Band: Hollywood Undead
Song: Everywhere I Go
Album: Swan Songs (2008)
Genre: Rap Rock
Here's to the band I posted 11 times from the start of this blog in 2014 to October of last 2016. Hot dang, I apparently loved this band that I hardly listen to now.
It's super nostalgic for me to listen to these guys again though, like, I listened to this album probably about 50 times over the course of 2014-2015 when I first was really listening to the band. I just find all their stuff so freaking funny, you know? These lyrics are so absurd, I can't help but smile the whole time I listen to it.
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Band: Hollywood Undead
Song: California Dreaming
Album: California Dreaming (Single, 2017)
Genre: Rap Rock
Language: Strong
Speaking of new music, let's take a second and talk about the new Hollywood Undead single that give me hope for the new album.
Like for real, it's angry, gritty, and is mostly guitar driven. Even the "mellow" single they put out has a lot of bite to it, this is exciting! This is them returning to a sound similar to the sound that they had in Undead, and since Swan Song was debatable their best album I'm gonna call this leaps and bounds in the right direction for them.
A couple things I'm noticing though. Da Kurlzz isn't here, and that concerns me since he's one of my favorite members. Also the band aren't wearing masks here at all.
Band: Hollywood Undead
Genre: Rap Rock
Language: Strong
No matter what I may say about HU I'm probably still gonna like them. Sure their last album was a little trash, but that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy some of their older stuff, right?
Like today, this song came on at work and my brother and I joked about a terrible lyric in a different song for like, 15 minutes. Doesn't mean we don't like the song or the band, just means we find the verse funny.
Side note, do these guys get paid for mention Hollywood and LA? Cause I can't think of any other reason to dose their songs so heavily with references to those places.
Band: Hollywood Undead
Genre: Rap Rock
Language: Strong
So today is my brother's birthday! Hooray, he's 21 now, big milestone, haha.
This song is one that we decided was his theme song a while ago. It's not his traditional style of music, it's not a band that most people think of when they think of him, it's nothing like the stuff his band plays, the song is just basically about him.
I mean not really, it's not like he's into going out clubbing in suits and getting wasted, but this is his favorite HU album and on the album this is his favorite song. This is also the only song that'll get him on the dancefloor at a wedding willingly, though we haven't managed to convince any of the DJs to put it on yet.
Happy birthday Jeff, don't do anything stupid till the weekend, haha
Every now and then I have a strong of what I believe to be really nice posts, and then I end up crashing by slipping and not knowing what to talk about. Today though I have some fun trivia so you know this'll be at least halfway decent.
Firstly, let's dedicate this post to my mom. She works in a church, she leads worship, and she has a weird love for the Beastie Boys. I remember her telling me not to listen to them because they were a bad influence, but I feel like I listen to enough terrible music that we can admit that I listen to them from time to time. Heck, Jeff and I even covered one of their songs.
Second thing, here's a cool bit f trivia. Kerry King, the bald guitarist from Slayer, played the guitar solo in this and a couple other songs these guys have done. You can tell for a couple reasons. firstly, he's credited as doing it. Secondly his style of playing a mountain of the same not very quickly and absolutely destroying the whammy bar is more than a little distinctive. He sounds like that kid at Guitar Center that knows enough to make a mountain of noise, but not always in a good way.
Band: Hollywood Undead
Genre: Rap Rock
Language: Strong
So in case you haven't guessed from the last two posts and the kinda mess of a theme that Title Track Teusdays were you'll know that I've got a couple opinions about stuff like that and the "change" album.
Well this isn't the title track, but we gonna talk about it anyway.
I feel the need to toss this out there, I really do like this band despite all the negative things I may or may not say. I've got a lot of criticism for bands that I like because I tend to hold them to a higher standard. HU made a huge mistake though when they decided to kick Deuce out of the band. Sure, they had their issues and I'm sure things would have gone worse, but musically they took a huge hit when he left.
Sure, I love the American Tragedy album, it's got some of my favorite tracks on it and is all in all a great album. You do kinda hear in it though that the edge that the music in the first album had at times was gone. You can argue that they got better equipment and the change in their sound was simply a reflection of the fact that they actually had more to work with. I'm pretty strongly of the opinion that that's not the case though.
As the albums have gone on and Deuce's influence has lessened the old edge that the music had has slipped away. Don't get me wrong, the later albums have still had solid songs that have the old school edge to them, but it's only 1 or 2 tracks in an almost 15 track album. You can tell that the party songs on the original albums were the ones that the other members of the band worked on more and that the songs with an attempted message usually came from camp Deuce.
Like I said, the new music has it's appeal, I know a lot of people really enjoy the new stuff and there's a lot of things to like about it, it's just a direction that I didn't really want the band to go in. This is probably greatly due to my Nu-Metal obsession, but I was really hoping that 2nd Wave Nu-Metal would rise up from HU's popularity. They're going down a different path though and I'm forced to listen to some of their old material and wish for things that'll never happen. Still a good time and there's lots of other bands though, so I'm sure I'll get over it.
Let's get this out first, this album was trash. I really want to like it cause I really like HU's older stuff, but it's so freaking difficult. The songs have some promise here and there and I do enjoy a couple of the songs, but there are some that are just bad. You want a crap level reference? This album was released around the same time as the ICP album I reviewed a while back and there's a track on this album that sounds scarily similar to one on that.
There's a certain appeal to the material, but it really doesn't have the same edge that the older material had. "Live Forever" is a straight up Pop Punk tune for crying out loud.
This song is ok though I suppose. It's nowhere near my top 10 HU songs but as far as the album goes it's not terrible. The video amuses me to death as well, which makes me like the song a little more I suppose. I would actually love if the whole album followed this track a little closer with some of the other songs going off a bit for variety's sake, it would be a much better album in my opinion.
I'll label this as a decent title track, but not as good as the Behemoth track.
I used to despise Johnny 3 Tears lines because they seemed kinda dumb and oversimplified. I really like them now though for no other reason than what once bugged me now amuses me.
I mean let's be real, the line So many dollars stuffed in my wallet, chain so bling yeah you know that I'm a balla is a line very few people could get away with. Lo and behold though, Johnny manages to do it.
Honestly all the songs these guys have released make me laugh a little bit. The songs that focus on Charlie are generally the funniest, but there's gems like that line all over the place. In the song American Tragedy Johnny uses the phrase "wolf among the sheep" like, 3 or 4 times in the span of 30 seconds. It's pure gold.
This one though? You'll have to settle for a straight killer beat (my favorite part is when the high synth comes in near the end of each verse) and some solid, if amusing, lines.
Back in the day when my brother and I were first starting to listen to more Rock and Metal stuff my brother really got into Pillar. I always thought they were ok, but I never really listened to them much. I was a lot more into stuff like Black Sabbath and some heavier things but he was into the Christian Rock group.
Now let's get one thing straight, my brother has always been at least a little worse than me. He's just better at hiding it is all and I'm more obvious. All my tattoos are on my arms, all his are under his shirt. I listen to bands out loud, he listens with headphones.
Well he's bringing home stuff like this and I'm listening to Sabbath and my mom keeps telling me I should try to be a little more like him and stuff. Total BS.
Long story short I work in a church now, so who's really coming out ahead, eh Jeff?
Band: Hollywood Undead
Genre: Rap Rock
Language: Strong
One of the things that I love about this band is that they are total fluff music that I can put on and just have in the background. The lifestyle they seem to promote isn't anything I live like, but their music is a lot of fun to sing along with.
Honestly I just love the beat of this song and the opening line. "Oh shit damn had a couple too many" is one of the greatest lyrical pieces I've ever heard.
Band: Run D.M.C. feat Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith
Genre: Rap Rock
I won't say these guys started the Nu-Metal trend, especially since this was much more Rap than Rock. This is a really important song to mention though, cause even though Run D.M.C. used a lot of electric guitar in their beats already, so kinda of a stepping stone song in the process.
DMC did a lot of that already, so including Aerosmith was basically just step two.
I mentioned some stuff about this guy back in December some time, but rather than look back and make sure I'm not repeating myself I'm just gonna mention the stuff that I want to.
After getting kicked from Hollywood Undead Deuce went a little weird. To be fair, his former band mates took credit for a lot of the work that he did and that's gonna bug anybody. Still though, I'm sure you wouldn't go out and write a song titled "Nobody Likes Me" to get over it. It's a really whiney sounding and makes him seem like a teenager. Hey, whatever works for him though.
I'm actually really disappointed that he hasn't put out any new material though since 2012. I love his sound and I'd like to check out more stuff from him.
I may have said this before, but I like this band a lot more then I probably should.
One of the things I like though is that this song is almost in an old style. It's amusing to me at least. I also like how Funny Man does that Louis Armstrong voice in the chorus part.
Fun fact, the verse of this song is the same as the verse to Green Day's song Hitchin' A Ride. Other songs too, but that's the only one that comes to mind. In face, both Green Day and Hollywood Undead do this a lot. The simple chord progression that is, not copy each other stuff.
Rage Against The Machine was a very early member of the whole Rap/Rock/Hip-Hop/Metal combination movement. They had drums and distorted guitars, but they also had rapping and funky bass.
I wouldn't call this Nu-Metal (i.e. Korn, Limp Bizkit, Motograter, Coal Chamber, etc.), but it was definitely early in the era of it. Let's say the fathers of it? Eh, I don't really care that much, but it's a good thing to know that these guys were part of the good era of that music.
Another actually really cool thing to know about them is that their album "Rage Against The Machine" is considered by many audiophiles to be perfectly (or near perfectly) mixed. One guy told me once that this song, "Bombtrack" is what he always uses to test how well new speakers will handle music in a metal capacity. I find this to be really cool since I'm sure that when RAtM started they never thought their music would be used in that way. Anti-Political rallies maybe, but never as "perfect" testing music.
Also, note the edgy album cover. This is a picture of Thích Quảng Đức who burned himself alive in protest of the way that the south Vietnamese government treated Buddhist monks. During the demonstration he never moved a muscle or said a word.
I would say that using such a moving and significant moment as a mere album picture is saying a lot about what you think you music stands for.
Pillar is a Hard Rock band that I happen to enjoy a reasonable amount. They have moments where they sound like Disturbed, so that is a really cool thing for me since they used to be my favorite band.
Pillar has a really cool thing going on though, and to the best of my knowledge they are releasing a new album fairly soon, so they are active still. They've released several albums that seem to have a mildly different take to each one, so if you don't like this try the newest stuff or the oldest stuff and it'll be a different experience just a bit.
Dude, my last post was number 111, how did I miss that? I'm not gonna get a chance to do something with that till I hit 1111 in like 3 and a half years. Crap.
Well anyway here's a song!
So Sabotage is one of my favorite Beastie Boys song. I also just learned that it's not "The Beastie Boys".
This song features a really catchy bass riff and a driving beat making it another one of my getting/staying pumped songs. I've posted a few of them before even if I didn't say it in the post.
Hope you all like this song as much as I do, RIP Adam Yauch (1964-2012)
You remember Hollywood Undead, right? Well this is the singer that got fired after the first album. He apparently just stopped showing up to things.
This song is pure gold in my mind because it just sounds like him complaining that he got kicked. Actually the entire album really sounds like that to be honest.
If you watch this video you can see a guy who looks like a redneck d-bag heroin junkie put on at least 700 different masks that all look equally bad.
It's a really catchy tune though, so it does have that going for him. It's not bad material, it's just whiney sounding a lot of the time.
The other stuff he does is actually a lot better, so he does at least have talent. Saving grace Deuce.
Call me weird, but as I sit at 5:30 am and hear sappy Christmas music, I kinda want to kill myself. Don't get me wrong, I like a god deal of Christmas music, but this early in the morning I want to just sit and enjoy my coffee with generic rock in the background.
That's the main problem here is that during December all you can get anywhere is Christmas. To combat this, I will refrain from any more Christmas music until the last 7 days before Christmas, kinda like what we had going on Halloween.
So Faith No More was a kinda big deal a long while ago, and by "big deal" I mean they had a unique sound and some singles that went big.
Funny thing though, they have just written an album and plan to release soon, so any fans of the band should be happy. By all reports I've heard it seems to be doing well.
So I've been hung up on this band since last time I posted one of their songs, but I don't really care cause it's fun music to listen to sometimes, right?
Now this really sounds a lot more like a Halloween song cause of all the... Halloween-ish sounds in it. But hey, it's still catchy and stuff, right?
So an interesting little thing about these guys is some info on Johnny 3 Tears. He kills people. Seriously, just listen to any of his verses in almost all of the songs he's in. He always talks about killing people, and he always refers to himself in the third person.
Something else you should know is that the guy who made this lyric video is generally the best for figuring out who is singing the verses. He's really good about it.
So Run D.M.C. was one of the original rap-rock groups. They are also absolute classics in the early Hip Hop scene too, so there are a lot of ways you might have heard of them. They've even done a song with Aerosmith before.
Not having been alive during their beginnings and heyday, I can't vouch for some of the Wiki info I looked at, but checking dates it kinda adds up that this was one of those game changing songs. Much like when Public Enemy played with Anthrax, or when Jimi Hendrix helped change the guitar game for people, Rock Box helped people realize that rock and rap could coexist.
Later in their career they did drift from their rap rock roots, but it's still good music and worth checking out.
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