5 Surprisingly Tender Love Songs by Psychotic Bands

 Hello all,
No point shagging about today; you've read the title, so no need to elaborate. Let's get on with it.

1. Ween - Stay Forever

Possibly Ween's most straight-forward song, with little room for moral ambiguity. A lovely simple composition and positive lyrics, acts as proof - if proof be need be - of Ween's genius. For proof of their moral ambiguity at work, see 'Mr Would You Please Help My Pony?' 'Spinal Menangitis,' or any of about a million other songs. 

2. Screaming Trees - Make My Mind

A vastly underrated band, which partially explains the fawning admiration for Mark Lanegan's various, and varied quality, side projects. The Screaming Trees were probably unlucky not to make the 'Grunge Four' into a 'Grunge Five,' but a combination of bad luck, personality problems, and being populated by big fat asses seemed to work against them. This song, taken from Dust, is largely a lovely sentiment coupled with inspiring chorus, which at the same time could also be interpreted as being from a romantic stalker. This makes it the best kind of love song.

3. Black Sabbath - Sabbra Cadabra

 This, taken from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, a nearly flawless album despite its title, (also it loses its shit big time in the second half, when the synth machine takes over). Despite the songs title, and the uber-riff that starts the thing off; the lyrics suggest a straight-forward love song, and a suggestion of sexual dependence which threatens all life. Needless to say, this makes it better. Less pleasant, I think, that this might refer to Sharon Osbourne, which renders it absolutely moot.

4. Type O Negative - Blood & Fire

 Another song interrupted -and improved- by an earth-shaking guitar solo. Type O Negative were, I thought, underrated and much more humourous than their fans would have you think. 'I Like Goils', and 'Angry Inch' are just two examples, and there is an inherent humour to the bands most famous song, 'Black #1' Still, this song is a great descriptor of the abyss one is sunk into after the end of a relationship, but retains enough of the love and happy memories to get it on this list.

5. AC/DC - 'Ride On' and 'Love Song'

Perhaps neither of these are the bands best song (particularly 'Love Song' which never found release outside Australia). However, 'Ride On' is unusually introspective for AC/DC, acknowleging the misery of realising that sometimes, if you love somone, it's sometimes best to let them go. This from the band that sang 'Let Me Put My Love Into You,' and 'Big Balls'

There you have it. Take care crackers.

5 Albums I Bought Because Of Their Artwork

Hi there Pascal-o-teers, here are some albums I bought primarily because I like the album cover. Looking back on it, only one of these was bought without me hearing anything of the music, but that makes it a little less glamorous. Big Black, in case you're wondering. Also, all images are either scanned or found online.

5. Shihad - Shihad

Artwork - Something about the colour is  very nice, the pink and the blue work well. It's also got fish gasping for air, and a cool font. From what I remember, the booklet and back of the CD case keep a light blue nautical theme throughout. Solid.
Album - Fine, some catchy tunes like 'A Day Away,' 'La La Land' and 'Home Again' make this a better than average New Zealand rock album.

4. Cathedral - Forest Of Equilibrium

Artwork - Good. Some weird, medieval-style artwork, the whole thing is borderline blasphemous, and there is a lot of phallic imagery. A curious joy.
Album - Shame about the album. I had a couple of later Cathedral albums when I got this, so I knew what to expect. Except this album is crappy, and the others are better. Still, good album cover.

3. Big Black - Songs About Fucking

Artwork - bold, vibrant colours, suggestive artwork, and that title, all make it worthwhile to buy, sight unseen. (I'm generally too poor to have impulse purchases like that, but this was worth it).
Album - Pretty intense, and pretty funny. Pretty good. 

2. Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician

Artwork - I bought this in a second hand store, on a 12" LP with Japanese writing on the front. It's terrifying, as it is supposed to be. Weirdly hypnotising. Hypnotisingly creepy. Creepily Weird.
Album - Eh, The Butthole surfers are ok, I suppose, and I have a mate who saw them live and said she threw up there because it was so intense, but this album is only ok. I did however, have the song 'Human Canonball' as my alarm clock for about 6 months, so I know the first 30 seconds more than I do my own family. 

1. Ween - The Mollusck

Artwork - A nautical themed album (most of the songs are about ice or water, or are sea shanties) is given a weird, mutated crustaceous-type fish struggling on the front cover. A joy.
Album - The best album of all these listed, by some margin. I've made my love for Ween very clear in 'the real world' outside of this blog, and would like to echo those sentiments here. A great album from a great, challenging and life-affirming band.

There you go, I think I also bought a Wolfmother album, and probably a Sword one, because I liked the covers more than anything, but... that's enough for today. Happy Valentine's Day everyone. 

P.S. Songs about fucking? the butthole surfers? an album by ween? what an overgrown 13 year old virgin I am.

Mumford & Sons. Are you serious?

Hi everyone, sorry I've not written for a while, I have a bunch of articles pending, but my enthusiasm for the whole venture is declining when I see the searches that bring people to my website. For example,

3 people searching for 'Gif Zelda naked' = I've got some gifs to make.

Anyway, today I want to talk about Mumford & Sons. I'd heard of them, but recently they've become colossal. They won some Grammies the other night, which garnered some news attention, and some friends are big fans. Heterosexual males friends. I borrowed and listened to one album, thinking it would be folky, but not twee. I was half right. Was I impressed? No. Was I surprised that they are so wussy they have a crippling nut allergy? Not at all. Nut allergies are the wussiest of all allergies, and their music reflects that. Let's look at the band:

Seen here developing a pollen allergy. [source]

The music itself is bland, inoffensive twiddly-banjo folk-pop, both by and for, cardigan-wearing tossers who hate music. That's OK of itself, but I hate when a band like this becomes enormous and acceptable to like, because it will be ubiquitous for the foreseeable future. They are very much a male version of Adele, and that's something that makes me think that we should be doing better with ourselves.