Mind-Melting Demo Disasters

After letting my “tumblarity” fall to 0, I’m back from vacation with a vengeance.

You see, the problem was not only vacation, but that most of the demos lately just haven’t been THAT terrible. But then a track came up today that’s pretty effing bad, so we’re delivering.

Basically, today’s cut is Kokomo lite - all the schlock and bad rhymes without any of the 80s Beach Boys or John Stamos. Also, it features such rhymes as ocean/slow motion and waves/DAY(v)S - and that’s before the first chorus.

This jam’s got an air of faux-wistfulness with a “caribbean” beat. For the record, on the front of the CD it’s noted that this is recorded at the artist’s home - in case you couldn’t tell. (zing!)

Ugh, this song. I’m bored even typing about it.

“You guys know what would be, like, totally sweet? We should, like, record ourselves smoking a bong, and then write a song about, like, if we died, because if I died, man, I’d just want to be buried with my bong… i mean, “bury me with my bong.” Because you know, like… St. Peter would be totally into rollin’ fatties and blazin’ it up with Jimi Hendrix!”

A 35 second acoustic guitar intro of repeated strumming is never a good sign, and this jam delivers in spades.

It’s not overwhelmingly “my ears! my brain!” terrible, but if you really listen to the lyrics, they’re so melodramatic, and with this champ’s tenor vibrato, it’s just a whole bunch of blah.

Whoa, man. “Different Versions of the Same Story,” and you’re singing with a girl. Deep. It was almost too subtle for me.

A colleague pointed us to a post about us (aw, we’re flattered…) on MetaFilter. We don’t want to get into the whole discussion about anything but mp3s that suck eggs, but a couple of points.

1. Trust us, it’s not just one band recording all these songs in different styles. That’s almost preposterous, and considering how much work it takes to even go through all the demos we get and find horrible tracks, I can’t even imagine how much work it would take to actually be that band and write tracks in different styles.

Each of these gems comes from an individual or individual band’s hard labors. That’s almost more depressing - that there’s so much shit being produced, but hey - it keeps us, recording studios, instrument manufacturers, record stores, blogs, magazines, venues, etc., in business, so keep it comin’!

2. Not to be apologetic, but yeah, it’s a lot of work, so not that anyone’s grousing about this, but we worry - don’t hate us if maybe we only post 3 tracks a week instead of 5. We’ll aim for 5, but honestly, there’s no forcing terrible. Somedays we’ll plow through a ton of demos, but there’s just nothing in there that’s terrible. It’s all just middling and bad. We have standards, k?

3. One of the comments we always get goes something along the lines of, “hey - I like this song…” Sure. Taste is relative. I’m sure we like stuff that you think is horrible. Lady GaGa wouldn’t have a career w/o that sort of polarization. In general, we try to post things that we think are terrible for a reason - ridiculous lyrics, overproduction, horrible topics, out of touch-ness, etc., but sometimes it’s just a “oh I don’t like this” feeling.

Not to get all “academic” on y’all, but Canadian journalist Carl Wilson wrote a whole book on taste - why good things are good, why bad things are bad, and why that whole idea is kind of bullshit. Highly recommended. It’s also about Celine Dion, but that’s another point all together.

That being said, let’s get to today’s demo.

He’s trying too hard.

See y’all tomorrow on the web.

Alright, this is so confusing it’s just… mesmerizing. Basically, we got this demo from this dude, and it starts out all J-Pop (which we don’t put out…), or songs that Korean singing sensation Rain would be super comfortable with. 4 songs in, whatever, it’s ok, but not awesome.

Then comes the total mindfuck. 11 more songs w/o lyrics or titles. All musically different, all with “la la le la la… lala…” where words WOULD BE in this bro’s mind, if you either a) signed him, and then he’d finish the record, or b) wanted to buy a song for your burgeoning j-pop career.

I’m truly sorry tumblr doesn’t let me post more than one track here, because the magic in this demo is really in listening to 11 songs back to back with just this guy’s mediocre voice going “la la la le la… la la la le la” over and over and over and over. But, hopefully this deep cut will satiate your nonsense lyric quotient for the day.

Extreme bonus points to anyone who actually writes lyrics to this song.

OK, I’m not sure how familiar everyone is with the story of John Henry, the steel drivin’ man, so here’s the wikipedia summation:

“John Henry is an American folk hero, famous for having raced against a steam powered hammer and won, only to die in victory with his hammer in his hand. He has been the subject of numerous songs, stories, plays, and novels.

Like other “Big Men” such as Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, John Henry also served as a mythical representation of a group within the melting pot of the 19th-century working class. In the most popular version of the story, Henry is born into the world big and strong weighing 33 pounds. He grows to become the greatest “steel-driver” in the mid-century push to erect the railroads across the mountains to the West. When the owner of the railroad buys a steam-powered hammer to do the work of his mostly black driving crew, to save his job and the jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the owner to a contest: himself alone versus the steam hammer. John Henry beats the machine, but exhausted, collapses and dies.”

From that, if you think like these demo knuckleheads do, then, DUH, John Henry was a wrath bringing hellion coming down from above and murdering the vengeful. Yes, the tracks will run red with the blood of sinners, when John Henry comes to judge the living and the dead. Let the cookie monster backing vocals be your guide to the sound that hammer makes when it comes crashing down on your skull.

Watch your backs railroad professionals (and professional sinners like us)!

“I want to live,” today’s track, is part rock opera, part… dude-who-doesn’t-know-how-the-fuck-to-edit-himself-and-really-FEELS-music.

Also please note that this little gem, titled, “I want to live” is the shortest track on this demo, clocking in at just under 9 minutes. And the CD cover is just a really really close up photo of a wolf’s eyes.

Truth.

Ok, this song’s got a little Stephin Merritt thing going on, with some handclaps, which is positive. Then it takes a nasty turn into a pitchy oom-pah chorus, some snapping, and jazz piano.

Plus, as a rule, I don’t support any song that uses the word “hullabaloo” - esp. more than once.