As sure as Kiss and Barbara Streisand will keep having farewell tours as long as the rubes keep paying, I knew that when our country went to war the pundits of pop would come out in farce to embrace the anti right-wing establishment of their forepersons.
Nothing makes me gag and choke more when a band like Green Day or Incubus sells out and starts adding music to New York Times headlines. Sure, music has always had a political angle, but where was the cutting edge concepts of Queensryche back in the day? At least they did it with some semblance of talent, no cookie cutter anti-pop track to rerun on TRL to the end of time.
This brings me of course to System Of A Down. They’re quite possibly one of the best bands that suck which I’ve heard in a long time. The vocals have always been questionable as has the music, yet the more you play it the more it gets stuck in your head like the stainless steel instruments used in a lobotomy. I picked up their latest effort “Mezmerize†and I have to admit, it’s a definite progression from their last record. Still, the political-pop cliché practically screams the antiquated ideas of well, hippies in the 60s. BYOB is a very catchy tune, I like it quite a bit, but I take the lyrics no more serious than a inevitable forthcoming cover of Tiptoe Through The Tulips by Lil Jon and the Kings of Crunk.
Political opinions aside, there are plenty of catchy grooves and crunchy guitar licks all over the record, the CD is well worth the $10 I spent on it at Best Buy.
