The phenomenon of top 40 screamo covers is old news (I participated in Decibel's "Screamo Covers Tournament" over a year ago), but I am not quite sure what to make of the zillions of Owl City screamo covers. Are they ironic? Are any screamo covers even ironic anymore?? Isn't that kind of like Lady Gaga covering Kelly Clarkson, or Earth Crisis covering Strife?
Notorious German shit merchants Bionic Ghost Kids manage to do the best version I could find (but to be fair, I only put about 3 minutes of work into my search)
This 14 year old girl's version is somehow less effeminate than the original
The guitars sound like they were recorded with a Radio Shack microphone inside a cardboard box half full of oily rags-- I thought all the kids these days came out of the womb with expert knowledge of how to run pirated versions of ProTools on their Macbook Pros? And the drums, jesus christ... sounds like someone dumping a bunch of tennis balls on that same cardboard box- and I'm honestly not exaggerating with that description.
An Open Ended Sky have a horrible name, but their cover sucks a little less than the others
What do you think? Is it cheating to do screamo covers of emo songs?? Should bands start doing screamo covers of themselves???
Much in the same way that shirtless tweens like to do Screamo covers of "The Biebz", I have recently discovered another trend amoung bored middle class white kids. As we all know from the seemingly endless stream of Mills related content recently, nothing soaks underage scene panties like that dude, and now we have another disturbing manifestation of this.
The "Patient Zero", of awkward T Mills covers. Note how the cat really wishes he wasn't there.
heart the annoying chick in the Whitechapel tee
"At the ennnnnd, I say he gives my vagina an erection and if I had a penis, he'd give it one to :)" - Wut?!?!?
Obviously a big thing with the OTWs
The last one is the most worrying to me, as they appear to be in some kind of shop/gallery/public space. Who knows quite what overtook them here, that they absolutely had to whip out their Macbook and do it right there, instead of in the safety of their own homes, free from the confused creepy azn guy behind them. Love how whenever the lyrics get particularly raunchy they hastily glance over their shoulder, presumably in case their parents (who probably own said macbook) hear them, although they definately dont seem to give a shit about azn dude.
One last thing, before I go, In addition to Monday's post, I would also like to add that animal cruelty is neither cool nor scene, and that you take a moment to remember John.......
It is no secret that I can be annoying. Sometimes I even get sick of myself, so I am always thrilled to have guest posts from SYWH readers. Reader Anders sent this one in and WOW... what a lolfactory! Thanks Anders, you have opened our eyes to the world of DIY EUROTRANCE- I am super into the DiscoCrew song below, hopefully you'll find something you like too! -- Sgt D
My name is Anders and first of all I want to thank you! A lot! For years I thought I was the only one my age who liked this kinda stuff. Or “liking” is a huge underestimation for the love I feel for artists like Blood On The Dance Floor and T-Mills and what they represent. Anyway, since I saw that you got at category for eurotrash I figured I would give you a tip about some awesome Swedish stuff. A movement I have dubbed “tongue-in-cheek DIY Eurotrance”.
I don’t know if you’re aware of the artist Basshunter. He’s probably too super-European in both sound and image to ever break through in the US, but he’s a really big deal in Europe. He started as a DIY trance producer popular in the LAN/online gaming-community and got a huge hit with Boten Anna in the summer of 2006, a song written about a chat bot. His follow-up hit DOTA was about playing Warcraft 3.
Basshunter doing his version of blue steel
His first album LOL <(^^,)> is one of my favorite Swedish albums ever. It takes the extremely naive and bitter sweetly romantic small-town teen melancholy of artists like Gyllene Tider and Freestyle (these references says nothing to non-Swedes I know) and combines them with a DIY-take on Dutch/German hands up-trance in the vein of Rob Mayth, Alex Megane and Cascada. The album was of course dismissed and laughed at by the conservative-as-fuck Swedish music journalists (a membership of the no fun club is obligatory if you want to write about music in Sweden) but it managed to create a whole new music genre all by itself: The tongue-in-cheek DIY Eurotrance.
A lot of small-town computer geeks heard it and realized they also had the tools too create similar music. This new wave of bands wrote lyrics that ranged from ordinary love songs to flat-out comedy (Sweden has big tradition of novelty songs becoming really huge hits, especially in the summer). But you could always sense equal parts small-town sentimentality and tongue-in-cheek irony in the songs.
This style of art is so wretched that even the most avant-garde hipsters will never ironically embrace it
For his second album Basshunter changed his style from a small-town computer geek to a super slick DJ. The geeky and naive subject matter from the first album were also changed to English-language love songs. His second and third albums are solid and professional eurotrance, but it’s a totally different thing than LOL <(^^,)>.
But the genre he created lives on. Mainly through the record label 100% Party, distributed through Warner Music. They are quick to sign all the young bands that emerge on Youtube and MySpace and build their brand arranging tours that only visit small towns and “party cruises” (a Nordic classic, you throw a party on a ferry cruising around the Baltic Sea so you can sell tax-free booze). I have yet to attend one of these cruises, but I'm sure that they are fantastic:
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The whole genre has a deep connection to the “svenne” and “fjortis”-style (a Swedish working class/small town-aesthetic that perhaps could be compared to the guido thing). In my opinion this stuff would be lot better representative for Swedish music abroad than pretentious indie pop like Lykke Li and JJ.
Here are some of my favorites in the genre. Holla at me of you want translations of the lyrics:
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Basshunter – DOTA (the originator!)
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Kobojsarna – Sång Om Ingenting (The first big hit in the genre after Basshunter)
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Laser Inc. – När man var liten (I can also recommend their debut album “Roger That!”. A very solid record!)
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Diskocrew – Här kommer Rebecca!
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Secondtunez – Sommaren Är Här Igen
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DJ Tune feat. Orremannen – Bag In Da Box (a tribute to the “bag in box”, a wine container extremely popular in Sweden.)
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Raaban & Recca – Pumpa Rumpa! (A Swedish Brokencyde!)
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Mattiaz – Skandalen (A Swedish Jeffree Star!)
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Basshunter makes a song in 5 minutes (the spark that created the whole movement)
I had to share this awesome stuff since everybody that writes about music in Sweden ignores it. Hope you enjoy it and keep up the good work!
Thanks again dude, this shit jams! I especially like DiscoCrew and Raaban & Recca. I could definitely drop to this! What are yr faves?? Why do you think boring Swedish "music journalists" ignore this tight scene? Do you have exhaustive knowledge of an awesome/weird/gay scene like this? Send it to me!
This is the finest television commercial ever produced. My favorite part is where kitty is batting at the fish as he passes by them in the fish-like boat. And how he is fascinated by the sparkly, dancing turkeys!
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I no longer own a kitty, but if I did I would definitely feed him Friskies. What a magical adventure for kitty!!!
This bro posted the above pic of himself in a thread entitled "Kids who used to be scene and blatantly took a 180." Courtesy of Bridge 9:
Hahaha, I'm surprised anybody remembers this, makes me feel important...or makes you guys look like pathetic losers, either way I enjoy it. That was my first encounter with the b9 when the thread was sent to me and I'm pretty sure I tried to defend myself...oh how naive to the b9's ways I was. I also had a hate thread on a purevolume board and pretty sure NWhardcore the same week. Oh well, got me lots of scene pussy and it brings the lolz.
I'm sure he did/does get "lots of scene pussy," and there is def something to be said for that. But I am going to say that posting pics of yourself on the internets wearing girl undies is 1000000000000000000x more embarrassing than whatever bro-props you might get from banging from some random scene mattress. And as a B9 poster asked, WHO IS TAKING THIS PICTURE????
He should wear some of these shorts in his next set of mirror shots
Cheers to my bros from NWHardcore and B9 for providing a venue in which this bro can shame himself, you guys are legit!!
I love old Sugar Ray, especially the song "Mean Machine!" Apparently this guy does too, and for some incredibly strange reason decided to make a MIDI version of it and put it on YouTube.
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But that's not all! This bro also made MIDIs of hardcore classics from the likes of Minor Threat, Black Flag and even Earth Crisis! Here are some highlights:
In what might be the most surreal, irony-laden moment of my life, a recent NPR blog post mentioned Stuff You Will Hate as a source for information on crunkcore. As if it couldn't get any funnier, the writer of the post (Carrie Brownstein) used to be in fucking SLEATER KINNEY, who I saw many times growing up in the Seattle punk scene of the early 90s. If I had to make a list of people unlikely to have any interest at all in SYWH, she would be at the very top, so I'm stoked to count her as a reader!
Her former band
I am very grateful for the link, because I've gotten a lot of traffic from it, and most likely from people who would normally never read this site. Thanks babe! Even though I mostly listen to Hatebreed and Demolisher these days, I actually do like Sleater Kinney. And I'm not into indie chicks, but in Carrie's case I would- she's got a certain charm about her, maybe it's because I *am* into Jewish girls??
Do I really need to explain why you will hate this?! What is wrong with the world? How did we up in a sick reality in which kids in their early 20s want to be in bands with "keyboard breakdowns"???
I am old and I grew up listening to hardcore and metal. Here is what my friends at Something Awful said about this blog. I like it:
The meaning of "Stuff You Will Hate" changes depending on the installment, and often during the course of a single column. It can mean "stuff I love, but that you, the reader, will dislike." Sometimes it means "stuff you will hate, and I hate it as well." And sometimes, it means "stuff you like, and I might actually like it, too, but I'm going to pretend to hate it in a way that will infuriate you because it will be written as a parody of a typical idiot hating something great, and you'll quote the fake blurb to your friends and say 'what an ignorant dick' when in reality it's intentional and now we're laughing at you, you gullible fuck."
