| RANTING TIME - 21:56 - 28th of October -2003 Okay, it's come to this. I have been to a lot of websites that review albums/singles. I feel just like I could rant all fucking night about them. To start off www.nme.co.uk - NME have been around for a pretty long time, and I understand it's not supposed to be rock only, but, my God their reviewers are pricks. Their reviews are awful, they don't tell you anything about the album, just how much they hate them. They said Americana (by The Offspring) was "brainless thug-punk", they called Green Day a dumbass punk-pop group, they were to review Andrew WK live, and while they wouldn't stop explaining how shit his songs were, they DIDN'T BOTHER TO REVIEW HIS LIVE PERFORMANCE, and oh what a surprise, they fall to the knees of The Darkness, and Garage Rock. NME is a bunch of biased bastards. A critic is someone who reviews something universally, they're supposed to take into account everyone's opinions. The NME editor obviously hired people who don't even like music!! Rolling Stone magazine is even worse. They actually said Led Zeppelin's albums were all utter crap, they dissed Layla by Eric Clapton (Cream) and love expressing opinions of the minority without really telling us anything about the albums/singles/etc. I feel so angry when these people get payed to just write off these bands that work so fucking hard on these albums and are the very reason that these so-called "journalists" get payed. A little respect would be in order. I'm glad to get that off my chest. I am seeing a trend in people seeing Garage Rock and Hard Rock as very "fashionable" now. Now, while I like Garage Rock and Hard Rock it's just too annoying when people like songs not for the music but for the image, it pisses me off incredibly. It's exactly what Kurt Cobain was against. Which brings me to the whole topic of selling out, and elitists, etc. Selling out is a term which I am going to once and for all define: "changing your image so you can make more money and sell more records, not for the sake of music" - we all agreed on that? Good. Now how exactly are Green Day sell outs? Here are a set of reasons why they AREN'T 1) Did Green Day change their style of music from the 1000 Slappy Hours/Kerplunk days to the Dookie days? No. They kept the same image, and because they got onto a label who could spread the CD's more the made it big, by doing what they had already been doing. Not by changing so everyone would just adore because this wasn't expected at all at this point. At that point Nirvana had changed the world (well, kinda) and bands were all about angst and love; which while it isn't bad at all, can get boring. Green Day brought something new and was loved. They didn't knew what hit them. From then on they made albums that, while they didn't sell as well, in my opinion they were good. All this crap over Warning being a crap album is bullshit. It's their most frank and mature album, while remaining punk it is unique and it is a nice blend. They didn't sell out, they what they felt was good. I respect them greatly for that. Another aspect of selling out which I hate is bands that are incredibly against it, most of them are on the record Epitaph. Their was a hell of a lot of controversy over The Offspring moving to Columbia records and among those who were bad mouthing Offspring were Rancid. Rancid, who were so against moving to a major label, because it was "selling out", even though Epitaph was just as fucking major as any other. (Note: The Offspring's album Smash on Epitaph sold about 5-8 million records) Just because it's independant doesn't make it any worse to go to a "major" record label. Finally, elitists. If you don't know what I mean then I'll explain: There are some people who consider bands only good when no-one else likes them, there were elitists who stopped listening to The Offspring and bad mouthed them when they moved to Columbia, even though they really did actually like the music, it's the same for lots of bands, they piss me off. I'm sure there's some in my town; Oban. I really don't understand why people can't just listen to music, and if they like it, then great well done, fuck off. Simple. Well that's me vented a lot of steam out, just now. Thanks. Chris McGarry - Ranting Writer |
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| The Only Blacklist People Like Being On - 29th of October - 2003 - Well, it's a great day, the NRA have listed hundreds (maybe thousands) of people and organizations that have been anti-gun or anti-war. And these people have been PROUD to be a part of this list, and I fucking agree. The NRA want to lift the ban that means semi-automatic military weapons can't be sold in the US. They also want to make a law that means gun shops can legally sell to convicted criminals! I really hope that USA outlaws guns, because it'll be hell soon otherwise. http://www.nrablacklist.com Not much of a rant today, just telling you about this great news. |
| HALLOWEEN TIME! - November 1st Well, it's the day after Halloween and I hope everyone had a great Day of the Dead, as the Mexicans say. Speaking of Halloween, I was at a sleep over for Halloween and it was a pretty damn good night with a few mishaps (hope your leg heals well, Chris), but as you know scary movies come as required with Halloween, so we watched The Ring. I thought it was a pretty bloody good film, while not being very scary. This wasn't what bothered me. It was that when you have ten people in the same room, some of them don't want to shut up. I have nothing against them, but I didn't enjoy The Ring nearly as much as I probably should have thanks to the constant phrases such as, "is this a scary bit?", "oh, I remember this, this is when <me shouting very loud at them to shut up > -- okay, okay.." etc. It's really annoying because half the fun of a scary movie is the rush you get. Anyway, I just wanted to scream about that for a couple of seconds. That aside, it was a great night. Anyway, has anyone else wondered at the integrity of our schooling system? We were all sent at the end of our October Holidays a six week revision plan for our preliminary tests (back ups for the Standard Grades) when we had half of that to go till them. Also, I'm hearing our headteacher Mrs Kirkwood saying something along these lines, "ignore your parents, listen to us" . . . "they don't know shit about how your mind works, we know how the hamster moves that wheel" I think, euphemisms aside that is an outrage. We were told that if we don't pass our exams, our lives will be failures. I just think this is bullshit. The majority did not pass their exams, and I really don't think their lives were ruined. I just hate how the school just makes it so awful if you fail. It's not like a true safety net, if you aren't very smart, then they don't care. If you are smart, they don't give you a safety net in the first place. I think that the actual teachers, the English teachers, the Maths teachers, History, Biology etc... they care. They do. They could just tell you to copy out of a fucking book for the whole period, every period, and they would be doing their job. Yet they actually take their time to help us, they truly earn their wages. While a lot of our teachers are assholes, I respect them for that, never the less. Headteachers are different, Mrs Kirkwood does not fucking care. She couldn't care less. She just gets told what to do by the Education board and she does it without blinking. To me, that's the lowest of the low. I started out this page just because I see a lot of stuff going on in this world, that really makes me shudder, or get angry. Whatever. I didn't really expect I'd be ranting about everything I'm angry about, but what the hell. If it's one way to get my little anger out, so be it. Peace out, guys. |
| Pressure Rises - November 12th Suicide worries me. It's not the fact of killing yourself, it's the reasoning behind it, a lot of people who do try to commit suicide don't really know why. They just want to disappear, hide from everyone. I know a couple of people who have tried to commit suicide, and not succeeded thankfully, and they really don't know why they did it. They were ashamed or scared or just really depressed, and no-one can really tell that they'll do it. Not even their boyfriends or girlfriends, who should really be the people that know them the best. To be blunt: it's fucked. It really puts you in perspective when someone you know could already be dead as you type this message because they're out of control. I just want to say good luck to anyone fighting this, as I know how hard it can be. Why are people so dominant and aggressive? Have you ever stepped back and watched how 90% of the world acts? Through anger and fear. It's pretty stunning - in high school there are fights quite frequently, no-one really knows who starts them, and they all end in tears, just about. What I don't understand is why there are all these groups and conflicts. Why has the society in our school been built up so everyone is against everyone? It's like a civil war sometimes. I don't really have anything against people going around in groups, but when being a group changes a person I get pissed off. The best example ever of this is the "neds". Short for "non-educated deliquent" which isn't too far off. You can associate basically as footballers, or football enthuiasists. Most of them are thugs. One time at lunch we were heading back to school from Tesco's and three of them stopped in front and were letting everyone past except one of us. I won't mention his name just so he doesn't get annoyed if he reads this, but anyway, they started pushing him a bit and then picked him up, and he was trying to get away but they wouldn't let him, so I decided "fuck it" and went over and pushed them off him and let him get away, and the shortest of the three started bawling and shouting at me, he threatened to "hammer" me if I did anything like that again. It's ironic that the smallest ones are always the most violent. It's that kind of thing that pisses me off - a small group of "neds" picking on someone for no good reason, and I know for a fact that this guy had done fuck all to these "neds", they chose him because he seemed the most weak and vulnerable. Why can we not just live together? I know this may sound like some John Lennon bullshit but it's what I think, I may be violent occasionally but I've never ever wanted to use violence to get my own way, and that's true. I've gotten into very few fights and while all of them have ended with me standing (which is purely by chance, by the way, stupid people try and fight me) I didn't enjoy them, I hate myself for fighting, to be honest. I mean it's all fun and games up to an extent, but to ever intentionally want to intentionally hurt someone physically is just completely and utterly wrong. It's really depressing how seemingly terrible things are, but, the good things in life completely outbalance the bad things, let's just leave it at that, shall we? By the way, I recommend a few albums: Muse - Absolution, Nickelback - The Long Road (That's right, a good Nickelback album, AMAZING ;), Blink-182 - Blink-182 (Their new album is quite different, and also quite moody, but very good) The Offspring - Splinter (Not out yet, but I am very optmistic about it), and Bon Jovi - This Left Feels Right (Really cool renditions of his classics, unplugged. Basically Bon Jovi - Unplugged). I know this isn't really a rant, but, let's diversify a bit, shall we? |
| The Offspring's New Album!!! Yes, that's right. The Offspring's new album Splinter will be released in the UK on December 1st. Click Here to listen to 30 second previews of each track. Also I'd like to apologise for saying Rancid moved to Warner. I was wrong, I'm only human, eh? They're still shitheads :P Just kidding ;) Peace Out |
| Ranting Writer |
| Okay, I've decided to stop this site, and just use www.livejournal.com/users/degenerate97/ as a blog for all my rants, troubles, etc. hope everyone has much more fun laughing at that! :D --chris |