By this time I have written quite a few articles for Nothing-Sacred,
and those (three) of you who read this site regularly are familiar with
my articles. After reading some of my brilliant work (note that I
assume here that your definition of "brilliant" is "almost funnier than
being hit in the groin with a baseball bat repeatedly") some of you probably
have some questions for me. I do not know this for a fact from readers'
e-mails, since the only e-mails I get are hate letters from people telling
me how much of an idiot I am for daring to not like the same things they
like, but I have reasons to suspect that you, the readers of Nothing-Sacred
want answers to the questions below.
Who are you and where did you come from?
I was born a long--or perhaps not so long--time ago on planet Clorox
light years away from Earth to a family of the Clorox race. My planet
at that time was ravaged by war, hunger, and disease, and my parents, being
the good aliens that they were, wanted to end all this suffering and make
the life of the Clorox race better. One day, they heard about a magic
liquid that scientists on a far away planet called Tampax were developing.
This liquid, known as Biologically Enhancing Energy Resource, or "BEER"
for short, would eliminate the suffering of the Clorox race once the inhabitants
of Clorox drank it. So they decided to take their children and their
belongings and travel to planet Tampax to acquire some of this wonderful
liquid and help their planet.
Unfortunately, they got lost on their way to planet Tampax, and ended
up on Earth by mistake. Once they landed on Earth, they decided to
leave their spaceship, and, thinking they were on planet Tampax, take their
children with them and go find some of that saving liquid they were looking
for. Shortly after leaving their spaceship, they stumbled upon the
first sign of civilization, which happened to be a convenience store.
They walked inside, and much to their delight, they found many containers
of a variety of shapes, sizes and colors, made of metal and glass, and
marked "BEER." They seized these containers, brought them back to
their spaceship, and left to go back and save their planet.
Once home, they gave the liquid they brought to scientists on planet
Clorox, who determined its molecular make-up, and reproduced it by millions
of gallons, so that there would be plenty to drink for every resident of
the planet. But much to the dismay of these scientists, my parents,
and other good peaceful folks of planet Clorox, "BEER" did not have the
effect they thought it would have on the planet's residents. In fact
it made things much worse! It made the sick sicker, the poor poorer,
and those who were fighting in wars more cruel and violent. Soon,
it was clear that the entire planet and all its inhabitants were headed
for inevitable destruction. Seeing this and wanting to save themselves
and their children, my parents took the whole family and fled to the only
place in the galaxy they knew to flee to: the planet Earth, where they
disguised themselves as humans and adopted a human lifestyle. Upon
my second arrival on Earth I discovered that I did not fit in very well
with the residents of this planet. These creatures were stupider
than even the rocks on this planet. On top of that they were as selfish
and cruel as the race of my old planet. To this day, I hate 99% of
humans and I write for Nothing-Sacred to express that deep burning hatred.
What exactly is Nu-Metal?
I know many of you are wondering that after reading my article
about my Nu-Metal adventure, so I will take this time to explain that.
I will also give you a brief history of Rock 'n' Roll so you can understand
where Nu-Metal came from and how it fits into the grand scheme of Rock
'n' Roll history.
Rock 'n' Roll was born in the 1950s when some perfectly heterosexual
men with names like Big Bopper, Little Richard, and Fats Domino started
playing happy light-hearted songs about teenage crushes on TV. By
the 1960s these men started taking lots of drugs for some reason, possibly
because they were ashamed of the lame songs they wrote and their perfect
heterosexuality. Their music reflected their drug use, and their
fans, who also took lots of drugs, perhaps to erase any memories of the
lame music of the previous decade and the overwhelming heterosexuality
of its performers, loved it. By the late 1960s some of these drugged
out artists, including Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Steppenwolf, and others,
were playing a new edgy style of music called "Hard Rock."
In the 1970s Rock 'n' Roll was dominated by a new kind of sound called
"Disco." Disco involved some very heterosexual men and women dressing
up in cheap polyester suits and singing lame "feel good" songs about "shaking
your booty all night long" backed up by synthesizers. But luckily
Disco wasn't the only thing that was big in Rock'n' Roll in the 1970s.
Hard Rock also continued to flourish and develop with great bands like
Led Zeppelin, The Who, and many others. On top of that a great band
called Black Sabbath invented a new style of music called "Heavy Metal"
which was even more edgy and aggressive than Hard Rock.
By the 1980s Heavy Metal has become a popular style of music, and some
not so great musicians, who were, again, very much heterosexual, figured
out that if they take Heavy Metal, water it down, and play their watered
down version of Heavy Metal while wearing make up, bouffant hair dos, and
tight women's clothing, they could attract the attention of many young
boys. The reason they wanted to attract the attention of young boys
was because they thought that these boys would like their music and thus
spend lots of money on their albums, concert tickets, and merchandise.
Why else would they--being the very heterosexual men that they were--try
to attract young boys? Unfortunately, their hunch was right,
and young boys did buy their records by the truck load making these bands
an eternal part of the history of Rock 'n' Roll. This style of music
was, and forever is, known as "Glam Metal" or "Hair Metal."
Besides these bands, there were other bands in the 1980s that played
Heavy Metal who did not dress like drag queens and did not try to attract
young boys. But these bands, including Megadeth, Slayer, Iron Maiden,
Metallica, and others, rarely get mentioned when people talk about 1980s
Heavy Metal. The Glam Metal bands are the ones who are well remembered
from that time period. But regardless of all that, everyone became
tired of Glam Metal by the early 1990s, and in 1992, a style of Rock known
as "Grunge" became the next big thing. Grunge featured bands made
of a bunch of people who looked like homeless drug addicts and could not
sing or play their instruments. Their music typically consisted of
some guy screaming incoherently and some other guys playing two chords
on their guitars. As horrible sounding as Grunge was, teenage boys
still loved it. That's because teenage boys are stupid and don't
care about quality in music. All they want is for the music to which
they listen to give their parents a headache, and with Grunge (as well
as Glam Metal), they've got more than enough of that.
By the late 1990s, Grunge was replaced by a PizzleWigawful noise called
"Rap." Rap was even worse than Grunge because it didn't contain any
real instruments or anything that even closely resembled singing.
It consisted of some guy talking really fast and incoherently over a pre-programmed
MIDI drumbeat. Teenage boys loved it and still love it to this day
because their parents hate it. It wasn't long before someone figured
out that if you combine Rap and Grunge teenage boys will have a new sound
to listen to that will be awful enough to give their parents not just a
headache but a full blown stroke, and thus "Nu-Metal" was born.
Today, Nu-Metal is wildly popular among angst-filled teenagers who are
depressed and angry about the bleakness of their cushy suburban lives,
and the fact that their Algebra teachers gave them an "F" on their last
report card for not doing any homework the entire quarter. It speaks
to them in a way nothing else does, because there has never been another
style of music that speaks so well to the hearts and minds of sheltered,
pasty-white, acne-ridden teenagers of middle-class suburbs. That
is it for this session of answering readers' questions. I will answer
more of your questions as they come.
- Iced Alex
