Why I'm giving up the Gaga.

It's time for me to say goodbye. We had a good run, but the curtains have to come down.

I gave my all to love you. I loaded you up on every party playlist I was tasked with creating. I sang off-key to 'Love Game' every drunken opportunity I got. I defended you from critics, I highlighted your ingenuity and potential, and I deemed your sartorial choices as inspired. But enough is enough. I'm not going to take your antics any longer.

Maybe it's your fans. Maybe it's the fact that every dim-witted broad that called me a "lesbian" in high school like it was an insult now has two Bud Lights and practically creams their pants when someone plays 'Poker Face' on the jukebox, blissfully unaware that the song discusses fantasizing about women whilst fucking men. You've made it clear you identify with the freaks and the outcasts, but your bleach-blonde hair and catchy hooks have made you the idol of the run-of-the-mill folk. You traded your Times Square cabaret for Top 40 radio.

I can't blame you. I don't really believe someone can sell out, and if you want to bring gay visibility to the masses, I can't devalue that. But somewhere along the line, your head got more inflated than your Monster Ball ticket prices.

You just take yourself so seriously. As though making pop music is life or death. As though you are the future of entertainment as we know it. As though you didn't rip your musical stylings and attitude from those who came before - those who your young fans don't remember and certainly don't respect. But I'm your age, and I know you stole your "Born This Way" riffs from Madonna. I know your wacky costumes are more Cher than Stefani Germanotta. I know your glitter and androgyny originated on a man. I know your British affectation is inorganic, your impractical shoes are straight off the feet of Daphne Guinness, and the simple fact that I know this makes you tired. Meat dress aside, your repackaging of everything edgy makes you about as sad as Britney Spears' hair extensions.

Pop culture is not meant to be revolutionary. It's not traditionally meant to be political. If you want to make it so - do it - and own it. But at least fucking laugh at yourself. Don't show up at the Grammys in a pod you claimed to sit in for three days to marinate your 'artistic spirit' and then charge people a hundred dollars to see you sing for an hour. Take off the wigs and the heels and be real for five minutes. And the next time you go to a baseball game, just wear a fucking shirt like the rest of us.

Everyone thinks women suck at music.

A lot of people lately are up in arms as to whether or not they like Courtney Love. I truly can't think of a more polarizing figure when it comes to feminist circles. Love apologists claim her utter refusal to sit down and shut up is setting a good example for women who refuse to be well-behaved and aim to make history. Those against her accuse her of poor parenting, poor musical skills and even poorer grammar and spelling.

Now, I'm on the fence about C. Love. I watched the documentary Kurt and Courtney and found her to be conniving and greedy. I used to listen to Malibu on repeat when I was fourteen, but I never really cared for the rest of Hole's discography. But it got me thinking about outspoken female musicians, and what happens when they get involved with other musicians.

If something "bad" happens to a musician that society loves - be he John Lennon, or Kurt Cobain - it is immediately and overwhelmingly the fault of whatever woman he's fucking, unless she's a little docile model/housewife. How many times have we heard that Courtney is responsible for killing Kurt? How many times have Beatles fans called Yoko Ono a bitch because John Lennon fell in love with her and stopped making music with Paul, George and Ringo? Furthermore, if a male musician decides to take a break from music, everyone blames the change on that woman. The man is faultless, of course. It's that stupid whore who got knocked up / tricked him into marrying her / is using him for his fame and money's fault. And if an admired musician changes his style after being influenced by such a woman, the new sound is invariably "terrible" and his career is ruined.

This, my friends, is a recurring theme in pop culture, and it's based on one simple fact: people think women suck at music. There. I said what you were already thinking - or I least made it objective. If you have a penis, you were probably just thinking that women suck at music.

I hear this all the time from the segment of our population with external genitalia. The other day I played Metric in the car with Seth and got a reassuring "I don't like most of your chick music but I like this." They assume anything with female vocals that isn't a pop song is generally going to be whiny and poorly-written. Men also believe women are unable to play instruments. Take a look at the female musicians who are generally well-regarded by critics (who are also overwhelmingly male): Janis Joplin, Mama Cass, Patti Smith, Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin, Etta James. Singers. All of them. So-called "chick bands" that find popularity with the masses are almost always female-fronted with all-male backing members: the aforementioned Metric, No Doubt, Blondie, Rilo Kiley, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sonic Youth, Portishead, Garbage, The Cardigans, and even my two favorite bands as a pre-teen: Save Ferris and Letters to Cleo. Can anyone even name a kick-ass female musician that isn't Kim Deal or Lita Ford?

I wouldn't say the dearth of brilliant female musicians is for a lack of trying. I think it has to do with the fact that in music, as in society, women are just expected to stand there and look pretty. Most women in the mainstream are there because they look good, not because they sound good. Rihanna can't even sing. Taylor Swift is a joke compared to Ani DiFranco - but one is 20 years old and has four Grammys and the other has put out 18 studio albums and only has received recognition for fucking CD packaging. The music industry is perpetuating the notion that women can't play well and that all-chick bands will never sell records, conveniently forgetting the massive success of groups like the Runaways and conveniently ignoring the massive talent of women.

And we as a society still want to believe that only the John Lennons and Kurt Cobains of the world will produce good music - until something with a vagina, a guitar, and an actual opinion comes along and screws it up. So for that, Ms. Love, rock the fuck on.

eight songs that make me want to pour hot wax in my ears.

I like to think I have refined taste when it comes to music. Among my friends, I'm usually the one sharing band recommendations, and I've had more than a few people I used to know contact me later and tell me they're still listening to a band I introduced them to. I would make the best rock critic probably ever.

As a whole, I think the music industry sucks ass and the crap they play on the radio could not be worse. But here are eight songs that I really, really abhor.

Katy Perry - California Gurls

 How subtle. I bet your parents are so proud.

It's not that I think Katy Perry is stupid. It's that I think she's a fucking moron. With a fucking terrible voice. This is one of those songs that sticks to your brain matter like that obnoxious residue from when you rip a sticker off too quickly. The song's premise isn't terrible, I guess, except she pretty much desecrated one of the greatest songs ever to be recorded. It features probably the worst Snoop Dogg appearance ever. And lyrics stating "we freak in my Jeep"? 1997 called, they want their lame-ass lingo back.


Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha

There is nothing in the world more heinous than pop groups wearing matching outfits.

Without even getting into how "Pussycat Dolls" is the easily the dumbest name ever, and the fact "Cha" is not even a fucking word, and that I don't even get why there are five broads in this ensemble when only one of them actually sings, this is by far the most phony attempt at female self-empowerment that I've ever heard. Terrible shtick, terrible song. In short, I don't.


Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling

The band is comprised of will.i.am.a.narcissistic.prick, Tabooring, apl.de.ap.iece.of.shit, and the Ferg-monster.

I gotta feelin' that every time I hear the Black Eyed Peas, my entire day is fucking ruined. I can't believe our country is so braindead that they could be sold on a song proclaiming that "tonight's gonna be a good night." Real deep. If you listened really carefully during the moment this song was announced as number one on the Billboard charts, you could hear the sound of classical musicians everywhere dying on the inside. When life imitates art and Idiocracy reflects the state of American affairs, I bet you a million dollars everyone will be listening to the Black Eyed Peas.

I could pretty much make this whole list out of Black Eyed Peas songs, but I won't bore you, and I shudder every time I have to actually type the name of this insufferable, talentless, hideous gang of asshats.  They shall henceforth be known as The Douchebags Who Shall Not Be Named.


Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend

Avril, I think you found your true calling.

Hey! Hey! You! You! Fuck off and die, please.


Ke$ha - Tik Tok

You will never fucking be Cher. Don't even try.

I actually kind of liked this song the first two times I heard it. I thought it was sorta campy. And then I heard it another forty thousand times, and I realized that being continually subjected to that song is the equivalent of being locked in a hot, windowless room with vomit and crap all over the walls. If there truly is a God, he invented that song just to show you that in hell, everyone has a nasal voice, there's way too much glitter, every guy is potentially raping you, they use Jack Daniels instead of toothpaste, and there's a loud-ass clock ticking the seconds away. That's enough to make me into a believer.


Nickelback - How You Remind Me

Nickelback is the worst band in popular music today. I'm not even kidding. The intense popularity of Nickelback epitomizes everything I hate about this country. I would say that I want them to meet their end in a bloody plane crash, but that would seal their martyr status and probably make them even more popular than they already are, so I will request that they split up and order all radio stations and Best Buys to destroy all traces that their music ever existed.


Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin' Down

There is no way any of these guys had sex in high school.

I can't, for the life of me, understand why teenaged chicks eat stuff like this up. The style of singing is so ridiculously annoying, not to mention completely unintelligible. This is what it sounds like to me:

We goin' dow dow dobeedoobeedoobaaaa
And sugar we gotta down singa
I'll be a numb-er one with a boola
A loaded God complex, caca and pulla


Owl City - Fireflies

I want to punch him in his stupid giant head.

Just admit you completely and totally ripped off The Postal Service, you piece of shit.