As a DN columnist, I get a LOT of hate mail and disapproving comments on a lot of my columns, and sometimes even pieces of, what I can only assume to be satire, questioning whether or not I've ever listened to a piece of good music in my life.
That last bit was run in the first print edition of the Xerox copy "newspaper" Andrew Lacy doesn't edit (we think), and though the DN usually doesn't like to draw attention to low-quality University of Nebraska-Lincoln fringe publications, these guys need all the help they can get. It's got to be hard to stick to the bold new strategy of writing a satirical publication that contains no humor. Best of luck to you brave, pseudonymed pioneers and your libel rag.
Anyway, I was asked to do a Top 10 list for Dead Week, and it seems to me that a lot of you haters don't quite understand how or why I put together my Top 5's the way I do. So I figured I'd lay it out for you in a way you can both comprehend and respond to with angry comments.
Casey's Top 5 x 2 questions he asks himself about a song that could make it Top 5-worthy, regardless of what the mouth-breathers think.
1. Is it music? — This may come as a surprise to those of you who have never listened to a song that a Top 40 radio station didn't tell you to like, but most "artists" who make chart status had those songs written for them, produced for them and, in many cases, sung for them by someone else. This isn't music, but an element of the corporate hit machine that has been brainwashing you into opening your wallet holes to shill out your hard-earned cash on the same songs over and over again. These songs don't ever make the cut.
2. Did the artist pour every ounce of his or her being into the song? — I don't let songs that aren't works of personally expressive art in musical form make the cut. Yes, sometimes the songs might be irreverent or ridiculous, but there are irreverent and ridiculous people out there, and their heartfelt music is often quite good.
3. Did the song come out in the last year? I'm a big fan of good music, regardless of whether it was released two weeks ago or 70 years in the past, but to achieve a Top 5-status, it has to be at least a year or two old. It has to stand the test of time.
4. If I asked a "bro" about the song, would they have any idea what I was talking about? — The "homo grecian" or "bro" is a subspecies of human (homo sapiens) that typically occupies its time drinking large amounts of crappy beer, wearing large amounts of crappy clothing, attempting to mate with large numbers of equally brain-dead members of the opposite sex and listening to endless numbers of terrible songs. If any of the songs I consider could be identified by a member of the bro species, they usually don't make the cut.
5. Does the band or artist have the word "black" in its name? — As strange as it might seem, when a band puts the adjective "black" in its name, it generally becomes better by proxy. Case and point: The Black Angels, Black Dice, Black Hundreds, Black Dots, Black Francis, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, Black Lips, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Black Mountain, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Black Sabbath, Black Star, Blackbyrds, Black Moses and Fifty Tons of Black Terror, to name a few.
6. Is the song's producer someone of note? — A song's greatness does not always lay with the artist alone. A great producer can make a mediocre song great, or an incoherent song a work of literature.
7. Is the artist screaming? — As a rule of thumb, I am leery of any song in which the singer takes on an inhuman screech or roar. If I can confirm that the technique is used for the art and not for the gimmick, then they might make the cut. But, if not, they go back to the Hot Topic bargain bin to become the soundtrack to a LiveJournal party.
is a member of the 
6 comments
Stop writing about how insecure you are about your writing.