2006/2007
I watched and listened to entirely too many "top ## lists" at the end of last year. That said, I'd like to add my own.
Top 10 things that annoyed me in 2006
10) Celebrity talent contests - I’ve never looked at Emmitt Smith scoring a touchdown and thought, “Yeah, but can he TANGO?” The world isn’t better off for having found out.
9) Brangelina Vaughniston - There are 2 lame things about this whole "tabloid drama." One is aside from the potential to see Angelina as some kind of homewrecker, they're all just so damned...likeable. And even she's a freakin' UN goodwill ambassador, so you can't even feel that good about it if you don't like her. The 2nd thing is that none of them do anything reportable. They take trips, they do charity work, they hang out with their families. Who freakin' cares?
8) Concept albums - I'm conflicted about including this, because there are a lot of songs that came out of concept albums which I like quite a lot. My Chemical Romance, The Killers, AFI, Angels and Airwaves, even Elton John did one. My real problem with it (aside from the stupid concept "filler" songs, and gratuitous intros and outros) is the inherent incompatibility of the "concept album" with the iPod "shuffle" feature. This goes against the laws of evolution and natural selection, as applied to consumer electronics, and offends my Darwinist inclinations. I blame Green Day.
7) Morning radio shows - I guess I can't speak for the entire country, but the bay area definitely saw a vacuum of morning radio show quality in the wake of Howard Stern's move to satellite. It’s not that I listened to Howard that much to begin with; it's like when he left all the other DJ's felt the need to fill the void in some way by making their shows more like the annoying bits of the Stern show. Instead of striving to reach a higher level of originality, humor, and boundary-pushing, they got more into pranks, gross contests, and different types of microphones.
6) The Hyphy movement - Or perhaps the lack of movement of this genre into the mainstream, aside from that one E40 song (tell me when to geeeeaaaoooooo). People in the media who had no business discussing the state of rap music kept discussing it anyway, which led to millions of people in America who watch tv to say, "What’s hyphy?" Admit it, you were one of them.
5) Tom Cruise - You can rag on him about his wacky religion, his outbursts, his condescending dismissal of depression and psychiatry, his svengali-like control over his family, or his desperate attempts to seem "young" and "hip" vis-a-vis the younger wife, the motorcycle appearances, the dance with Kanye West, etc.... But what really bugs me is his hairstyle. For fuck's sake, lose the bangs!
4) Britney/baby/K-Fed/Paris/crotch shots - I kind of feel sorry for Britney, in that everyone rushes to judge her for her lack of poise, judgment, or a sense of shame, none of which I believe she was born with. However, let's not forget that she achieved a level of international fame and financial success by the age of 20 that most of us will never see in several lifetimes, so maybe she should be held to some kind of higher standard...? Still, it's not nice to make fun of people with disabilities.
3) People who post videos of themselves and their stupid friends on Youtube doing tributes/parodies of other, more famous videos they saw on Youtube - Yes, those Chinese backstreet boys, those Korean karaoke girls, and that Ok Go! video were all great.…But part of what made them great was their originality. Bitches.
2) Fergie/Fergalicious - She's neither tasty nor delicious, and she ruined the memory of one of my favorite crappy old rap songs from my youth. I used to like the Black-Eyed Peas, but there is something creepy about Fergie these days, like a Barbie doll come to life. A shiny, writhing, lip-licking, oversexed, skanky one.
1) George W. Bush - For fucking everything up, then acting like he didn’t. Secret prisons, enemy combatants, gutting habeas corpus, wiretapping, signing statements, cronyism, and oh yeah…leading the country, under false pretenses, into a now-unwinnable war with no exit strategy. And for calling himself “the decider.”
That was horribly negative. Sorry about that, everyone.
Top 10 things that annoyed me in 2006
10) Celebrity talent contests - I’ve never looked at Emmitt Smith scoring a touchdown and thought, “Yeah, but can he TANGO?” The world isn’t better off for having found out.
9) Brangelina Vaughniston - There are 2 lame things about this whole "tabloid drama." One is aside from the potential to see Angelina as some kind of homewrecker, they're all just so damned...likeable. And even she's a freakin' UN goodwill ambassador, so you can't even feel that good about it if you don't like her. The 2nd thing is that none of them do anything reportable. They take trips, they do charity work, they hang out with their families. Who freakin' cares?
8) Concept albums - I'm conflicted about including this, because there are a lot of songs that came out of concept albums which I like quite a lot. My Chemical Romance, The Killers, AFI, Angels and Airwaves, even Elton John did one. My real problem with it (aside from the stupid concept "filler" songs, and gratuitous intros and outros) is the inherent incompatibility of the "concept album" with the iPod "shuffle" feature. This goes against the laws of evolution and natural selection, as applied to consumer electronics, and offends my Darwinist inclinations. I blame Green Day.
7) Morning radio shows - I guess I can't speak for the entire country, but the bay area definitely saw a vacuum of morning radio show quality in the wake of Howard Stern's move to satellite. It’s not that I listened to Howard that much to begin with; it's like when he left all the other DJ's felt the need to fill the void in some way by making their shows more like the annoying bits of the Stern show. Instead of striving to reach a higher level of originality, humor, and boundary-pushing, they got more into pranks, gross contests, and different types of microphones.
6) The Hyphy movement - Or perhaps the lack of movement of this genre into the mainstream, aside from that one E40 song (tell me when to geeeeaaaoooooo). People in the media who had no business discussing the state of rap music kept discussing it anyway, which led to millions of people in America who watch tv to say, "What’s hyphy?" Admit it, you were one of them.
5) Tom Cruise - You can rag on him about his wacky religion, his outbursts, his condescending dismissal of depression and psychiatry, his svengali-like control over his family, or his desperate attempts to seem "young" and "hip" vis-a-vis the younger wife, the motorcycle appearances, the dance with Kanye West, etc.... But what really bugs me is his hairstyle. For fuck's sake, lose the bangs!
4) Britney/baby/K-Fed/Paris/crotch shots - I kind of feel sorry for Britney, in that everyone rushes to judge her for her lack of poise, judgment, or a sense of shame, none of which I believe she was born with. However, let's not forget that she achieved a level of international fame and financial success by the age of 20 that most of us will never see in several lifetimes, so maybe she should be held to some kind of higher standard...? Still, it's not nice to make fun of people with disabilities.
3) People who post videos of themselves and their stupid friends on Youtube doing tributes/parodies of other, more famous videos they saw on Youtube - Yes, those Chinese backstreet boys, those Korean karaoke girls, and that Ok Go! video were all great.…But part of what made them great was their originality. Bitches.
2) Fergie/Fergalicious - She's neither tasty nor delicious, and she ruined the memory of one of my favorite crappy old rap songs from my youth. I used to like the Black-Eyed Peas, but there is something creepy about Fergie these days, like a Barbie doll come to life. A shiny, writhing, lip-licking, oversexed, skanky one.
1) George W. Bush - For fucking everything up, then acting like he didn’t. Secret prisons, enemy combatants, gutting habeas corpus, wiretapping, signing statements, cronyism, and oh yeah…leading the country, under false pretenses, into a now-unwinnable war with no exit strategy. And for calling himself “the decider.”
That was horribly negative. Sorry about that, everyone.