Inspirational Flushes: Introducing The A.V. Club’s Hatesong

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Happy Monday, Toileteers! Consider this post a salutation to procrastination, giving you some sorely needed reading material by which to temporarily forget that it is the beginning of your work week and you will spend 40 of the next 100 or so hours doing shit you hate for not enough money.

Obviously, we get our rocks off around here trash-talking anyone and everything and flushing all loathsome materials down the wretched, disgusting TOILET OV HELL. We’re no strangers to being haters. Let’s collectively take some inspiration, then, from a marvelous recurring feature courtesy of The A.V. Club, Hatesong.

In this feature, they “ask our favorite musicians, writers, comedians, actors, and so forth to expound on the one song they hate most in the world”. I’ll admit up-front that the feature is hit-or-miss. Some haters are funnier and seemingly more genuine than others, and a couple even actually manage to make themselves look like nimrods in the process of articulating their hatred for generally beloved songs. Here’s a selection of the hits, specifically my favorite quotes from the hard rock/metal-oriented interviewees that have been featured.

Les Claypool, on Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive”

“Bon Jovi was actually a big influence on Primus back in the day. Basically, the influence was that we wanted to make music that was the polar opposite of Bon Jovi. […] That’s some soft metal. That’s like Play-Doh.”

Even Linger of Skeletonwitch on Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week”

“I did a lot of soul searching on this one. There are a lot of songs I hate, because I’m naturally a hater. I just hate this one the most. […] ’One Week’ wasn’t even a rock song. It’s a weird college-rock song with some rap in it, and it doesn’t even qualify as music. It’s sort of like a big joke, so that’s why I picked it.”

Steve Albini on Cher’s “Believe”

“A bunch of my friends, for whatever reason, decided they wanted to entertain that song as an interesting piece of music. […]  It’s like in a zombie film, when you see your friend has been bitten and you’re just looking for the cues that he’s going to go full zombie on you. […] The world is crawling with a million terrible songs. But when it’s a terrible song that gives all your friends brain cancer and makes shit foam up out of their mouths, that’s when it’s a problem.”

Dean Ween of Ween on 4 Non Blondes‘ “What’s Up”

“I don’t remember where I was, or what I was doing, but I remember hearing it and thinking, ‘This is the most obnoxious fucking hollering I’ve ever heard in my life.’ I could envision the horrible, horrible female that was singing it, and I knew that it was gonna be a hit, just by how bad I hated it. […] Everything about the song is so awful that if I sat down and tried to write the worst song ever, I couldn’t even make it 10 percent of the reality of how awful that song is.

If I don’t like stuff, then I change the channel. There’s stuff that can be ignored. Then there’s stuff that’s so inexcusable, I would go out of my way if their van [4 Non Blondes] was parked by the club to slash the tires and kick the door panels in. Or their bus. Probably their private jet. Fuck.”

Other entries that may hold particular interest to metalheads include verbal lashings from Scott Ian of Anthrax, Matt Pike of High on Fire, Oderus Urungus of GWAR, Laura Pleasants of Kylesa, and comedians Brian Posehn and Dave Hill.

Peruse 2+ years’ worth of Hatesong here, and please report back with any gems you find. I’m sure you all will have plenty to say about Wye Oaks’ thorough flushing of Papa Roach‘s “Scars”, so let’s have at it!

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