2011 Mid Year Wrap Up: Most Overrated

Ali Elabbady (Background Noise Crew, Egypto Knuckles)

1.  Lady GaGa “Born This Way”
2.  Lupe Fiasco “LASERS”
3.  Owl City “All Things Bright & Beautiful”
4.  Taylor Swift
*Pretty much all her career in general is overhyped nonsense
5.  Justin Bieber
*And his respective fans who belittle his current love interest (and haters alike) with empty twitter death threats.  Get a proper education and a proper music education as well.

Jon Behm

1 Cuty Copy       Zonoscope

I love Cut Copy generally, but I couldn’t stand this record

2 Foo Fighters

God the Foo Fighters are terrible

3 Fleet Foxes    Helplessness Blues

Not a terrible album but also not great by any means

4 Odd Future

These guys really have some talent but the hype has gotten way ahead of them

5 90’s referencing fashion/art/music.

Pop culture nostalgia keeps getting closer and closer to us – pretty soon we’ll be ironically embracing things that only happened a matter of weeks ago

Josh

1.Odd Future

Who would have guessed that decent beats slathered with immature, intolerant and ignorant teenage angst would be considered so edgy and worthy of our attention?  The group’s popularity is probably more of an indictment of society and our ability to glorify a teenager singing about rape than Tyler, the Creator being an awful person.  Of course he will keep going, he is nineteen and getting attention for acting up in class, so why would he stop when each stupid thing he says/does gets him more attention?  /rant

2.Dom

For some reason, their glitzy pop music just rubs me the wrong way.  Kind of like a more annoying MGMT, which in my eyes is analogous to saying a country is a more oppressive place than North Korea.  Not a good thing. At least they haven’t gotten to be as ubiquitous as the MGMT, so they are easier to avoid.

3.CSS

I really liked their debut album (well, at least two songs), but it all went downhill after seeing them live last year.  I made the mistake again this year and it seems with each new song they release they find a way to get further away from “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above.”  Can a sophomore slump last an entire career?

4.Everyone from my list at the end of last year still annoy me.

Jeremy Hovda

1.Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

The Starbucks crowd and the Pitchfork crowd have embraced this one in equal measure, which means that it should sell around 2 million copies.  And while it will no doubt provide a soothing soundtrack for many a suburban mom driving their Escalade to yogalates, it doesn’t do it for me.  With this album, Robin Pecknold has edged out Kanye West for the honor of worst lyricist in the business.  Unique as a snowflake indeed.

2.Death Cab for Cutie – Codes and Keys

On paper, I should be Death Cab’s biggest fan.  I fit their demographic to a T, yet somehow, there are few sounds more irritating to my ears than the music of Ben Gibbard.

3.The Decembrists – The King is Dead

One sound more irritating than music of Ben Gibbard is that of that of Colin Meloy.  It doesn’t help that he looks like that guy in the Arby’s commercials who sings “It’s good mood food.”

4.NKOTBSB – NKOTBSB

Do the New Kids really need Backstreet in order to kick ass and sell out stadiums?  I don’t think so.  Drop the BSB, and you have the reunion of the decade.

Kyle (Solace)

Foster The People
Odd Future
EMA
Frank Ocean
Two Door Cinema Club