21 July 2006

Peace, Love and Understanding

I contributed to an article called “Genres We'd Like to See Dead” in the current issue of LEO. The other writer and I dissed several musical styles, and we got pretty scathing. My chosen targets were hair metal, AAA and jam bands.

I knew I was playing with fire when I took on this assignment, and sure enough, once the issue hit the streets, the comments started trickling in. I expected to offend aficionados of all three genres, but apparently your average fan of AAA radio and/or pop metal has either a) a sense of humor or b) better things to do than type hysterical e-mails and send them to LEO.

To wit:

You must be sorry misearble men to have such a hateful distorted view on musicians. Here you are trying to publish the "2006 Music Issue", which should be recognizing and appreciating musicians not trashing them.

Its one thing to have an opinion about certain genres and artists, but to place such stereotypical judgement on people is ignorance in its finest form. I believe intelligent arguments are made using wit and knowledge not profanity and pompous vocabulary.

T.E., its pretty dispicable that you say you can't name certain Hip Hop albums because "your children need their father", well I quite frankly feel sorry for your children. If my father was firing off GD, Asshole, and the F-bomb in public articles, and referring to people as nitwits and telling them they have shitty taste in music, I would be pretty ashamed to be your daughter. What a great role model you must be.

So...what white horse did you two ride in on? What is it that you guys do or know so well, because obviously it's not writing or music. Most people I know that are masters of their craft have an implicit respect for it, and don't abuse it to be crude and unkind to fellow artists. But I shouldn't refer to you two as even in the same class as "artists," because you have not created anything but HATE.

I noticed that your editor said he hoped that this article would "create some laughs." Well, I hate to tell you, but it wasn't very funny. I don't see the humor in tearing people down just to make yourself feel better. You must be pretty insecure in yourselves.

To all the editors and publishers that let this article go to print, you should be ashamed to claim it as LEO material. Don't forget that many kids and teenagers read your paper every week.

And not to mention that your paper is owned by a politician running for State Congress. Boy...he must be so proud.

Valerie K.


(All spelling errors included in original e-mail, naturally.)

Short answer: Dig the sand out of your vagina, Val, you’ll be a lot happier.

Long answer: If you’re going to criticize an article or book or whatever, make sure you spell everything correctly. Trust me, I learned that lesson the hard way.

Also, get your facts straight: LEO is not owned by a politician running for Congressman; LEO’s former owner is a politician running for Congress. There is a difference.

Furthermore, Valerie blames the other writer for using profanity, when as faithful readers of this blog should know, the potty mouth was all me, baby.

At least once a year, some unsuspecting asshole with his or her panties in a knot sends me an e-mail wondering “what gives me the right” to be critical of the music about which I write.

Two things give me that right: The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and the fact that LEO (among other outlets) hires me to, well, write what I think about music, be it CDs that I like or horrible crappy musical styles that I don’t. It’s that simple, and if somebody doesn’t like what I have to say, then they are more than welcome to submit samples to the local papers and see if they land an assignment.

Barring that, they can start a blog about all the mean music critics who think the Grateful Dead and their ilk both suck and blow.

God bless America!

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