Wu-Tang Clan "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)" [1993]

Gangsta rap meets the locka room. Reeking of skunk bud, malt liquor and ejaculant residue, Wu-Tang Clan compiles a large group of New York knuckleheads to generate beats & rhymes not worth shooting anyone over. Cheap samples thrown together with the care of an unmade bed, this is hip-hop for guys who can't get laid and have given up trying -- a perfect soundtrack for playing your dumbshit video game on the apartment couch that smells like total ass. Wu-Tang Clan were late to the MTV party that celebrated rappers like Snoop Dogg and Tupac, but it's just as well; neither Method Man, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, (the Professor, Mary Ann and the rest) nor especially Ol' Dirty Bastard -- so crazy he thought he could rhyme efficiently with a debilitating mouth full of metal and head full of crack -- were worth fussing over or even photographing, and by the time Wu-Tang finally got celebrated as being the "greatest rap group of all time," Tupac and Biggie had already been shot and rap music was clearly a societal annoyance that most people were dropping faster than their OJ posters a year later. Engage in "36 Chambers" only if you are interested in disappearing inside a tenement where nobody's gonna call the cops if you play this crap.

Arctic Monkeys "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" [2006]

With a worldview extending from the end of the stage all the way to the bar, Arctic Monkeys' "Whatever…" advances into the Aughts the tradition of pub-rock, that -- like most things English -- should have been ended long, long ago. Applying a lyrical technique of getting the groupie while heartlessly slagging her at the same time, this is a band of pale, pimply misfits who somehow think they're acting "punk" while they're actually just being "dicks." Ultimately it's probably the same thing, but unlike "classic" punk, good luck trying to wring anything worthwhile out of the contents of this album. Angry groove repetition alternating with ill-advised refrains and choruses you can't even sing a soccer-chant to (shit, even girly-men like Fun. can pull that off), it becomes crystal clear what Arctic Monkeys are so pissed about: they're totally lame and ugly, and they're never going to get any better or good looking. It's their fault for trying to make it in the first place; I hope they freeze their bananas off out there.

Sinead O'Connor "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" [1990]

Fuck U2, and their whole "Ireland is cool" bullshit. That any of us actually know who Sinead O'Connor in the first place is blame that can be laid directly at their drunken feet. In considering "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got," clearly Sinead O'Connor does not want to be competent enough to string together a group of good-enough songs to be listened to, because she certainly hasn't got it. She wins minor points for originality in conjuring the image of a hairless banshee, but otherwise her lame movie soundtrack of an album plays like a boring, endless stream of film credits. That she never charted after her emaciated version of Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U" might have relegated Sinead to the forgivable annals of the cut-out bin, but her stylized pretentious Irishness influenced horrendous copycats like The Cranberries, and for that she should be forgiven the way Bobby Sands forgave Margaret Thatcher. Feel free to investigate if you're interested in how America got into self-flagellation as the Reagan-Bush years wore on, but otherwise you'd be better off sitting in silence.

Ted Nugent "Cat Scratch Fever" [1977]

Wondering when the Detroit rock scene came to a crashing end? You just found it. Ted Nugent was more poisonous to that movement than Iggy Pop moving to Germany, John Sinclair getting arrested, the onset of Kiss and Lester Bangs leaving for New York all in one. Basically a stupid roadie with a guitar, Ted Nugent was a completely offensive human being even before he turned himself -- Dennis Miller-like -- into a screaming hyena of right-wing extremism. We all should have seen this coming; only a dickbag with a few guitar riffs would be headstrong enough to try to parlay that into actual rock music relevance. And sure he comes on like a cut-rate Rick Derringer (who was already cut-rate to begin with), but his endless lust for pussy in song is clearly more about his existence as an impersonated hard-on than anything to do with his manly prowess. In fact, I'd argue just the opposite: this man is clearly overcompensating for possible gay tendencies. So when you hear him stomping out tired Bo Diddley riffs with Manson-eyes, consider that he might actually be a tormented individual ultimately craving a big dick straight up the pooper.

Smashing Pumpkins "Siamese Dream" [1993]

Archly stale and sonically disinfected so as to make this unmistakably the work of an asshole control freak, Smashing Pumpkins is really just the Billy Corgan show; too bad -- he really could have used some good guitar playing. And good singing. And good songwriting. Legions of overdubbed guitars display equally the mania of Corgan's mental disorder and his inability to play anything worthwhile with just one instrument. Capitalizing on the era of noise pollution known as the grunge movement of the 90s, Corgan routinely betrays his true ambition to be an arena crotch-rocker. Vocally, he inexplicably alternates from baby-voiced sour whine to paint-peeling caterwaul. Even worse, he's so got nothing to say you can even hear the guys from Oasis complaining that "Siamese Dream" makes no sense. This extreme combination of crap ideas and worse execution demonstrates only that in the grunge era you could be the biggest power-hungry dweeb in history and still sell CDs as long as you play loud enough. So much for Generation X deserving a better place in history.

Big Brother and the Holding Company "Cheap Thrills" [1968]

With a live album this amateurishly terrible, it's a wonder anyone bothered with Woodstock in the first place. Lousy sound recording only bested in lameness by the band's songwriting and playing abilities, "Cheap Thrills" should have been called "…And Even Cheaper Talent." Featuring Janis Joplin in her earlier incarnation (i.e. "drunken mess," not "skag zombie"), about the only thing this record accomplishes is making The Jefferson Airplane sound like they knew what they're doing. So gritty you can practically smell the dirt on her feet, Joplin's vocal delivery staggers from alley-cat howl to sheet-metal-grinding falsetto (made worse by her having given Steven Tyler the idea to use it). By the abominable cover of "Summertime," she's already emerged as a full-blown caricature of herself; it was all downhill for Janis from here. Sluggish hippie blooze with guitar solos that sound like stoned scales practice do nothing to support her; I keep listening for Janis to collapse in a pathetic heap onstage. Next time Baby Boomers want to brag about how good 60s music was, go ahead and make them eat their words by forcing them to listen to this shit.

Adele "21" [2011]

Fat-voiced Brit wailer Adele occupies the space between earthy roots music and the lip-gloss of modern pop -- and it's a big space she's occupying -- but there's a reason no one had ever tried to combine the two styles before: the end result is gag-inducingly awful. That she exists as a representative of musical tastes for a plurality of smartphone downloaders clearly illustrates the dire condition of the entertainment industry in the 20-teens -- not just for crap like "The Voice" in the States, but apparently major labels in the UK as well. Insistently over-the-top vocal grandstanding with sickly-sweet sentimentality is not enjoyable to endure on prime-time TV, and it's downright torturous on "21," which I'll guess is a reference to how many hours long this album feels like it goes on for. Ironic that Adele writes all her songs as regretful laments about lost love without once acknowledging what she really should be regretting: repeatedly coming on like a slow-motion Alanis Morrissette with gayer production qualities than Elton John ever dreamed up. Clearly Adele needs to move on; so do we all.

The Strokes "Is This It" [2001]

Another embarrassing example of how America stumbled into the 21st century, New York rich boys slumming it in the Village known as The Strokes were to popular music what the George W. Bush administration was to competent governing. Shamelessly overhyped, this band was supposed to bring about a sort of second-coming of NY-garage rock culture; instead, the best The Strokes could do was become the second biggest disaster to befall Manhattan in 2001. Lazy, privileged, feckless, drab and unintelligible, it takes The Strokes' (good name, however -- although "The Beat Offs" would have better represented their sound and removed any ambiguous nod toward artistry) five members to manage to sound like a completely wussified power trio, and on "Is This It" Julian Casablancas unwisely decides to sing all his vocals through a tin can, or at least it sounds that way. Robbing white Top 40 radio of the previous 20 years was still not enough to generate more than one single from this band of punk poseurs, and as for the title, "Is This It" is clearly missing an "sh" in the last word, and it needs two exclamation points at the end.

Arcade Fire "The Suburbs" [2010]

And here I thought it would require attending church to have this many people bore the shit out of me so profoundly. A seemingly endless assemblage of instruments routinely drive obtusely simplistic notions and even more-simplistic progressions deep deep deep underground (and I mean DEEP), and the whole belabored effort comes off like Echo & the Bunnymen on barbiturates (even more barbiturates than normal, that is). How Arcade Fire's crowd manages to not fall asleep on the dance floor displays their commitment to this band, the musical equivalent of a soggy loaf of white bread. Arcade Fire apparently never heard a riff they weren't willing to repeat until it loses all joy and meaning. Too bad Andy Warhol isn't around; only someone that simplistically commercial and washed-out could appreciate the mind-numbing repetition that is the Arcade Fire brand. Maybe someone should light a real fire under their ass some day… then again, I'm sure they'd find a way to make that sound boring, too.

Elastica "Elastica" [1995]

Wanna hear a good "turnabout is fair play" album? Well too bad, because all we've got here is "Elastica," where mid-90s groupies decide they get to be the band instead. Not being able to play any instruments never stopped any guy band before, after all, although the only thing this accomplishes is bringing girls down to the level of rocker-guy pond scum. Getting boffed on the hoods of cars after staying out all night as Justine Frischmann & Co. brag about here, Chrissie Hynde would have been proud of this effort had she not been encased beneath old age and roadie jizz by this point in her career. That Frischmann's band is called Elastica and not "Smoking Dimwit Chicks Wearing Black and Regurgitating 3-Chord Fake Punk" is a testament to her "vagicentric" sentimentality, but one which no woman with an ounce of shame ought to be proud of. Elastica shriveled up pretty quickly after this debut release, however, which hopefully at least helped her mom save face (assuming it's not actually Chrissie Hynde herself).

The Police "Zenyatta Mondatta" [1980]

Here's the big secret about new-wave popsters The Police: they were sell-outs from the very beginning. That their third album, "Zenyatta Mondatta" (a title almost as meaningless as the tunes themselves), finally actually charted more than one single only proves that they were slow learners, and their ultimate wretch-inducing effort wouldn't come for a couple more years (with the inexcusably intolerable "Synchronicity"). Show-offy drummer Stewart Copeland and aural wallpaper-purveyor Andy Summers back up Sting, a jumpy hypochondriac of a lead singer who's apparently tied off his nut-sac with a rubber band to hit such dog-whistle pitches (which would also explain his claimed success with tantric sex: coitus for 8 hours straight? his poor wife!). Anyway, "Zenyatta Mondatta" is music for people who are too white to appreciate reggae and too stupid to listen to anything but Top 40 radio. The Police are, ultimately, an on-the-nose representation of the rampant corruption within the music business.

The Kinks "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society" [1968]

When the title of your album says more than all the lyrical content in the songs, you know you've got a problem. Doesn't stop Ray Davies, his brother Dave and the rest of this band of dysfunctional limeys from releasing yet another hit-less record. These guys crank out lukewarm Beatles and Who knock-offs like so many links of banger sausages. That the Kinks are relatively unpretentious and only dip their toes into the elfin magicness of 60s English music does win them points, but only that which brings them to the low-end range of mediocrity. Is there really an audience so existentially wounded that they need to have their every last banal gesture celebrated? If so, I guess it would help explain the overall preponderance of drug usage during the era. Perhaps "…Village Green…" provides a service, after all: there is no such thing as the "good old days," unless you fancy existing in the permeating drab, grey fog of a generic London winter wearing red velvet bell-bottoms.

The White Stripes "White Blood Cells" [2001]

Just in case you needed a Cliffs Notes version of bad rock 'n roll, you can easily access The White Stripes' "White Blood Cells," a collection of partly-absorbed radio snippets from the aggressively amateurish Jack White and his ex, Meg White. Every trite riff your loser idle rock-fan mind can recall exists on this album, but we should all recoil from such reminders of how little we've done with our lives. That the White Stripes managed to ride this wave of garage pablum to fame and fortune is a deeply cruel irony only members of Generation X can truly appreciate. Why should it have been this easy for Jack White (let alone Meg, who's got to be the worst drummer since that chick from The Shaggs) to burp up 70s rock riffs like some drunk making a cassette demo that never gets listened to by anyone in any A&R office in the world, let alone released by a major label? Perhaps he's won the equivalent of the music industry lottery; he should be celebrated for this? Countdown to him going broke, I say.

Lana Del Rey "Born to Die" [2012]

Should you be one of those unfortunate souls who finds Lady Gaga too intellectual, there's always Lana Del Rey, a young woman who has probably never heard the word "chanteuse" before. She sings exactly like a stuffed animal would -- all cuddly nothingness -- even though her album implies depth by having it named "Born to Die." It doesn't deliver, but it's not her fault -- she's barely out of the scribbling-boyfriend's-name-on-the-notebook phase of her existence. When sweet young things like this act too adult, it brings to mind none other than Jon Benet Ramsey, who paid the ultimate price for posing as an age-of-consent slut. Then again, Jon Benet got off easy if what I envision Lana Del Rey's future will bring her comes true. Let's hope her nubile-runaway bit is just an act; otherwise we may see her picture on the back of a milk carton sooner than later.

Guns 'N Roses "Appetite for Destruction" [1987]

This is a textbook example of the sort of bad-boy band where using derogatory language to describe their music would likely be taken as a complement. But let me try anyway: these guys suck monkey dick. Weakling rockers who need multiple axes just to sound like one guitarist with actual balls support the most screechingly horrifying high-pitched racist of all time (at least until Ann Coulter came along), lead singer Axl Rose. When he isn't imitating Janis Joplin on a stretching rack, Rose is channeling a cartoon version of Iggy Pop (which is really the Tasmanian Devil -- how fucking lame is that?). What he's so goddamn pissed off about is anyone's guess; there are no injustices cited here save the several Rose is foisting on his listeners himself. Perhaps the piling up of stolen dumbass leads from Ace Frehley and Angus Young by Addams Family-reject Slash has gotten under Rose's skin, and he's taking it out on everyone he's paranoid might not share his hazy, department-store-leather and narcotic B.O. worldview. That would include absolutely everybody not hiding in an 80s fantasy of hair-banging bullshit.

Devo "Q: Are We Not Men?..." [1978]

To say Devo was ahead of their time is a huge understatement: this was "Revenge of the Nerds" five years early -- a classic case of premature extrapolation. The music on this record is so unbelievably dorky, at times I can hear the songs dumping their own books. Basically, take from rock 'n roll everything cool, comfortable and attractive, and just leave the obnoxious abrasiveness and repetition: that's "Are We Not Men?" Not that the Stones didn't deserve to have "Satisfaction" de-pantsed in the high school hallway, but the effect is counterproductive when all Devo can manage is to give themselves a wedgie with it. Like most reproachful geeks, beneath the bespectacled, pimply surface of Devo lies deeply bitter meanness: how big of an insensitive jerk do you have to be to write "Mongoloid" or "Slap Your Mammy"? And while I'm sure the members of this band are going for something more robotically futuristic, what one discovers when listening to "Are We Not Men?" is that all humanity is ultimately doomed to failure as long as people like Devo exist.

Cream "Disraeli Gears" [1967]

Long considered a "supergroup" even though Eric Clapton is the only person anyone knew from this band, Cream jumps onto the psychedelic blues bandwagon and clings for dear life. Effectively, Cream is to Jimi Hendrix what Vanilla Ice is to MC Hammer: a bald-faced robbery of riffage and sentiment -- watered down, of course -- with the record label philosophy remaining consistent in both comparisons: "Well if a black guy can chart with this kind of crap, a white guy ought to sell three times as much!" This strategy fails with the seemingly permanent x-factor in 60s music: drugs. Hendrix could still play and write on two tabs of acid, whereas Clapton and Jack Bruce sound like they're having trouble staying coherent after a couple tokes of ditch weed. Because of its aggressively commercial shallowness, "Disraeli Gears" actually provides the link between straight 60s-style garage rock and the agonizing overarching pretension of 70s pop-rock sewage. So next time you're looking for someone to blame for the existence of Styx and Kansas, start right here.

TV on the Radio "Dear Science" [2008]

The biggest problem with having a virtually infinite number of tracks to record on is when geeks with no self-control like TV on the Radio fill them up without any regard for who's eventually going to be on the listening end. Same goes for "Dear Science"'s lyrical content: I have no idea what "foam-injected Axl Rose" means, but I'm totally offended anyway. All this would be bad enough if these guys' horrid taste in music wasn't on constant display throughout; does anyone really want to hear Kate Bush reinvented by a couple black dudes with glasses? Worst of all, we actually have to listen to these guys tell tale of their sexual escapades -- that's right, these Poindexters actually get laid! (I'll listen again to find out if their girlfriends supposedly live in Canada.) Anyway, no amount of effects will turn these guys into Massive Attack anytime soon, so while they're waiting around in vain for coolness to descend upon them, you'd be better off wasting time with someone (anyone) else.

Los Lobos "Kiko" [1992]

At best, Los Lobos' "Kiko" can be seen as a series of outtake demos from a pedestrian bar band with some weird effects and keyboard crap added on top. It's inconceivable this CD could be deemed suitable for radio play, let alone be lauded by critics. They're probably freemasons or something. It's all half-baked experiments and unfinished vamps with a doughy, sticky middle, and producer Mitchell Froom had apparently not yet come to the realization the 80s are over and it's too late for him to become Daniel Lanois. I guess it's hard enough for un-sexy musicians like Los Lobos to get anywhere in the music industry, so we should just be happy for their good fortune, but this in no way mandates having to listen to them without drunkenly wandering into some late-night dive and not paying cover. Refried Mexicali riffs are all these guys are selling; easy enough to pass up while approaching the freeway on-ramp.

Coldplay "A Rush of Blood to the Head" [2002]

Slow-paced, overdone and way full of itself, Coldplay's "A Rush of Blood to the Head" must refer to the effect of buyer's remorse its CD purchasers feel upon listening to it the first time. I'd be red-faced, too, if I'd spent more than a dime on this maudlin drivel. Containing all the pomposity of U2 with nothing approaching an actual groove, Coldplay lives up to its moniker by demonstrating something akin to "eskimo-pop": frozen beats, a petrified worldview and zero warmth. Each verse of every song feels like an eternity spent on an iceberg. Nasally challenged Steve Winwood-lookalike contest winner Chris Martin presides over this kill-the-party-dead volume of flavorless popsicles. Barring that you may have been snowed-under when this album was first released, there's absolutely no reason to return to it, unless you're remotely interested in hearing what Bono would sound like played at a temperature that would freeze molasses.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers "Damn the Torpedoes" [1979]

How anyone so dedicated to Roger McGuinn's nasal vocal delivery ever got a record deal in the first place is a conundrum for the ages. Yet somehow Tom Petty and his bar band of faceless rednecks managed to do just that, and the end result following this release became a decade-plus onslaught of watered-down Top 40 rock from the only group of poseurs who could make Springsteen's E Street Band seem meaningful. Or palatable. Managing to avoid both the urgency of punk and anything rhythmically relatable to disco, the Heartbreakers on this late-70's "effort" actually outdid Johnny Thunders' band of the same name in providing woefully vacuous content and disappointing its listening audience. Essentially, this record consists solely of "some silly little things, don't add up to nothin'." You said it, bud. Fuck the torpedoes, damn this album.

Foo Fighters "In Your Honor" [2005]

Right -- stadium rock by way of a Gillette commercial. Are we not convinced we've ruined American civilization yet? That Dave Grohl (of Nirvana infamy) shreds his vocal cords only to get high-quality backstage groupieage says a lot not only about this band but the entire hard rock culture of 2005, and none of it is good. Carrying along his requisite Seattle negativity (in songs like "DOA"), Grohl tries to invent a new sour flavor of bubblegum. Amazing that so many people bought in, but if there's one thing that's progressed in the music biz over the past 40 years, it's the effectiveness of its hype machine. In effect, Grohl steps over Kurt Cobain's headless corpse to claim his prize, and if "In Your Honor" has anyone specific in mind to honor, I'd bet real money it's Foo Fighters' major label rep. Any wonder why you can't connect with any rock music of the last decade?

Metallica "Master of Puppets" [1986]

The only band whose stadium audience's collective IQ barely reaches 500, Metallica named itself that specifically because it knew the band's legions of fans would be uniformly drawn to shiny, metallic objects. Basically doubling-down on the cards dealt to Judas Priest, Metallica drives trite guitar riffs off the cliff, then tries to change time signatures and not get beaten up by their own songs in the process. They fail every time. Add to this the vaguely (anti-intellectually) fascistic lyrical point of view ("Master of Puppets"? Machiavelli much?) and the sickening instrumental guitar balladry that sunk bands like Yes years before, and what you have is great music to formulate trailer meth by. Clearly, they were ahead of their time. Metallica did make tons of dough, however, from what I can only guess was endorsement money from hair-product companies anxious to cash in on its vast numbers of Middle American lemmings thirsting for loud guitars so badly it settled for this dreck. Only Metallica could ever get laid with Metallica music, but this album salves those who had no chance in the first place.

Ramones "Leave Home" [1977]

How can you still rock out after you've sniffed all the glue in your parents' garage? Pull up a beanbag chair, lowlife dumbfucks, and let Ramones' "Leave Home" show you the hilarity of bloody killing sprees and the mocking of circus freaks. They'll also come onto you in their sleazy New Yawk, singsongy, simpleton three-chord way, at which time you'll be begging for more songs about blood and guts. The rapid downfall of American youth culture in 1977 was never more purely articulated than by this godawful piece of shit. In essence it's the sound of Buddy Holly (who would have opted for the plane crash had he been aware of these guys) on speed and forced through a meat-grinder, with these remedial rockers lowering the bar for teenage intelligence to unfathomable levels. Funny they named this album "Leave Home," as it's likely your folks would have kicked you out for listening to it in the first place.

Roxy Music "Avalon" [1982]

I always thought this band should be called "Smedley & the Velvet Suits," as "Roxy Music" implies an entire genre, which would be laughable if it weren't so scary to consider. Cloyingly pompous as only the Brits can be (disregarding the French, who would mostly rather be chefs anyway), "Avalon" represents Roxy Music's ultimate achievement the way Steely Dan's "Aja" does (and makes you want to smash your head through the glass coffee table with the lines of coke still on it). This album makes you want to kill yourself in the middle of a slow dance with a girl wearing big, crunchy hair. All the voices and instruments here sound like they're covered in Vaseline, with Bryan Ferry's ("Smedley"'s) romantic odes about as deep as the sheet of paper on which he dashed off his lyrics. If you can fake the aesthetic as callously as Ferry can, feel free to scoop up all the 80's-style tramps you can get your hands on. Otherwise I'd advise you wash the scent of Canoe off yourself before you do something drastic.

Libertines "Up the Bracket" [2002]

Apparently, these boys were so wasted they thought they could win something by proving they were more inebriated than Keith Richards -- and thus be the drunkest, stonedest people in the UK (pre-Amy Winehouse) -- while recording their debut "Up the Bracket," without realizing Richards had already moved to Connecticut by 2002. In fact, there was plenty Libertines didn't realize: they weren't that cute, intelligent or talented, and all they did was widen the chasm of disappointment opened by less-drunk (but equally as clueless) American garage morons The Strokes. Sure, Libertines' self-imposed metabolic crippling gives them a nifty excuse for sucking this badly, but nothing excuses the involvement of ex-Clash member Mick Jones from producing this volume of curried vomit (unless one considers his career nadir: the abysmal Big Audio Dynamite catalog). All in all, this album sounds like what Oasis would have released after they were completely on drugs and ready to kill each other. Thus, "Up the Bracket" has all the appeal of a grisly car accident at an English roundabout.

Creedence Clearwater Revival "Bayou Country" [1969]

Clearly embarrassed by their San Francisco existence (and rightly so), Creedence Clearwater Revival decided to reinvent themselves as rootsy swamp things from the Mississippi Delta (however wrongheadedly). John Fogerty sings like a snarling dog who should have been put down yesterday, and his socio-political stance regrettably opens the door for the redneck rock of the early 70s and gives Bruce Springsteen all his dumb ideas about singing for the "common man." It's tough to describe the myriad ways CCR screwed things up for radio listeners of the late 60s, but in retrospect it's crystal clear the hippie era wasn't nearly as liberal as its members tend to remember it. That CCR was able to rip off Howlin' Wolf riffs without impunity yet needed to pay royalties to the writers of "Good Golly Miss Molly" gives an accurate score of the music industry at the time. And honestly -- that's all these guys really cared about, wasn't it?

Alabama Shakes "Boys and Girls" [2012]

The same way deep-frying your food is not good for you, neither is listening to the batter-slathered, greasy mess that is Alabama Shakes' debut "Boys and Girls." Apparently being "God-fearing" does not extend to being afraid of getting sued by whomever owns the rights to CCR's material, because it's flaunted relentlessly here by a band that sounds like Black Crowes on too much cough syrup. The only impressive thing about "Boys and Girls" is it's fronted by singer Brittany Howard, whose career has seen a nice rebound since the "It's Pat" skits on SNL. Howard's vocal delivery manages to make Amy Winehouse sound contemporary and Jack White competent. If you have zero frame of reference musically, this album may come off as an earthy breath of fresh air; all the rest of us can smell is the cow patties on the farm of this band's toothless hick neighbors.

No Doubt "Tragic Kingdom" [1995]

Just what ska should never have turned into: slick, overproduced hackwork. It took 30 years and two revivals, but "Tragic Kingdom" at last fully bastardizes the form, burying the genre beneath endless overdubs and keyboard patches, then slices and dices elements of toothless rock and tooth-achey pop, and dunks the whole thing in a hardening shell of sell-out gloss (this must be what the "Tragic" part refers to). It's baffling to think this CD was put out by an indie label; add it to the list of aesthetics this band knows nothing about. Fronted by blondie throat-warbler/Tae Bo instructor Gwen Stefani, No Doubt makes the song "Heart of Glass" sound earthy by comparison. Perhaps what this band actually consists of is a group of manufactured ska-bots. Nothing else makes quite as much sense.

Eagles "Hotel California" [1976]

Whatever Don Henley really meant when he was writing the lyrics to the title track of "Hotel California," its meaning has nevertheless solidified and resounded over the years: we're never going to get away from this stupid album. Tediously sterilized through song after song -- from Glen Frey's tacky, redneckish "New Kid in Town" to the gauche, self-celebrating "Life in the Fast Lane" -- it's abundantly clear these LA control freaks are snorting so much blow here they're making Steely Dan's nose bleed. By the way, when they're not faking Lynyrd Skynyrd (quite badly, I'll add), "Hotel California" is one enormous snooze-fest: 5-to-7-minute ballads of endless piano fluff and phony romanticism.  Add to the mix Joe Walsh's boozy slide guitar solos that sound like he's bobbing face-down in the swimming pool, and you'll start to wonder how the resulting tripe that is "Hotel California" didn't eventually wind up in the same Nowheresville as Linda Ronstadt albums.

Pretenders "Pretenders" [1979]

Not exactly the most articulate music genre, punk/new wave never comes off so confusingly mush-mouthed as when leather-tramp-with-a-kid Chrissie Hynde wraps her lips around a mic to murmur and whine all over her band's schitzo debut record. Lewd and carnal one minute with off-time garage-rock, Hynde constantly switches gears and attempts to croon pop ballads the next. The only consistency with this album is how pointless it all is, aside from her being a walking cautionary tale, not so much regarding her being an unwed mother in a rock band as a person trying to portray herself as both Madonna and whore within the new wave aesthetic, to whatever meager extent such a thing exists. The results are ghastly, with the takeaway being an extended demonstration of Hynde's ability to sing songs with a dick in her mouth. Her problem is not that she's a "pretender;" on the contrary, she's way too horrifyingly real.

Muse "The Resistance" [2009]

Just when you thought the world was safe from pompous arena rock (and you could throw away your Coldplay and Oasis t-shirts), broadly melodramatic limey stage-strutters Muse push their way into the spotlight, seemingly for no other reason than to keep Ticketmaster in business. Engorged by the same fascist aesthetic of rock domination as U2, Muse rips off Led Zep's faux-Arab mellotron junk and Freddie Mercury's chorale orgies with equal shamelessness. That's because arena rock is stuck forever in its shirtless adolescence, which is why nobody with a brain gives a crap about it anymore. Opting for the grandiose over the meaningful, Muse provides sentimentality for people who've lost the ability to conjure real emotion, or never had the capacity in the first place. Why bother feeling anything when you can just hold a lighter over your head until your thumb begins to burn? "The Resistance" is a good title, though: you should resist this album at all costs.

De La Soul "3 Feet High and Rising" [1989]

A tragic case of being far less than the sum of its parts, "3 Feet High and Rising" is a maddeningly sloppy collage of AM Top 40 snippets thrust together haphazardly, over which they let these soft-bellied boys from the New York suburbs flop around limp rhymes about uncomfortable high school sex, unconvincing odes to the street and other ill-advised vignettes about as deep as a Saturday morning cartoon (to say nothing of the tremendous stink-bomb of a game-show skit running periodically throughout the album). Adding insult to injury is the annoying Keith Haring-style day-glo packaging, served up as some lame late-80s version of "flower power." Except there wasn't any war De La Soul was fighting, save for the one they were winning against quality hip-hop and comedy.

Captain Beefheart "Trout Mask Replica" [1969]

Congratulations if you were seeking the most unlistenable record of all time. This is what people play at their parties when they want everybody to leave -- fast! Crazy people tripping on acid run away from this album because it's too over the top. If the calendar wasn't getting ready to end the 60s anyway, "Trout Mask Replica" would have killed it dead in its tracks; Captain Beefheart is to popular music what Charlie Manson is to humanity -- a twisted freak of demonic impulse and bitter dickheadedness. Produced by musical pervert Frank Zappa, "Trout Mask Replica" helps undermine the progressive Left with this aural assault that should rightly be registered as an air pollutant. Screechy saxophones, drum sets falling down stairs (and drummers, too) and the Captain recording the sound of a woman's pubic hair, nothing can compete with the awfulness of the man's voice, which puts one in the mindset of the Three Dog Night guy getting tortured within an inch of his life. No one should be so bored as to attempt getting their kicks from this recording; go watch a snuff film instead or something.

Joni Mitchell "Blue" [1971]

Could have just as easily been titled "Hormonal Overkill." Joni Mitchell's "Blue" -- long considered a classic recording of honest femininity -- is actually Exhibit A in why the listening public of the early 1970s turned to Grand Funk in droves for their music preferences: to escape the endless hug of emotional neediness and intimate complicity this album insists on loading down its listener with. I feel guilty not having bought flowers for Joni after hearing this… which is a shitty feeling to have for someone I've never met before. She's actually a big, selfish jerk for trying to wring such tenderness from those unlucky enough to have been introduced to "Blue." Beyond this record, she eventually veered into complex jazz wankerisms, and fell nearly Andy-Kaufman-silent after that failed career turn, aside from having garbage thrown at her onstage at Live Aid. Blame the existence of "Blue" for the ultimate occurrence of that indignity, and don't feel bad about any Joni Mitchell vinyl you feel compelled to smash.

Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" [2002]

With untuned instruments out of phase and vocals that can't stay on pitch, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" is one woozy stagger home with Beck and Liz Phair on 'ludes.  This album is perfect if you plan on waking up in your own barf at some point in the next few hours. It sounds at times like the most inept campfire jam you'd ever attended, and those are the good parts. The songs are unbearably long -- even the short ones -- and its production "experiments" fail miserably and completely. "No, it's not OK," indeed. Somehow these aging Midwestern bong-suckers gained indie-cred and notoriety for releasing "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" on their own after the label that paid for it understandably got incredibly bummed out listening to the results. Score one for the record label folks finally being right about something.

Van Halen "1984" [1984]

A very astute guitar player once told me you should never play faster than you can think. Chief offenders on this front are Van Halen, four SoCal morons who perfected the faster-than-you-can-think playing aesthetic for people who never really thought too quickly in the first place. Between Eddie Van Halen's coked-out noodling and brother Alex's quadruple bass-drum ridiculousness, "1984" neatly displays just what can go wrong when you approach the sound (and pain threshold) barrier. Enter lead singer David Lee Roth: a frontman so cruelly vile you'd wish you were brain dead to begin with. The band slows things down on the gauche cotton candy that is "Jump," the final amalgamation of what these guys always sought in the first place: a #1 hit. Fuck them, this song blows just as badly nearly 30 years later. Historically, "1984" presents a classic good news/bad news scenario: Diamond Dave is jettisoned off the ship after this album, only to be replaced by gold-chained meatstick Sammy Hagar as lead singer. Play this album only if you want mullet-heads to camp on your lawn.

Dr. Dre "The Chronic" [1992]

Sure, "The Chronic" refers to a particularly potent joint to be smoked... but honestly, who can't see that it far more accurately reflects "the chronic" condition of tragic idiocy and idiotic tragedy in and around the 'hood in '92-'93? That it celebrates said condition -- killin' motherfuckers, fuckin' bitches, etc., etc. -- makes this CD a tragedy in itself, even before considering the endlessly flatulent bass lines and the introduction of permanently stoned-to-stupidity Snoop Doggy Dogg (who attempts to rhyme "tonsils" with "concert," and should have lost his rapping license right there). Looting catch phrases from 70s soul tunes and justifying the LA riots with bloodthirsty paranoia, "The Chronic" is definitely a testament of the time: setting African American progress back 75 years (bested only by the OJ trial). Disagree? Then feel free trying to put a positive spin on, "If your bitches talk shit / I have to put the smack down." Good luck.

Elton John "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" [1973]

Dorothy's house should have fallen on HIM, a far nastier witch (with worse shoes) than anyone in the land of Oz could have dreamed up. Somehow, Elton John was able to make hotel-lobby piano-playing palatable, but by "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" things had clearly gotten way out of control -- it was only another step from here that saw Elton dressed up like Donald Duck onstage. In truth, the stench of 70s pop emanates from this record more than any other: the pretentious orchestrations, the ass-kissing of fame for fame's sake, the claustrophobic worldview. The two-album set is botched beyond comprehension by overcompensatingly hetero lyricist Bernie Taupin, who so-helpfully tells us all that "Marilyn was found in the nude" (when his lyrics are at all intelligible, which is rare -- what a huge waste of money paying that guy!). That the producer of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" felt the need to pipe in false applause for "Benny and the Jets" says volumes: this album reeks of fake greatness -- Elton John is the Wicked Witch and the Wizard rolled into one.

George Michael "Faith" [1987]

In the music business, to say somebody is the most full-of-himself in the an(n)als of its history is really quite a statement. Yet here we are: George Michael's "Faith." The former Wham! boy has traded in his white short-shorts for leather and stubble; he fools nobody. Actually, not true -- he's cleverly gender-neutral enough for young women of the late 80s to be fooled into thinking he's talking about them (those girls deserved everything they got back then, BTW, with their claw-hair and leg warmers). George Michael is yet another in a long line of Prince imitators whom the Purple Midget was within rights to sue for copyright infringement, but likely refrained because he didn't want to be associated in any way with flaccid pop like "I Want Your Sex." The Prince-aping even goes so far as to include bad church organ via Procol Harum with the shits. Needless to say, "Faith" requires one giant leap of one to consider this worth listening to at all. Bad enough you got suckered in when you still chewed bubblegum.

Mumford & Sons "Sigh No More" [2009]

If you feel life is too short and you're looking for ways to lengthen it, play one of Mumford & Sons' three-and-a-half-minute tracks from "Sigh No More" and you'll feel like you just spent a year and a half at a gig by a hillbilly CSN&Y cover band. Perhaps this is considered an exotic flavor in the UK -- a region not exactly known for its palate -- but how Mumford & Sons managed to win Grammys can only be a testament to the horror show that is the modern American music industry. If folk music was this pretentious and overbaked when it first emerged in the middle of the 20th century, it never would have been allowed to poison the well of contemporary music in the first place. Perhaps Mumford & Sons is providing a service of sorts: burying this dubious form of "entertainment" six feet under would be a fitting demise after so many years of useless string instruments and patchouli oil. Now if we can only get these wankers to stop releasing new material…

CSN&Y "Deja Vu" [1970]

No band in history more single-handedly killed the hippie aesthetic than Crosby, Stills & Nash -- three 60s side-men from the era of forgettable singles the baby boomers won't allow anyone to forget. Shit, you can blame David Crosby's mustache alone for the downfall of the hippie generation; the man had to be by-far the most annoying combination of drug-moocher/groupie fucker that ever lived, and the fact that you can almost never hear him singing on "Deja Vu" is the only redeeming thing that guy ever did in his whole fat self-satisfied life. Elsewhere, high-singing Bee Gees reject Graham Nash pens "Teach Your Children" and "Our House," the two most cloying long-hair Brady Bunch tunes on this album and in existence. On "Deja Vu" these guys bring in Neil Young for the first time, for what I can only guess is to make Stephen Stills sound like a somewhat competent guitarist. And when the band takes on Joni Mitchell's ode to the great unwashed in "Woodstock," you can tell these guys know the movement is on borrowed time, and they're just looking to cash-in. Suitcases full of drugs don't buy themselves, you know.

Death Cab for Cutie "Transatlanticism" [2003]

Navel-gazing with whitebread blasts of guitar supporting weak, ball-less vocal inflections, Death Cab for Cutie gives everyone a new reason to hate Billy Corgan, who was the progenitor of this cringe-inducing style. That said, even Corgan didn't sound like such a pussy that he could be beaten up by a playground of first-graders as easily as lead singer/guitarist Ben Gibbard could. Interestingly but not surprisingly, the release of Death Cab for Cutie's "Transatlanticism" coincides to the very month of Elliott Smith's suicide in 2003, a singer/songwriter who might also partly take the blame for this modern version of mangina-rock. Barely above the production grade of a bedroom demo, "Transatlanticism" sounds for all the world like the sonic wallpaper at the lamest sorority on campus. I'd prefer riding in a real death cab to being bored to death by this album.

Santana "Supernatural" [1999]

You'd think no guitarist would be able to sustain a 30+ year career in popular music by playing the same solo for every song, but Carlos Santana inexplicably has. In fact, his 1999 album "Supernatural" was his biggest seller, which reminds me how deeply anxious everyone was about Y2K at the time; clearly the CD-buying masses back then were not in their right minds. That, plus a thankfully short-lived fetish for all things Latino (and you can't teach Mexican) are all that can explain the success of this funeral procession of washed-out singer/songwriters and nacho-cheesy house band filler. While Santana here replaces dumb Deadhead jam-banding with gross glittered New York sessionistas, his tunes are, as always, way too bland and fatty, yet somehow keep coming back up -- just like a really bad burrito.

Kiss "Destroyer" [1976]

So intolerably terrible that it must have been part of the overall conspiracy to help disco dominate America (witness their association with Casablanca Records, for starters), Kiss' "Destroyer" sets out to make Aerosmith seem sexually mature and Black Sabbath intellectual. It does so by faking MC5 riffs while wearing clown makeup and the tackiest platform shoes not in Elton John's wardrobe. Forget that this pack of Jewish carnival workers couldn't have done it without the schtick; they prove on "Destroyer" they couldn't do it with the schtick, unless undermining the rock elements of contemporary music was the objective, akin to Dick Cheney's relationship with global peace. Utilizing Nazi Stormtrooper "S"s is a nice touch; they cover the odor of the Likud while also bringing into the fold racist white boys, with whom they share a common interest in violating suburban teenage girls. Suitable only for those tracking the germination of "Insane Clown Posse."

Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" [1977]

That this album is one of the biggest sellers in history only proves how starved for entertainment the American public was back in 1977 (even though punk rock was happening then, which may have gotten you fired from that three-martini-lunch job, so screw that). Basically, Lindsey Buckingham and John McVie ditched their old ladies, then pressed "record," and we're supposed to believe the resulting dysfunctional cries are some master-work? If anything, "Rumours" sounds exactly like one of Paul Simon's divorce hearings, made worse by fake-witch Stevie Nicks' pop objections and Christine McVie's bar-floozy vamps. America was in the midst of a huge pity-party with a bummer ending at the time, and "Rumours" was its wince-inducing soundtrack. Disregard the insistence of classic-rock DJs -- no one really wants to return there.

Amy Winehouse "Back to Black" [2006]

As far as drug and alcohol casualties in the music biz go, Amy Winehouse gets an "F." If Jimi Hendrix can come out with new shit decades after he kicked, Winehouse's two lone albums can only be seen as a disgrace. Then behold "Back in Black," a sullen, self-defeating volume of out-of-date ditties that exactly predict her dire fate in just the first three songs alone. Fuck anyone who can't see the writing on the wall that they themselves put there. Amy Winehouse wasn't the first chick to get dumped for being too un-hot and/or flakey, and that she made a mess of herself because she thought she might have been is not deep or soulful, it's pathetic. All this without mentioning she sang like she had spiders in her bouffant, which she probably did. Don't cry for Amy, folks -- she always knew she'd be going "Back to Black" sooner than the rest of us.

The Killers "Hot Fuss" [2004]

Contemptibly annoying as 80s/90s band The Cure was, imagine those guys exponentially more whiny, monotonous and tedious and you'll approach the ballpark of hell in which The Killers reside. Unconvincing fake British accents resembling that obnoxious drunk frat boy who won't stop hitting on you, this band of poseurs manages to combine every bad instinct about pop music production of the past 30 years: woeful synth patches over sports-bar guitar progressions, spoiled nasal fucktard begging for nookie and a phony U2 arena-rock sheen. Not sure who they think they're fooling by calling themselves The Killers; these guys are about as dangerous as an over-cologned pack of singles bar doofuses. They should have called themselves "Quest for Blowjob," though that would have required at least a modicum of self-awareness.

Michael Jackson "Thriller" [1982]

Years after we're all long gone, books will tell of the 1980s and the highest-selling album of all-time, Michael Jackson's "Thriller." And history will not be kind: somehow we were all conned into listening to plastic beats from a plastic-voiced, plastic-faced plastic man, stuffing our faces with cheap, immature notions about love and life that should have come with a warning label: May Cause Instant Diabetes. While the Reagan administration got busy dismantling America and handing over the good pieces to their friends, the rest of us were suckered into gawking at MJ doing the moonwalk. Listen closely and you'll hear the The Gloved One's complicitness in the scheme amongst all the frosting: a mean-spirited undercurrent of denying paternity charges and the title track's fun-house horrors hiding in plain sight. "You're a vegetable," he told us. And we just kept on dancing.

Massive Attack "Mezzanine" [1998]

A long, wafting trail of Bond movie soundtrack rejects, Massive Attack's "Mezzanine" engages in punishingly slow "trip-hop" that is the aural equivalent of a sleeping pill overdose. Just what you always wanted to hear, right? Buried under an ungodly amount of phaser and echo are a couple small-minded weaklings attempting a sort of "Wizard of Oz" bit, creating a falsely ornate world of smoke and mirrors while foisting a paralyzed-by-apathy Gen X worldview when they're not basking in their own stench of conceitedness. Great for dance clubs planning to serve their patrons poison kool-aid. In fact, you're already drinking the kool-aid if you consider Massive Attack's "Mezzanine" worthy of being considered anything than just another dose of cynical, clinical depression from the late-90s.

Patti Smith "Horses" [1975]

It's clear that at some point sucking became a creative option for New York "musicians," but even this extremely low hurdle should have made somebody think twice before letting a talentless poetry-slam hostess front her own band. Produced by experienced turd-polisher John Cale (of the gruesomely horrible Velvet Underground), Patti Smith's three-note singing range and her band of stoned amateurs make this album a good enough reason to have knocked over the punk-rock apple cart before it got any momentum. Endless vamps that resemble Elton John in a coma serve as filler between fucked garage-band demos and uncompromisingly atrocious stabs at 70's pop. Burning the acetate and smoking it would have been more entertaining than listening to this heap of tuneless garbage. I'd guess after hearing "Horses," this is when cover-art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe got the idea to shove tennis rackets up people's asses.

John Cougar Mellencamp "Scarecrow" [1985]

On the outside chance you're looking for the exact moment Heartland Rock should have resulted in a death sentence, you've just struck pay dirt. The arrogant hick once known as Little Johnny Cougar slathers the Midwestern sentiment so thick you can almost smell the cow shit. "Scarecrow" encompasses everything one might hate about a place like Indiana: grooves as flat and boring as a cornfield, reeking populist "anthems" about nobodies doing nothing special, and an undeserved self-importance through a voice considered "soulful" only by people who've never heard or seen a black person before. "Scarecrow" is a Reagan-era nightmare in stone-washed jeans and a mullet. Just Say No.

Justin Timberlake "FutureSex/LoveSounds" [2006]

Sleaze-peddlers found the perfect mule to transport their raunch through Middle American Howdy Doody Justin Timberlake, the least-likely-looking rape suspect of anyone with a penis (presumably, that is -- his falsetto's not exactly affirming anything). In the real world, Timberlake's far more likely a rape victim. But, of course, in the world of entertainment fantasy, even a Mickey Mouse Club alum like JT can pretend to be a sex machine. Anyway, if I'm Prince, I'm suing this curly-haired bastard until he can't walk right anymore. It's unclear to me who Timberlake saved from getting hit by a bus, but it must have been someone high up on the music biz food chain, because there is scant evidence here or anywhere in his past work (N'Sync, etc.) that justifies his lofty pedestal in the industry, pedestrian talent that he clearly is. If "FutureSex…" relies on these washed-out dance tunes in any way, I'd rather be a relieved eunuch.

Alanis Morissette "Jagged Little Pill" [1995]

Consider the mystery about why young men don't stick around with young women cased closed: "Jagged Little Pill" explains in agonizing detail just what guys hate about girls, especially those who are prone to talking your fucking ears off after sex. Cloying, unreasonable and possessed by an incurably insecure id, "Jagged Little Pill" is the Rosetta Stone of personality defects that keep a woman from being able to keep a man. The estrogen pollutes the air from the opening lines throughout; any dude who doesn't choke before the end of "You Oughta Know" is obviously still a virgin. How this nightmare answering machine message ever got to the top of the charts is far beyond me. Elsewhere, "Ironic" ironically doesn't have a grasp of the word's meaning and "Hand in My Pocket" consists of neo-hippie behavior so banal it's mystifying how they managed to wring over 3 1/2 minutes out of it. Fake grunge mixed with faux-Joni Mitchell mannerisms, this is a pill destined to make you very, very sick.

B-52's "B-52's" [1979]

What the hell is with kids those days? Was boring, amateurish phony surf-rock and Buck Rogers bastardry really such a novel concept in 1979? I mean, I know America sucked back then, but did we really need to resort to fag-hag pajama parties to get our jollies? Tough to fathom the malaise of a culture that would resort to such plastic doggy-doo for entertainment at the time. Apparently, B-52's fit the punk/new-wave milieu with its irritating female vocals, led by beehive-haired screecher Cindy Wilson, and the "everything goes" aesthetic allowed Fred Schneider to lisp-bark at people in a manner so flaming you could roast marshmallows off the end of the stage. Supposedly, the band wins points for its unapologetic honesty, but the only place this fits for me is in the band's name: B-52's bombs over and over again.

Vampire Weekend "Vampire Weekend" [2008]

Gee, if I wanted to listened to partially-digested South African riffs lifted straight from Paul Simon's jungle-fever phase mixed with magic elf prancing and shellacked in a preppy sheen, I'd offer some undergrads partial credit to develop a useless new form of annoying music. This is essentially what Vampire Weekend accomplishes, except I never would have unleashed these horribly precious morsels onto the listening public, like these self-important Millennial mama's boys did. When they're not being tediously referential, they milk commercial-jingle melodies that would make a nursery school teacher gag. If it's that important for you to dance with stuck-up blonde girls from Connecticut at the yacht club mixer, enter at your own risk. Otherwise, why bother?

Sublime "Sublime" [1996]

Some people just refuse to get happy. What could be so bad about playing in a band in Southern California? Let fat mope Bradley Nowell explain it to you, along with his band of fat mopes called Sublime on the album somehow not called "Fat Mopes on Junk." Too sad for ska, too soft for hardcore, too old for skate-punk and way too ugly for pop, Sublime wallows in a no-man's-land of loserdom throughout this irritatingly lengthy stay in a desert trailer park. Vamping aimlessly on lame redneck topics like pawn shops and screwing under-aged whores, it soon becomes nauseatingly apparent their fried-food depression and cheap beer and weed headaches can easily be transferred through the sounds of this disc. Hmm, I guess it's pretty easy to see what's so shitty about playing in a band in Southern California, after all.

Jay-Z "Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life" [1998]

Self-congratulatory in the extreme -- even among others in the rap game, where sucking one's own dick is often more than just a hobby -- Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life" stands out as a particularly garish example of creative bankruptcy in hip-hop circa the late 1990s. Apparently the guy shook Notorious B.I.G.'s hand once, so he's given himself license to pretend he's the most wanted criminal in the music biz. Jay-Z is selling some major boolshit here: only real niggas like him go around shooting people all day and then party all night at the club drinking Crystal with hot babes on their jock. Jesus, no wonder the 'hood is so screwed up. And no amount of tough-guy posturing can forgive the use of Broadway show "Annie"'s song for its title track sample -- what is Jay-Z telling us about himself? That he's a stone-cold gangsta or a blushing, hopeful thespian?

Black Sabbath "Paranoid" [1970]

A music reviewer's dream, "Paranoid" has everything worth ridiculing about heavy metal in one single album. Heck, you could make the argument Track 1 ("War Pigs") accomplishes this all by itself (though "Iron Man" is even worse): smooth-brained intelligence, comic-book sentimentality and guitars so sludgy they're the aural equivalent of walking through four feet of mud. That these special-ed English stoners thought they were making profound statements is beer-through-the-nose laugh-inducing, although their extended, preposterous 7-minute jazz-metal suites ensure the fun won't last. Basically, had JRR Tolkein been aware how his fantastical journeys were to be bastardized by the likes of aggressively permanent 6th graders such as Black Sabbath, he never would have bothered writing anything. Reeking of ditch weed and Cliffs Notes, it's fairly obvious Ozzy Osbourne and the rest of these mouth-breathers had no idea what they were doing. That "Paranoid" accomplishes major suckitude in myriad ways simultaneously must be some sort of testament to the occult -- nothing logical could explain it.

Talking Heads "Remain In Light" [1980]

This is what happens when dorks get too much money, and spend it on trying to act hip: they hang with cool people they don't understand and buy drugs their systems can't handle. Their scattershot minds take pains to describe the meaningless while they design monotonous beats and drive them deep into the ground (or at least the dork named David Byrne does). "Remain In Light" is basically a party Byrne threw for the side musicians from Parliament-Funkadelic and King Crimson that his fellow-dork bandmates from Talking Heads needed to crash in order to get in. Thus, it's incredibly awkward, and on multiple levels. Itchy, impatient and desperate, the end-result is the band taking a big dump on Fela grooves (as if that guy didn't already have enough problems!) and pontificating about various banalities that pass through the minds of eggheads on too much coke. "Relegate to Darkness" would have been a more deserving title.

PJ Harvey "To Bring You My Love" [1995]

Beware rough-edged recording techniques -- they always indicate a profound lack of talent and creativity. Exhibit A is "To Bring You My Love," the female equivalent to Nick Cave recording an album while fast asleep. Clearly consumed by the realization she'd recently had sex with a black guy (as her songs "Meet Ze Monsta," "Long Snake Moan" and "I Think I'm a Mother" obviously, vulgarly attest), PJ Harvey -- er, Polly Jean Harvey, the lead singer, whose association with the band name "PJ Harvey" is purely coincidental… yeah, sure thing, sweetheart -- proves once and for all that vampires shouldn't shoot junk, junkies shouldn't become vampires, and neither or any of them ought to have a record company hawk their wares. Repetitively hideous and hideously repetitive, all the eye shadow and lipstick in the world couldn't pretty this pig. Surprised she wasn't floating face down on the front cover, instead.

Gang of Four "Entertainment" [1979]

They called their album "Entertainment" because that's the only way anyone would get the idea what it was trying to be. As funky as a white hoops player with sharp elbows, Gang of Four purports their minimalist rhythms with even more-minimalist ideas onto the post-punk scene with no real edge, no street cred and way too much interest in poo-pooing everything that had happened in Western society up until that point (until THEY came along, natch, although they might have gotten their jollies from self-hatred, as well). There is zero nuance here, even less melody and way too much amateuristic guitar noise. This may be fine for ugly mama's boys who will never get laid, but for all the rest of us, there is nothing in "Entertainment" worthy of hearing, unless one is into aural masochism.

Elvis Costello "My Aim Is True" [1977]

Combining the worst instincts of Bruce Springsteen and Barry Manilow, Elvis Costello's career was designed to create a wall between the real punk riots happening outside in 1977 and the mediocre confines of the major-label gated community. Elvis Costello's (his moniker itself combining the names of a popular, fat white doofus of American comedy and Lou Costello) tunes were "new wave" for the conservative establishment, which makes him perhaps the most vile recording artist of all time. Backed here by an earlier version of the damnable Huey Lewis & the News band, Elvis pretends to be punk with nerdly high-school tales about not getting laid and making terrible fashion choices (amazing he could never see one begat the other). The very epitome of a snot-nosed brat, the most amazing thing about this guy is he refuses to go away, even this many years later, like a turd that won't flush. "My Aim Is True" is but his first "movement."