The Soapbox: Rants and Commentary:

The [BEEP] on "Top of the Pops"

Alright, here's my little rant for the day. Today, I wish to make a few comments clear on several types of modern "pop" music that I find totally ridiculous.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't sit here in my little room listening to Wagner and Beethoven. I'm a big fan of rock music, from stuff like Guns 'N' Roses, Queen, that lot, to more modern stuff like The Offspring, Foo Fighters, Metallica, all that stuff.

However, after recently seeing a few editions of "Top of the Pops" ( for those non-UK people that's like a chart show thing ) I was totally left in disbelief. Is this really what people pay good money for?

First off let's take a look at Eminem and the like. A ranter, like myself, but in place of dripping sarcasm we take frankly pathetic homophobic and mysogonist lyrics, make them really fast and then bleep half of them out. The other day my wife actually saw a bunch of kids on our road singing "My Generation" by Limp Bizkit. Of course they'd only seen the edited version so it went something like, "We don't, don't give a BEEP about, we don't, don't give a WAAGH, till you, you give a BLEEP about me, and my generation." Now come ON! That's totally scary!

Alright, so away from the hard-man rappers to the manufactured groups. I'm getting sick of seeing a bunch of semi-plastic females sitting on chairs with microphones, managing to miss simple harmonies, taking it in turns to sing in identical voices.

I actually saw a group - think it was Atomic Kitten - on TOTP that made me laugh out loud. They were singing in what sounded like pretty broad American accents. And then at one point they were speaking instead of singing - and what do you know, Manchester accents. That was pretty damn funny.

So, without going into dance music and how that's just people showing off their new sound effects box and then shoving a back beat on to it, or ghastly vocal effects like that wierd Victoria Beckham number, I'll just say that music is no longer what it used to be. Sure we've got groups like the Foos, Green Day, Metalica and that lot keeping the side up but ... urgh. The sooner this rubbish goes the sooner rock music will get the ratings it deserves.

-Alex-

Visit my Web site at www.planetalex.co.uk

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