Some days I wonder what it must be like to be a poor, depressed, unliked teenager in today's high school environment. I'm assuming it must be light years worse than when I was in high school (which is the late 90's if you're curious). No doubt when Rachel won't talk to Billy because he's weird it must be so much tougher on Billy today than 15 years ago, and when you don't get a date to the prom it must be even more devastating than it used to be. At least I'm assuming things must be worse based solely on the popularity of bullshit bands like Vampires Everywhere being popular with the teenage, depressed, melodramatic, sad crowd. I can't imagine how bad things must be getting that kids would actually choose to lock themselves in their room, cover themselves in faux-goth makeup, and listen to this contrived Marilyn Manson rip-off crap.The more I listen to this album, the more I imagine this is the soundtrack that spoiled suburban kids probably use to feel "edgy" or to piss off their anesthesiologist mom and VP of sales dad while complaining about how hard they have it living in a gated community where they have nothing better to do than listen to Hellbound and Heartless in their room on their parents' hand-me-down "old" Bose stereo. It doesn't go nearly loud enough to play crystal clearly through the door of his own private bathroom. Life is so hard!
Even disconnecting myself from that imagery, I can't disconnect from the fact that this is nothing more than a deliberate, cheap, rip-off of what Marilyn Manson did 15 years ago. The pseudo-satanic song titles and anti-government, anti-cool-kids, anti-popularity, anti-anything lyrics? Done better. The industrialized metal riffs? Done twice as good before the members of this band could even contemplate playing instruments. Hell, if you can listen to "Kiss of Death" once through and tell me it's not 100% derivative of Manson (if not outright copied), I will slap you in the face, kick you in shins and call you a filthy liar.
Vampires Everywhere steal absolutely everything from the Manson playbook; this includes their look (which is as pathetic as it is contrived) as well as going for a industrial-goth cover song to include on their album. In this case, they rape "Rape Me" from Nirvana. Do we need to keep going? If you don't get the picture by now that you'd be doing yourself a disservice by even thinking about turning your ear towards this band then, frankly, you must have a truly horrible life and I honestly feel sorry for you.
Ok… one last appeal to anyone on the fence, especially if you're a teenager with a still developing musical palette… I'm going to be as blunt as I can…
This. Album. Is. Awful.
Is that clear enough? I really hope so. If not, I fear for today's youth.
No comments:
Post a Comment