Bands That Suck Balls: SLIPKNOT

Back in the day if you told people you listened to hard rock or specifically "metal," people knew you were a cool guy with great taste in music. Maybe you rocked out to AC/DC or Guns N' Roses and their Rad jams about partying and hot chicks. Or you listened to epic anthems from Iron Maiden about battles and fantasy. Or you rode the lightning with Metallica and pumped your fists to songs about obeying your master and being generally badass. Then of course music went to shit and became divided into two separate classifications, both of which were equally shittastic. You were either a totally pussified band that played soft rock jams that fired up nobody. Or you were a totally angry, dark, and gloomy band that played loud thrashing jams that gave you a migraine and would frighten away any females in earshot. The second classification was dubbed metal and more specifically "Nu Metal." Nu Metal is absolutely horrible, and if you listen to it I can only assume you molest kittens and have the severed heads of women in your freezer. Especially if you are among the masses that loyally follow this week's Band That Sucks Balls: SLIPKNOT.

Slipknot is an absolute piece of shit poor excuse for a metal band, in case you couldn't figure that out from the picture above. Jesus Christ. I'm all for dressing up your band in Rad apparel. Crazy makeup, shiny pants, spiked boots, do it up. However if your band's "look" is the world's creepiest group Halloween costume that is not Rad at all that is just frightening and fucking weird. There is nothing less rock and roll than looking like a homicidal maniac. If your rhythm section is comprised of Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and the guy from "Saw" parts 1-17 chances are your music is not something I could throw on at a keg party. Rock and Roll is supposed to be fun. Rock stars are not supposed to look like people you would expect to see while being tortured in a dark rat infested basement and chained to a chair. Could you imagine taking a girl to a Slipknot concert? I seriously can think of no less female-friendly environment that a Slipknot show. Pretty sure just making the offer would make a chick run away screaming for help. Or this response:

You: "Hey I got us Slipknot tickets wanna go?"

Girl: "Umm no thanks. I'm not really in the mood to be bound and gagged in the trunk of a car. Nice knowing you."

Clearly a band that puts so much work into looking like creeptastic freak shows has no time in their schedule to actually record good music. After taking one look at these nutjobs, you can safely assume their music sucks monkey nuts. Amazingly, somehow their music is actually ten times worse than one could even imagine. There's no actual singing in a Slipknot song, the lead psycho just screams and growls incomprehensible lyrics into the microphone. Sometimes he talks in the scariest voice possible throughout the song and saves the screaming and growling for the hook. Either way it blows. There are apparently 93 members of Slipknot, and as is usually the case with shitty ensemble bands these days, more does not equal better. All the guitarists play some loud repetitive thrashing machine gun riff. The drummer just kind of bangs on two pieces of his drum kit continously. Everybody else just stands around headbanging and looking as creepy as possible.

Since I can't actually understand Slipknot's lyrics I had to do some research to find that their songs center around themes such as anger, darkness, disaffection, personal strife...and profanity. :(. Looks like a couple kids got stuffed in their lockers a few too many times and took up screaming cuss words about being all alone in this world while wearing masks. Waaah. Give me a fucking break. Who the fuck wants to listen to that? Um...apparently a lot of people. If I were to say to you "Who debuted at number 1 on the billboard 200 with their last album, and has sold 14 million records?" what would be your response. Taylor Swift? Rihanna? No. Fucking Slipknot. Are you kidding me?? These weirdballs actually have a fucking following? WTF. Who the hell listens to Slipknot and actually buys their shitty records? I mean at least other shitty bands have an obvious audience. Chicks, teenagers, frat douchebags, hipsters. Who the fuck openly likes Slipknot? Are there really millions of people out there jamming out to angry, disaffected thrash jams? That is a scary thought. We need to seriously maximize the full potential of the Patriot Act and start keeping track of purchasers of Slipknot CDs to prevent further school shootings.

Fortunately there aren't really any other psychotic thrash metal bands that have followed Slipknot's example and pursued dreams of mainstream success. So hopefully Slipknot's appeal will finally fade and we won't have to deal with many more loud angst-metal anthems. Maybe someday soon we can return to the days of metal and hard rock being associated with totally Rad party jams and epic arena anthems. Not weirdos in Halloween masks who provide the soundtrack to Rob Zombie horror flicks. Somebody get these psychotic assholes out of here and stuff them back in the high school lockers they came from.