I know you and me are gonna be friends....

I HATE the White Stripes. I sincerely wish both Jack and Meg White would have concurrent heart attacks and vanish forever from the musical world, or at least give up their pathetic dog-and-pony show and join real bands where their talents could be bolstered or magnified by making actual music.

But regardless...the song they did that's used for the theme of Napoleon Dynamite is so unbelievably catchy that I can't get it out of my head with a shotgun shell. I simply must own it!

Vitriol, not Vengeance

My GODS, it is truly staggering how much I loathe VNV Nation.

One of my coworkers--who normally doesn't like anything industrial or dancey or electronic at all--brought in what I think is their latest album and was playing it on the little boombox here at work tonight. Just for that, tomorrow I'm bringing in Otto von Schirach's 8000 BC and making everyone listen to the entire goddamned CD.

I'm positively mystified why ANYone in the world likes VNV Nation. Every single fucking song they've ever done is the same tempo (120 bpm), uses the exact same synth patches and drum patterns and the exact same melodic structures, and--worst of all--feature Ronan Harris moaning like a recently-gelded hound about victory or honor or some such pseudo-bombastic bullshit. In fact...it may be that they only have one song, and everything else is just a remix of that one particular song. Seriously, I've never taken a look at anything they put out, so this may be true.

A lot of what is considered "industrial" or "EBM" these days is just bad trance, but I'd rather listen to seven straight hours of crappy eurotrance (Eiffel 65, I'm looking right at you boys) than seven straight seconds of VNV. Trance is dance music, pure and simple, and at its best that's all it ever aspires to: the synths are very simple, the beat dumb as can be but very easy to jump around to, and the lyrics just some random shallow babble about love or sex that you can sing along to while you're bobbing about in a sweaty crowd of co-eds. There's no pretension of profundity, no illusion of "heartfelt" lyrics or any such bullshit--and, hell, even though most trance artists use the same types of synth pads and arpeggiated bass lines, at least they use different patches for them, and sometimes even throw in an original analog pad or synth lead just to keep things interesting. Also, straightforward trance is all about catchy melodies, which is a GREAT thing to expect in dance music, because nothing gets ya boo-tay rocking like a good, firey melody line that hooks your nervous system to the beat. VNV can't even manage that much. They are as bland as the food at an assisted-living facility.

A few years ago, I actually worked the door at a VNV show in Pittsburgh--which was good, because I got paid to sit outside the venue well away from the performance. I still managed to hear a good portion of the show through the walls, though, and it literally put me to sleep. The same song, twenty times in a row. There were lots of people dancing, sure, but people will dance to anything as long as it's got a solid beat--hell, even I will if in the right mood. It was literally the most boring show I've ever experienced.

Now, I'm well aware that most people like really shitty music. But I like a lot of shitty music, as well, and I understand why people like bland, easily-palatable pop tripe--lately, I've been listening to a whole hell of a lot of it. But most popular dance tripe like Apoptygma Berzerk and Funker Vogt and The Cruxshadows is a billion times more interesting than VNV Nation. ApB has strong melodies and good, driving beats. Same with Funker Vogt (though I despise them, too, but for totally different reasons). The Cruxshadows at least have occasionally-decent lyrics and a KICK-ASS violinist.

So I wonder...what is it about this godawful band that makes them so respected and loved by seemingly everyone? Can humanity's taste in music TRULY be that bad?

Tomorrow, I'm bringing in both Otto and Laibach's Anthems collection. If people want to hear driving, martial music with powerful lyrics, let them choke on "Tanz mit Laibach" or "Leben Heisst Leben."