ‘This Wasn’t My Fault’ White – drums, percussion, backing vocals}
Album: 90125
Year: 1983
Genre: Regressive Shit Pop
Rating: a screwdriver in the eye/5

Worth Your Time? Avoid it like gonorrhea. After a week long infection, I’m considering setting my crotch on fire in hopes of stopping the burning.

Twitter Review: Most people if they had a time machine would stop Lincoln’s assassination or try to kill Hitler. Well not me. Not me, god damn it. I’d get in my time machine and devote every fucking ounce of energy to make sure this album NEVER happens.

Fuck These 3 Tracks:

  1. Our Song
  2. Leave It
  3. It Can Happen

Why It Sucks (abridged):

  • The Lyrics. The forms of ‘to be’ are not an optional part of the English language. When writing the lyrics for Hearts, Yes decided they knew better. The song verbally assaults my ears and intelligence for what purpose I cannot comprehend. It’s not right. It Can Happen feels lyrically inspiring as the Hokey Pokey. Then the ridiculous and over-the-top corniness of the lyrics in Our Song makes me think it better belongs in the 1978 mother of all movie blunders, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, rather than on any album.
  • Who Do I want to be Today? I’d like to make it perfectly clear that I’m not saying to stay away from Yes completely. Not at all. This unholy alliance of Yes is known as West Yes or as I like to call them Shitty Shit Yes. It’s a complicated story, but basically they moved from the UK to LA as they regrouped with new members and fucked it all up. My biggest problem is these guys don’t know if they want to be a pop band or a progressive rock band on this album and this weird horrific Frankenstein’s monster of a creation makes me contemplate pulling a double Van Gogh and shutting down Lt. Morning permanently. I think my best example of this confusion is Changes which has an Indian inspired instrumental intro lasting a whopping minute and forty seconds. Epic, right? Too bad the rest of the song is 80’s pop ballad as they get. It makes no fucking sense. There are countless instances of bullshit like this.
  • Make It Stop. The keyboards on this album are piled on so thick with 80’s cheesiness that you won’t be shitting for weeks. The same thing with the vocal effects. It feels more like a bad sci-fi movie or an art film project turn disaster as the vocals are layered on top of each other to the point of absurdity while moving back and forth between the left and right channels doing their damnedest to instigate the world’s first case of audio-induced epilepsy. I wish the studio engineer would have bitch slapped them back into reality instead of letting them finish making Leave It.

Why This is a Review and not a Suicide Note: The best track on this album hands-down is the dance remix of Owner of a Lonely Heart. Why? Well somebody had the brains to create a remix that was in fact shorter than the original and cut out the third verse completely. Fucking genius! Of course, the remix wasn’t part of the original release but it’s the only reason I didn’t drive my car head on into a wall to finally end my own personal hell once and for all before the week was up. For that three minutes and thirty-one seconds I had a break before the wretched loop that is 90125 starting all over again.

Anything Else: I know this album is loved by many people. It has tons of 5-star reviews all over the internet. I’m not judging you if you like this album. Oh fuck it. I am. What the shit-fuck is wrong with you people? Did the titty coke break your brains and permanently destroy any sense of good taste you had?

Sorry members of Shitty Shit Yes and producer Trevor Horn. I’m sure you worked very hard on this album. But maybe if you listen to it for a week straight, you’ll see where I’m coming from and understand why I finally reached my breaking point. Hopefully, next week will go much better because I won’t survive another week like this.

Please note this entire review was written purely for comedic purposes.  I don’t actually hate the album that much. I thought this would be more fun to read than another ‘it was okay’ review.

Additional Links:

PS Aaron Lewis still writes way shittier lyrics than anybody.