06.08.06

Almost anything is better than Rascal Flatts, even a boot to the head

Posted in cricket hates on pop country - June 8th, 2006 at 1:10 am by Cricket

Rascal Flatts, man, I can not turn on CMT for more than 7.3 minutes (I did too time it, you don’t know, shut it — and yes I watch CMT, it’s good to know what you’re up against) without seeing this band in videos or commercials or just there, doing nothing, taking up space, wasting minutes of my life. I hate them on principle. They aren’t country music. They have the appearance of a crappy manufactured adult contemporary boy band that couldn’t even get anyone attractive to show up for the audition, but are perhaps crappier than that appearance. Even Amazon.com, in their generally bland and inoffensive reviews, calls Rascal Flatts “soft rock masquerading as country.” Which really is my whole damn problem with Rascal Flatts and mainstream pop radio country. It’s without soul, without real twang, without heart, without substance.

Their name irritates. It’s just words pulled out of a hat that some exec at Disney thought sounded cool (I have no proof of this, but you believe me, right?). [It's more like they needed more soundtrack for Gilmore Girls. I assumed all along this was another WB act, but they're not -- so this is a concerted effort by all the big labels to kill us. -- Mimi]

Watching them on the TV grates every nerve I have. I just — ugh! I like TV, and they make me want to smash mine with big rocks. But I like to be informed, so in the interest of science, I listened to their new album, Me and My Gang. Could it have a stupider title? No, it could not. Minus 6 points for lame titling. The cover? So contrived that it looks like a poster for high school production of a modern day version of West Side Story with three gay guys and no Puerto Ricans. Minus 11 points for the cover.

The album? Okay, well when I say I listened to it “in the interest of science” I mean fact-finding, sort of like when you pull the milk out of the fridge and the sell-by date is a week past so you put your thumb over the date and hold the carton out to some else and say “Does this smell okay?” and then the other person is all pissed at you for putting rancid milk in their face instead of checking it yourself. In this case, being the listener was like being the put-upon milk smeller. Sucky job that no one should have to do if other people are doing their jobs right (yeah, record execs, I’m looking at you). [So, you, like employ someone to smell the milk in the fridge? That's who that dude with the tattoos was? -- Mimi] [Which dude with the tattoos? -- Cricket]

The music is formulaic, and, you know, that isn’t always an insult. I mean, the formula came about for a reason. It’s just often used to bad effect, like here. And yeah, I think their music is bad. But in all honesty it’s ignorably bad. I can mostly tune it’s craptasticness out. What bothers me is that it is so bad and so many people like it. They love it. It is to music what McDonald’s is to real food — assuming that MickyD’s stopped using salt and anything protein based.

I did listen to the whole album one time through. I can not tell one song from the next. I really wanted to hear it a second time to see if the songs were maybe distinguishable as individual songs, but none of my friends had time to sit with me on 24-hour suicide watch, so there was no second time.

I am pretty sure that while listening I heard the lyric “That’s what you get when you play a country song backwards.” (No, I can’ t be bothered to look it up.) Seriously, what? I’m so stunned by the stupidity of this I can’t even think of anything clever to say about it. [He got his dog, truck, and woman back? I assume that's the lamecore joke being made there. -- Mimi] [Damn it, I had to go look it up and YES that is the joke. Please kill me for knowing that now. -- Cricket]

People really like this. I know they do. I just can’t even understand why. I mean if you have to listen to this bland, Magic Kingdom-contrived pop album, can’t you at least listen to real boy bands? Or Christina Aguilera or something? Dudes, I may or may not have listened to a Hilary Duff album several times through, and if I did listen to it I would recommend it highly when compared to Rascal Flatts. [Or how about The Wreckers? -- Mimi]

Minus 86 points (that’s banned for life, yo) for the album being so bad. Okay, so on a scale of 1-10, 10 being AWESOME, Rascal Flatts got -103. That’s a lot of negative numbers right there. Not enough. I should take some more points away for being Disney created and having dumb hair. I can’t be bothered though. I’m off now for an evening of anti-seizure medication and 14-year-old Oban single malt scotch to ensure none of these songs ever resurface inside my brain.

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