Usually people who love music (like myself) tend to like to write about music they love (in my case that would be bands like The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Primal Scream, & Spiritualized.) But sometimes it’s fun to talk about bad music. In fact in some ways it’s more fun. And it’s certainly much easier to find. Just check out MySpace bands to see what I mean. The worst thing to me is that some of the absolute most horrible music I’ve listened to on MySpace is also the most popular.

Hollywood Undead has to be the best example of this. They are unbelievably bad and even more unbelievably popular. I mean I know it’s normal for “the kids” to be into awful music, but isn’t this just taking it a bit too far? At least most of the awful music of the past had at least some redeeming value. Sure Milli Vanilli was cheesy but their songs were catchy and had some good production values.

But they are just one of many awful “artists” in the world of bad music

How about country pop singer Dierks Bentley? Have you heard this fluff? He’s unbelievably awful. I had heard his name before but had never listened to his music before as I have no interest in country pop but one day I came across his latest single “Feel That Fire” and I was just floored because it was so much worse than I thought it would be. And that’s saying quite a bit because I assumed it was be flat out terrible. But no, it’s much worse than that.

It’s no big deal that people are making bad music. There is nothing new about bad music. The big deal to me is that so many people actually think this is good music. Why is that? Why are people just so incredibly clueless about what constitutes quality?

The easy thing to blame would be American Idol. And I’m sure that does have a part to play. Now millions of people think that having a pretty voice is the only thing that matters. This means these are people who have no way of understanding music with any depth or any real artistic value.

But I’m sure it must go much deeper than that. Of course it’s not like people being into awful music is a new thing. The masses are always attracted to the easy to swallow garbage that usually fills the top forty every week. And it’s the real music that real music lovers listen to and that lasts for years.

Obviously no one will be listening to anyone from American Idol or Hollywood Undead in 30 years (except out of pure nostalgia or as a joke) while people will still be listening the music of true musical artists like Ween & Bob Dylan.

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