BRAFFY NOMINATION: WORST MUSICAL ARTIST ALIVE

It's June 1st, which means the 2006 Braffy Awards for the Worst People Alive are upon us. Last year, a brand-new shiny and not at all fictional Braffy Award was presented to Senator Rick Santorum, who has yet to respond to my e-mails and letters. (Yes...I actually mailed him an explanation letter and a hastily-printed award certificate, with the promise of an award statuette if he sent me a response to post on the blog. No return correspondence at all. What a jerk.)

Things are going to work a little different this year. More nominees, more categories. More of my precious youth spent in front of a keyboard, my aching wrist joints growing more contorted and stiff with Carpal Tunnel with each sunless, hunched-over, wasted day. Come along for the ride, won't you? It'll be fun!

Rather than have one single category - Worst Person Alive - and some randomly-chosen side trophies, this year we'll nominate individuals from a variety of categories. Then, having a list of "winners" from each category, we'll pit them against one another in a vicious Battle Royale to determine one single WORST PERSON ALIVE. Well, okay, worst person alive after the following ineligible individuals:

Senator Rick Santorum

Disqualified because he won last year. And because he may not actually in truth be a person.

George W. Bush

His rank form of evil would throw off the very nature of the contest, much the way a Black Hole warps an event horizon. I might have included him if I actually went with the Worst War Criminal Alive category (he's a shoo-in now that Slobodan's no longer with us!), but that seemed like kind of a downer. Better to pick on harmless celebrities and religious nuts.

Scott Stapp

Again, too obvious. We all know he's a useless turd. The guy got beat up by 311. How embarrassing is that?

Paris Hilton

I have already written about her way way too much this year. Plus, she's such a wreck, I have to believe her time in the spotlight is nearing an end, and if we keep talking about her, she won't go away. But just so the '06 Braffies aren't totally Hilton-less, here's a humiliating clip of Paris desperately trying to look hot by jerking around awkwardly and showing off her unmentionables whilst performing her reprehensible first single, a remake of Rod Stewart's already-lame "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" (For clarification, it's not genitals that are "unmentionable," just Paris Hilton's genitals.)

Zach Braff

I can't write more than two sentences about the guy without getting physically ill. Seriously. I don't kn...Oh God...Hang on a sec...

AND THE NOMINEES ARE...

U2



BONO: Mr. President, I'd like to sincerely thank you for not dropping bombs on Africa or Ireland for no good reason.
BUSH: Heh heh, give me six months, you stupid mick. Oh wait, did I say that out loud or just think it?
BONO: You said it out loud.
BUSH: Dang. Just promise me you won't put that in one of your hilarious plays.
BONO: Do you even know who I am?

I'm so sick of U2. There was a time, not that long ago, when I used to stick up for them. "Hey, come on, I know Bono's suffering from some sort of advanced dementia that causes him to think that being a rock star has some sort of deep significance, so that whenever he's not trying to get on TV by hanging out with whatever world leader will put up with his insufferable whining, he's trying to get on TV by writing vaguely feel-good songs full of lame metaphors or filming videos in which he drives through an urban neighborhood spreading joy amongst the plebes through only the power of his rocking...but Achtung Baby is a really solid album!"

But no more! I think it was that atrocious "Beautiful Day" song that clinched it. Are these guys auditioning for the Phil Collins job, writing songs for Disney animated musicals?

"Hey, guys, wouldn't this be a great song for the happy toad to sing to the dejected but still hopeful zebra at the start of the second act? Zip-a-dee-blah-blah/It's a Beautiful Day/Except in Africa/Cause those poor bastards are hungry! What do you guys think? I like it because it has a buried message abou the horrible starvation in Africa. Also AIDS. And something about bloody diamonds, I didn't quite catch it."

Bright Eyes

Conor Obsert performs irritating, shrill, repetitive indie pop songs under the name "Bright Eyes." That's really all you need to know. This guy's music sounds like Ashley Parker Angel covering Death Cab for Cutie while being prison raped. Richard Lewis' therapist doesn't have to listen to this much whining. It's atrocious.

And just get a look at this specimen.



Ask yourself this...Does Conor secretly want to be an Abercrombie model? I mean, yes, I know that his music seems designed to appeal to middle-aged lonely guys, does he want to narrow thi sdemographic even further to the ones who get off on waif-like boys posing seductively in the wilderness?

Conor's part of a collection of indie rock songwriters who seem to find cute songs about death appealing. Some of these bands appeal to me despite this odd predilection - The Unicorns and The Decemberists come to mind - but Conor's lyrics are just these adolescent pseudo-observations that sound ripped from the margins of a 15 year old's biology notes.

Take this penetrating insight from a song that actually had a video called "At the Bottom of Everything":

And it'll go like this:

While my mother waters plants, my father loads his gun

He says, "Death will give us back to God, just like the setting sun

is returned to the lonesome ocean"

Gross. It just goes on like that. A little cumbersome and twee, innit? He's like a bad Def Poet mixed with bad singer/songwriter mixed with a crazy guitar-playing wino.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

How about, instead of "What I got, you got to get and put it in you," you guys just say, "What I want is I want to hug and kiss you?" Actually, now that I think about it, how about you guys just put some clothes on and get the hell out of here because you suck and you have always sucked?

I like how RHCP pretend to be a funk band, as if any cool funk band could possibly write an adult-contempo wanksterpiece like "Californication" or contain a dude who looks like this:



Tony, your cock socks may smell funky, but that doesn't mean you guys are funky, you dig? Also, I would avoid the fingerless glove thing. It makes you look like a fey transient. Unless you guys want to be known as the Red Hot Hobo Chili Peppers, I'd try a different look. Just, please, with-shirt this time.

The Chili Peppers latest album is called Stadium Arcadium. Look for it two months from now in a bargain bin near you.

Fuel

How desperate does a band have to be to hire one of the losers from "American Idol" after he had already publicly rejected them once? Fuel-despreate.



That's miserable disgusting failure Chris Daughtry being kicked off "American Idol." Doesn't he look like the guy from Live? Imagine him wailing about placentas if it helps.

You may not remember Fuel, but they had a random 90's modern rock radio hit with "Hemorrhage" and apparently have stayed together ever since. Lead singer Brett Scallions recently quit, and all I can say is that I hope that's his real name, because Brett Scallions would probably be the worst rock and roll pseudonym of all time. And I'm including "Sting" and "Gary Glitter" in that estimation.

So Fuel went on TV's "Extra" only hours after the guy got kicked off "American Idol" and begged Chris to be their new singer because he had performed their lame song in the competition. They are a hard rock band who was not only happy to hear their song on "American Idol," but then pleaded with the contestant who performed the song to join their band. And then he didn't even say yes.

That may actually be even lower than forming a game show around finding a new lead singer. But, clearly, no band could be that lame.

The Black Eyed Peas

As far as the sheer number of wretched songs unleashed in to the public consciousness, these guys outweigh every other nominee. We are now all stupider for having heard Black Eyed Peas songs. If they are not already considered a terrorist organization by the federal government, I would recommend someone in a position to do so take this course of action immediately.

It's not just that their music consists of idiotic sloganeering like "Let's get retarded in here" and "My humps my humps." It's not just that they'll take part in any lame marketing scheme, trashy entertainment project or fundraising opportunity available. It's that, occasionally, one of their members wets herself on stage and then another puts his face in it.



Moving on...

Godsmack

Wow...Godsmack...They combine the consumer whorism of the Black Eyed Peas along with the artificial swagger of Fuel and the hack songwriting of the Red Hot Hobo Chili Peppers. A turd trifecta of sorts.

But there's tons of sucky nu-metal acts. Godsmack have made the cut here because of this interview from Arthur Magazine with lead singer Sully Erna. Reporter Jay Babcock challenges Sully about the use fo their music in advertisements for the military. Here are some of Erna's musings for your edification and enjoyment:

It’s the same reason why wrestlers work out to the music, and extreme motorcross riders listen to the music and do what they do. It’s ENERGETIC music. It’s very ATHLETIC. People feel that they get an adrenaline rush out of it or whatever, so, it goes with whatever’s an extreme situation. But I doubt very seriously that a kid is going to join the Marines or the US Navy because he heard Godsmack as the underlying bed music in the commercial. They’re gonna go and join the Navy because they want to jump out of helicopters and fuckin’ shoot people!

JAY: So you’re using military imagery with your music at your concerts?
SULLY: First of all, it was a COMPUTER image, a computer-animated helicopter that didn’t… There was no scene of a desert in there. It was a helicopter that rose up from the screen and scanned the audience. It was an EFFECT. And then it shot out missiles that hit the stage.
JAY: Uh huh…
SULLY: Because the intro to ‘Straight Out of Line” has the sounds of like, a war thing going on.

JAY: Would you let your music be used for anti-military recruiting advertisements?
SULLY: I don’t know, I ‘d have to see what that was about.
JAY: But you’d be open to it?
SULLY: We’re open to whatever, as long as it’s not a Maybelline commercial.

SULLY: [yelling] Would you rather not have us be protected so they can come and overrun our country?!?

SULLY: I’m not saying that we were right on every war that we’ve created. I know that we’ve been damn wrong at times about stuff—
JAY [interrupting]: When have we been wrong?
SULLY: [yelling] but they have also been wrong too!

This guy is an idiot to an offensive degree. There's a lot more where this came from, too. You should probably go read that interview before voting, if you have the time.



So, there you have it. Vote in the comments section below. In all these categories, I'll leave voting open until the last week in June. Then I'll take some time to tally the votes and we'll have final nomination for the Worst of the Worst. Exciting, no?