Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Top Ten Bands that should have all Died when they were 27, Part 2

As Winston Churchill probably once said, "To die young is to die with dignity." Here's some more bands that selfishly refused to take advice from a former Prime Minister, Pulitzer Prize winner and best Briton ever according to the BBC.

5. U2
This band never really had a creative peak because they have always sucked. But just think of all the tired, middle of the road, easy listening tripe we could have avoided if Bono, the Edge and the gang had decided to all die en mass at 27!

4. Pink Floyd
I've written about some of the crappier aspects of Pink Floyd
before. Needless to say, these guys desperately should have taken a leaf out of Lynyrd Skynyrd's book and all died a little bit in a 1979 plane crash. In the 70's they made their reputation on being avant garde and eccentric and refusing to compromise their band or their music for the sake of convention and the demands of the music industry. Of course, after 1979 they embraced every cliche and stereotype of a band that has run its creative course but refuses to let it go: they released a bunch of pretentious wank masquerading as innovation (the Final Cut), the main songwriter quit, the remaining members hobbled together a bunch of awful albums solely intended to further fund their millionaire rock star lifestyle (The Division Bell) and dozens of similarly awful live albums and nostalgia tours (Delicate Sound of Thunder).

3. Jethro Tull
Here's Jethro Tull in 1969. And here's Jethro Tull in 2006. Why do all these outdated nostalgia bands look like they stopped making conscious fashion decisions in 1991? I mean has anyone in the last twenty years, outside a reunion tour, ever worn a daggy black waistcoat?

2. The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys pretty much invented the concept of the "nostalgia band" when they discovered in the seventies that, regardless of whether or not they were releasing new albums, people still flocked to their concerts because they all remember listening to good vibrations a lot in 1967. And for that crime alone, they deserve to be number two on this list. The band still tours today despite the fact that only one original member still plays in the band.


1. INXS
God, where do I start with these losers. INXS were never really any good to start with and most of their appeal came from their charismatic lead singer Michael Hutchence. Fortunately, Michael Hutchence had the foresight to retire early, albeit in the most embarrassing way humanly possible: auto erotic asphyxiation. And everyone breathed a sigh of relief, assuming that the juggernaut of crap INXS represented was over. However, in a startling lapse of understanding of how their band actually worked, all the other loser members of the band decided that a version of INXS sans Micheal Hutchence would be a great idea and went about reviving their band in the most soulless, pathetic, sell-out-y way possible: via a reality TV show. God, where's Charles Manson when you need him?

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