MC Lars: Today’s Rock Star…Sigh.
When I saw this flyer advertising an upcoming appearance by MC Lars at The Cavern Club in the UK, I just thought to myself, wow, so this is what gets celebrated these days.
I mean, basically, it’s a kid holding a laptop, wearing as much Hot Topic attire as he can fit onto his body in some unsuccessful attempt to not get beaten up during recess.
Whether or not he truly succeeds at becoming famous or not is beside the point entirely. What’s most troublesome is that this level of “creativity” is celebrated more and more, and less and less is required to be taken seriously on the mainstream music scene. I mean, seriously, what the fuck does an MC do that means diddly in the great scheme of things, or a DJ, for that matter? Hey, wow, you can play other people’s records…that makes you a star!
It used to be you had to at least play an instrument…guitar, bass, drums, keyboards…or sing. The minute I started seeing CD turntables at Guitar Center, though, I realized that the idiots had been let loose in the asylum and that a serious seismic shift of supreme idiocy had taken place.
During my last trip to Vegas, I saw one humongous billboard after the other advertising the appearance of one lame-ass DJ after another, as if the fact that Samantha Ronson can hit “play” on a turntable while munching Lindsay Lohan’s hoo-ha somehow makes her somebody whose existence is worth mentioning.
At least Steven Tyler could carry a tune…and I’ll bet he’s ten times the rug-muncher Ronson will ever be.
Ah, but these fucking kids today…they honestly don’t realize that McDonald’s may taste fine, but it ain’t real and its certainly nothing to aspire to, aesthetically speaking. Chicken McNuggets are foul, not fowl, but don’t try telling that to the carbon-copy hipster kids in their stone-washed Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon t-shirts fresh off the racks from Target. They’re too busy listening to the latest Black Eyed Peas joint in the form of an mp3 compressed at 128 kbps that they stole off of a torrent site and are now blaring thru shitty little ear buds, nodding their empty little heads and thinking it’s da bomb.
Put them in front of some state-of-the-art speakers, though…some actual Pink Floyd played on a real, honest-to-God turntable, and you’ll see them yawn inside of ten seconds. Oh, but give them a TV and a plastic guitar with some buttons on it and they’ll come back the next day knowing all the words, thinking “Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2″ is the greatest thing since Pringles with trivia questions printed on them. And, hey Dad, can you get off the computer so that they can download Pink Floyd’s entire discography in the form of a single .zip file and mash it down to three or four really choice ring-tones, man?
I once joked that, due to the continual dumbing-down of music via rap and hip-hop, that popular music would one day be reduced to someone shouting obscenities over a dial tone…this was years ago, of course, but then I heard the last Kanye West record and realized that I’d actually prefer someone shouting obscenities over a dial tone next to that talentless nonsense…yet how many times has West been called a genius?
Hell, I’ve even heard R. Kelly called a genius…Um, no, he’s a pedophile, but thanks for playing.
Now, if Bob Dylan were to have emptied his bladder into the face of a fifteen-year-old girl back when he was at the top of his game, that would have been genius. As it stands, we’ve become a society of idiots who are much too easily impressed, yet, at the same time, appalled by the slightest protestation from the likes of, well, me. Poor little baby…but, well, you may have noticed that the short-bus parked out front does not say “gifted” on the side, now does it?
The legendary musician/engineer/producer Alan Parsons once sang, “Where do we go from here now that all of the children are growing up?” The line never bothered me until I was faced with the fast-approaching reality that the idiots raised on video games, iPods, and texting the person standing right next to you rather than just talking to them were becoming…GASP!…adults…and having children of their own.
Near as I can tell this MC Lars is one of them. Celebrate his greatness, his legend, his artistry, for in the poster advertising his upcoming appearance at the esteemed Cavern Club, he looks as if he has almost figured out…how to…OPEN A LAPTOP!
TA-DA!!!
Somebody sign him to a multi-million dollar ten-album deal, quick!
_________________
Darren Robbins is a fellow graduate of the “Almost Famous” University, a gifted songwriter, raconteur and lovable curmudgeon. When you’re not reading him here, check out his terrifc blog… HE’S A WHORE
Alright…
I’m more than a little tired of the fact that every rock-n-roll hipster/purist who owns the White Album on vinyl can’t seem to keep himself from bashing more technologically based music and those who make it. (Btw, it also usually ends up “surprisingly” to be about bashing so-called black music. But let’s put that aside.)
I’m with you – Floyd is brilliant. Animals has been one of my favorite albums since I was fourteen. I’m an industrial/metalhead at heart, a music producer, a guitar player and an avid rock lover with a huge collection of everything from “I against I” to “Rumors” to “Moving Pictures.” But here’s the deal; technology doesn’t make something bad. The disregard of talent in favor of technology does.
I love rock. I love industrial. I love metal. But I also love hip hop, house, breakbeat, jungle, triphop and soul, and one doesn’t have to belay the other. A turntable and a sampler can produce a masterpiece form the bits and pieces of other records. A finger pressing a button on a machine can be as thunderous and creative as anything Bonham ever played. I love deep, jeep-thumping, ass-shaking beats and an “MC” who’s attack and flair for words is a dangerous weapon. (Case in point: Jay-Z, Nas, Ludacris, Eminem, Biggie Smalls – all brilliant lyricists with devastating attacks and dynamic flows. And everything Just Blaze puts his hands to is going to smack you in the chest like a Charlie Clouser produced chainsaw-track.)
And the electronic manglings of laptop jockeys like Justice or Daft Punk are as valid as anything any six-string ever laid down. And let’s not forget that electric guitars, synths, electric pianos, electric basses, stomp boxes, hot-rodded amps and even plastic see-though drums were all innovations at one time. And I’m sure somebody somewhere fucking hated them ’cause they were gonna ruin music.
True, the Rihannas and the Chris Brown’s of the world fuck it up for everyone. But talentless hacks who do damage to their genre’s and industries exist in every style and always have. The joke is, after 20 or 30 years that terrible song becomes kitchy and we forget that it was ever a piece of shit. Remember The 1910 Fruitgum Company? What the fuck was that? Or the Macarena? Or Andrew W.K.? Or the Fresh Prince? Or Roxette? Or Limp Bizkit? How about Bush? Or Creed? Bon Jovi? I gladly lump all these performers and others together into the shit pile to later be discarded into “the round file.”
Why?
Lack of passion, lack of commitment, lack of innovation, skill and talent. Pandering to the lowest common denominator. Obviously riding trends and looking to do no more than move units. Never stretching or re-inventing yourself.
Even bands that actually break ground and do cool shit eventually lose passion for what they do and begin churning out shit. I’m looking at you Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Def Leppard, Manson, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure, and many, many others. Oh and don’t forget Audioslave – the product of two of the greatest bands of the last 30 years. Apart from a select few tracks, they needn’t have bothered. (But to be fair to all of them, if you’re still trying to make the same music at forty that you made when you were twenty, you’re a fucking liar.)
Yes, there’s plenty of shit out there. Yes, plenty of morons under 18 have no clue who the fuck Ziggy Stardust, Brian May or Iggy Pop are. Yes, they just found out that the dad on “The Osbournes” used to be in a band. But they’ve always been there and they always will. These are the same dummies who were listening to Pat Boone cover Aretha Franklin and Little Richard records and said “this boy’s really got something!”
Let’s not cut a huge swath through entire musical genres in order to bury the shit that has always floated to the top amongst the cream.
Rock will live…
whether it be with a guitar, a synth, a laptop, a virtual drummer or whatever new innovation comes along. ‘Cause that’s what the fuck it does, baby.
p.s. And yes, this little poser on the flyer looks like half-a-douche. But who knows? Maybe he’s gonna save rock-n-roll…somebody does every 15 years.
Get geeked out..! x
M.C. Lars is a saint…..BOOM!
You’re a shallow minded douchebag!
HAHA are you getting annoyed at being called “Grandad” or something? I mean seriously I’ve never heard of someone who gets paid to groan about how “It was better back in my day!”
Actually, MC Lars performs music. He writes his own material and raps. He even plays guitar. Listen to him, you might like it.
MC Lars is a totally illiterate douchebag. Who graduated from Stanford. And raps in a genre called “Nerdcore”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib1ERGQnloU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7V7BaRAy0k
GET A JOB MC, YOU JUST PLAY RECORDS, LOL.
Judging an artist purely on their poster is incredibly ignorant. If you listened to any of MC Lars’s music, you would have a better understanding of his style and insanely good music. He is a very intelligent person who does music about everything from fashion (see his song “Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock”) to emo music & that generic genre (“Signing Emo”) to literature (“Hey There Ophelia” which is a personal favourite of mine, being about Shakespeare’s Hamlet. See also “Mr. Raven” which is about Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven).
You may make some good points in your article, but you did no research on the artist as a whole, just saw his poster and decided he sucks due SOLELY on that. When you review your next artist, maybe you should check out their music before passing judgement.
The irony of this particular post does not escape me. MC Lars regularly tours with a full back-up band (you know, those talentless electric musicians who play guitar, bass, or drums, or sing?). Before he was MC Lars, he was Andrew Nielson, guitarist and bass player for a Bay Area progressive/punk band called Amphoteric. One of his songs (Hot Topic is not Punk Rock) specifically targets “Hot Topic” for being a waste of money. Another one of his songs (Guitar Hero Hero) makes fun of those “cheap plastic guitars” and people who think that playing them is like playing music.
Next time, you might want to do the three minutes of research necessary to know what you’re talking about before opening your mouth. It might also be nice if you knew anything about how modern electronic music evolved, and why the leeches in the major labels living off of has-been classic rock bands killed the golden era of creative hip-hop and left us with two-song samples in its place.
Way to judge a book by its cover, you self-righteous hipster douchebag.
Wow. An impressive article…. is this what constitues journalism these days? You look at a poster, see a young man with a laptop and instantly force him to fit the mould of a stereotype you hate. Have you ever listened to his music?
I’m not a big rap fan. But I’ve seen MC Lars live and listen to his music and the guy is talented, challenging and original. First rap that I’ve heard that references classic literature, disses crunk and speaks out against the capitalism of record companies killing music by not promoting fresh talent. He mocks the stereotypes that you claim to hate, but you judge by the poster. Yeah, this is what society has become..style about substance, what does it look like before what it sounds like- and you a music critic? You are part of the cause, not the solution and I think that you fundementally miss the point.
You rant, rant, rant…. nothing is challenging, innovative… some bigoted slur about lesbians. What’s so different or interesting about you? Do you attack in others what you see as a flaw in yourself?
Sounds like someone’s upset with rap music.
Take it easy, man, not all the rock and roll bands have gone away. And it’s been much longer than MC Lars has been around that the music industry has been “dumbed down”.
Wow, you’ve really got a boner for Pink Floyd. How about you grow up and get your head out of the 80s? Technology and popular music moved on, you didn’t try to keep up, old man
When I saw this blog post reviewing a flyer advertising an upcoming appearance by MC Lars at The Cavern Club in the UK, I just thought to myself, wow, so this is what gets celebrated as an “informed” opinion these days.
Back in MY day (granted, I am only 22), we learned such axioms as “don’t judge a book by its cover.” This is exactly the kind of wisdom that Mr. Robbins could consider before vomiting such unintentionally-hilarious drivel onto the web.
Your comments about Lars and “these fucking kids today” are ironic, considering his opinions and lyrics. He’s actually on YOUR side, blasting mass-produced “culture” and many of the stupidities embraced by our generation. Songs like “Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock,” “Guitar Hero Hero (Beating Guitar Hero Doesn’t Make You Slash),” “Generic Crunk Rap,” “Signing Emo” (about record labels polishing turds and somehow winding up with the ‘next big thing’), “Hipster Girl” (about the dumbass side of hipsterdom), and “No Logo” (about the insanity of “sticking it to the man” simply because this is the popular thing to do) come to mind. And yes, he does have a solid musical education—rock and otherwise—as well as a classical one (a number of his songs, such as “Ahab” and “Mr. Raven,” are literary tributes).
Now, I’d argue you’re right on the mark describing a large chunk of Lars’ and my generation (along with the current crop of teenagers, too), and with a large chunk (hell, the majority, even) of mainstream rap. But not all of us prefer our world as shallow and dumbed-down as you make it out to be, just as not all bloggers do their writing before their research.
See what you just did there was judge an artist by a flyer? come on where is the sense in that? you assume that mc lars is a talentless kid that has just emerged into the music scene over night. How can you make that assumption when you clearly haven’t listened to his music or researched the facts, not exactly fair is it. Lars has been touring constantly for the last six years, has three relatively successful albums, a large fan base across the US, Europe and Japan and owns his own record label, Horris Records.
Basically what im trying to say is you cant judge a book by its cover, yes his name is MC lars but that does not automatically fit him into a category of talentless artists who play other peoples music. Lars creates his own style by fusing together intellectual lyrics with a hip hop and rock style, thus drawing in fans of both genres.
Yes the classic rock greats such as Zeppelin, pink Floyd and the rolling stone are amazing, but every generation produces new music and who is to say they are right or wrong. new technology allows artists to be creative in new ways just as it did in previous generations
All i can say is welcome to the future of the new i-generation.
p.s. if you had done a little more research into the artist you seem intent on putting down you maybe would of seen the irony in this; “I mean, basically, it’s a kid holding a laptop, wearing as much Hot Topic attire as he can fit onto his body in some unsuccessful attempt to not get beaten up during recess.”
Sorry.. I back Darren on this one… post punk laptop rap? jesus… laptop rap? Suck is suck my friends…suck is suck.
Oh boy! I’m really excited, because I thought being a journalist would be hard, you see. Now I see you just get paid to make assumptions based on one picture, without any backup sources.
Whew!!!!
I was really worried work would be involved.
Thanks, Zeitgeisty Report (c)!
You back Darren based on what? On the poster and the silly genre name? Listen to his music, then decide. I can’t believe you’ve tried to pass off the review of a poster as a review of a musician.
Seriously, it only takes a few minutes to go to Grooveshark or Youtube, search MC Lars, and listen to: Twenty-Three, Download this Song, iGeneration, or Hey There, Ophelia. At that point, feel free to write about how much you hate his music, but reviewing a poster is idiotic.
The absolute best part of the article is where he describes Lars as “wearing as much Hot Topic attire as he can fit onto his body in some unsuccessful attempt to not get beaten up during recess.” Oh, Irony, do you ever get less amusing? No, I didn’t think so.
P.S.
Next time, rather than being a shallow judgmental moron, try actually RESEARCHING your topic. Might make it seem like you actually know what you’re talking about. But probably not. Idiocy that large will shine through no matter what.
yeah…. I checked it out… it sucks donkey shlong..big surprise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxVPhaJtL8o
seriously….putrid.
I hate to break it to you guys because you certainly blew a heavy wad of vitriol in jumping to an ASSUMPTION that I had not listened to MC Lars music. Where did I say that my opinion was based solely on a flyer?
D’oh, looks like you were too hell-bent in being a reactionary Hot Topic dilrod to actually pay attention. I know your attention deficit has been hammered by constant texting and Twittering, but maybe try paying attention for longer than two minutes next time.
Just a thought, and I know I’m well beyond 140 characters so bear with me…Maybe you guys need to stop jumping to the “must be an old guy who doesn’t get what we’re all about” and maybe take a look at the shitty mess your whole culture has become.
There’s nothing that’s YOU about anything you wear, or listen to…it’s all swiped from past decades, including GASP! the 80′s.
How about you guys go out and do just one original thing that doesn’t just swipe from someone else who did it better and then we can talk… well, I better let you guys go so you’re not late for your viewing of “Clash Of The Titans”.
Seriously, that’s what you guys get excited about? Wow. I mean, I really tried cutting you cats some slack because, truth is, you don’t know any better. You’ve been hit with one shitty commercial for shit sandwiches after another from guys my age who should have been fired from the labels and marketing departments loooong ago. They were total fucking assholes who must have had incriminating pics of the CEO. That’s the only reason I can explain it. They got to keep their jobs and kept ride on peddling the garbage and, well, if that’s all you’ve ever been exposed to I might see how an MC Lars might float your boat…but fuck dudes…I’ve listened to the tunes and they’re as fucking rank as a homeless guy in the hot August sun.
I pity you fools…
damn that was longer than 140 characters…sorry.
I hate MC Lars, but after reading this, I hate you too.
I apologize, Darren, for assuming that you had not done at least minimal research. Your flailing attempt to cover your ass is so believable that I must accept that you have done so. Clearly, you are simply too stupid to recognize the cognitive dissonance in your above piece with the research you most obviously have done. It’s all right, not all of us are smart enough to pass out of “Almost Famous” Community College while studying under-water basket-weaving.
In light of your apparent abject stupidity, I cede the field to you. Clearly a man who is capable of such unmitigated idiocy deserves to be given at least one victory in his life. I suggest celebrating with a smug, intellectually-handicapped back-pat.
But we love YOU Gillian…!
Darren,
It is interesting that you appeal to some (fictional) golden age when music made sense and culture operated according to intelligent modes of consumption and critical distance. This is interesting because your argument itself makes no sense and, rather than setting out from an intelligent point of origin, operates according to a host of reductive ideological assumptions about the culture and industry of music. For instance, you assert that hip hop lacks creativity or originality, and that Pink Floyd exemplifies original artistic production. But if your reading were as prodigious as your ego, you would know that your argument suffers from archaic, essentialist notions about categories of identity–to whom does 140-character culture belong? How is “our” culture not yours–and who is we? Your opponents? Your readers? You are able to made broad and unfounded conclusions about your readers because you operate according to ad hominem fallacies whose function is to validate your opinion and discredit those of the opposition. But if your argument were solid, you wouldn’t need to resort to barbaric methods of argumentation.
Returning to hip hop and originality. If you were familiar with simulacra and cultural simulation, or with the last one hundred years of cultural theory, then you would know that cultural productions–including Pink Floyd–do not occur in a vacuum, but in fact stand in relation to one another. Even Pink Floyd borrowed musical style from contemporaries and predecessors, including the standard chord progressions and tropes of melody and phrasing that were developed by classical composers centuries before. To what extent was Pink Floyd original, then? Only to the extent that they executed apt and surprising examples of musical sampling.
Musical sampling is exactly part of what good hip hop is supposed to do. The level of sampling common to hip hop actually borrows from the jazz tradition, out of which rock and roll developed. Adaptation and editing form as much a part of the process of artistic production as composing melodies and chord progressions, and if executed skillfully, sampling can combine seemingly disparate musical fragments to produce fresh sounds. Sometimes, pairing unlikely sets of musical production can illuminate aspects of the music that weren’t obvious or even extant before, but which benefit aesthetically from combination and juxtaposition. Your argument does justice to none of these aspects of hip hop, and in fact reveals more about your own bigoted inadequacy as a musical commentator than it does about the music itself.
As for the poster, Lars is no more stylized and stereotyped than Pink Floyd band members at a concert of their own. The difference is that the poster advertising Lars’ performance is ironic–a fine line falls between criticizing an ideology and merely reproducing said ideology, but I think the poster falls in the former category. Like any generic production, the poster exploits conventional notions about what an MC should look like to produce a somewhat nerdy image of a white MC. The poster doesn’t take itself seriously and, I would argue, neither does Lars’ apt and witty adaptation of Poe’s “The Raven”. Perhaps Kanye West and R. Kelly take themselves more seriously (or perhaps their egotism is part of the act), but then no continuity exists between popular “hip hop” and nerdcore that would justify a comparison between the likes of Kanye West and MC Lars.
I know that you are an entertainer and not by any means fit to be held up to any sort of academic standard for intellectual rigor. So in a sense, I am aware that it isn’t quite fair to expect you to execute skillful arguments, or even to be fair to MC Lars, hip hop generally, or even your readers. But as long as you continue to confuse cliche insults with wit, you expose yourself for the laughing stock that you (and the magazine that publishes above deposit of feces) really are.
You are quite verbose my dear friend, but let me lay down some intellectual rigor of my own…
Suck is suck, and this….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxVPhaJtL8o ,,,is suck
Capital P….Capital U….Capital TRID.
To perceive this twaddlin’ dipwad as some master of irony is simply laughable. Sad that someone like yourself, with an obvious brain, is so friggin’ clueless.
While I respect your right to dislike MC Lars or any other music, frankly sir, you’ve made an ass of yourself. To dislike his music is well within reasonable bounds, and I shan’t reiterate the point made in previous posts about the ironic nature of your criticisms, but I would like to point out to you that your unmitigated belligerence about a culture you obviously fail to understand is extremely offensive.
Allow me to help you understand a little better:
-Twitter is, as you’ve obviously realized, fucking stupid. Most of us realize that. The same goes for Hot Topic.
-While I, personally, rather like MC Lars, I wouldn’t say he’s a good example of “Today’s Rock Star” Here are some better examples: http://www.sasquatchfestival.com/#/lineup, http://hubpages.com/hub/Five-Best-Rock-Bandsof-today, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_music#The_new_millenium_.28the_2000s.29
-ADD is a serious, if over-diagnosed, disorder. Not every young person in the new millennium has it.
-Texting, or SMS messaging, is a perfectly valid form of communication, as are talking (including via phone), email, and *gasp* blogging!
-Our so-called “shitty mess of a culture” is just as much of a shitty mess of a culture as those of past generations, you just seem intent on focusing on the negative.
-128kbps .mp3 files played through shitty earbuds are definitely not “da bomb.” I prefer to encode and download in 320kbps and play my music through either real speakers or quality headphones, thank you very much.
-Guitar Hero and Rockband are a fun way to simultaneously play a game and enjoy some music at the same time. Nothing wrong with that.
-Most people my age that I’m aware of actually like classic rock, how much varying based on personal taste, but we give your old-school stuff a chance, so I don’t see why you can’t do the same for modern music. If you took a bit of time to research, I’m sure you could find tons of modern bands that are right up your alley, given the huge variety of styles and bands out there…
So, as you can see, your view of our generation is entirely misinformed, and I would recommend that you revise it, unless, that is, you prefer your prejudiced world-view.
Well, I must say that yes, about 25% of MC Lars music is just what you said… A mocking regurgitation of the idiotic popular culture presented to the up and coming, intelligent iGeneration from the sold-out cradles of the U.S.A.. That being said, Lars and his music is the essence of metal, hip-hop and punk rock. A musical comedy of the culture within which it is played, an artistic form all too similar to Shakespeare, if I had to immediately name a similar artist….
That is to say he represents the intelligent side of the music generated in a culture of distress, a nation on the decline.
To a person on the outside of that (huge) regional culture, a cursory glance will create an immediate assumption about an artist’s intelligence and raw talent. A solid listen to the message of the artist, looking at the bigger picture alluded to by the artist through a SERIES of songs (also known as an album), gives a different picture. Which can be a beautiful picture. As painted by listening to the entire “White Album”, or “Blonde on Blonde” from beginning to end, in a modern sense, Bright Eyes, “Lifted, or The Story is in the Soil…..”. Most certainly, I’m not going to give similar praise to the shallow picture painted by the overly psychedelic “Dark Side of the Moon”, but rather I’m talking about understanding the mediums within which an artist chooses to find their “voice”.
….. Okay, I’ll calm down now. And I really must say this, Lars, I’m sure you’re reading this, and if you set this troll up to write this pathetic initial rant, then kudos to you for your mad internet marketing skillz. If not, kudos to you for your mad internet marketing skillz.
Geek mafia <3.
Let the flame war resume!
Darren,
Even if your not a fan of the music, what most people are argueing about is your complete closed minded approach to your work, and then the ignorance to realise that someone elses opinion may in fact be worth listening to, no matter what their age.
I’m loving what Seibl has written, i think a lot of readers were hoping someone would highlight the many flaws of your post and Seibl has pleased us all.
I’ve never read any of your posts, blogs or articles before and i dont intend to stumble across any more after this. I guess i’m not your intended market though, I’m young, open minded and enjoy discussions more than ignorant rants about new v’s old.
I think you all are missing the point here… It’s not some tired rant about ‘new’ vs. ‘old’, it’s about what passes for ‘good’ nowadays… forget the past, take the past out of the picture, focus on now… and I’m sorry to say, it’s a sad state of affairs.
This guy MC Lars, is just empirically goddawful… That youtube I posted of his where he lampoons the music industry, was literally nauseatingly bad, moreover, he’s not saying anything that hasn’t been said by other artists in a FAR more insightful way.. Hell, you talk about rap artists, even Eminem has taken on this subject a million times more skillfully… Oh and by the way, that’s all this dude MC Lars is, a LAME Eminem rip off, marketing himself to the ‘geek’ set…
Listen, I appreciate all your guys comments, and you’ve obviously all got some great brains, I’m just saying this dude sucks… period.
I was totally appauled by MC LARS redition of the famous author Edgar Allen Poes writings. First off he needed to know mor of the background of Poe who was a very disturbed man with schitzophrenia with manic dillusions and was very abused by his mother. the women in the stories sure are prostitutes from his life that died from the festering diseases the werre brought on by their profession, but to ridicule a master writer in that lame ass song is unforgivable. I feel that Mc Lars needs to find a different avenue to persacute with his terrible music that to delve onto the writings of Poe and mixing it with the fugees and a bit of a christmas carol is absolutely pathetic
MC Lars is a Lit and Psych grad from Stanford, Jin… I’m sure he’s probably as aware of the social historical context of Poe’s work as you are. I would imagine he can also spell appalled, schizophrenia and delusions… At what point did you detect ridicule? Imitation is meant to be the sincerest form of flattery. Ever think he uses the great writers as a point of reference because of his admiration for them?
I hate how people will get a hard on for a costume drama which explores the life of Jane Austen and then have a breakdown over literature being explored through another, equally valid medium. If anything, Lars is a poet too. He’s got Poe’s back.
Your lame ass spelling is unforgivable. Especially since you could have spell checked. Work on your own academic delusions in future please.
You self rightous purist douchebag fuck. You know nothing of what it takes to produce a good song, on a laptop or otherwise. Also judging from your insults and your lack of skill at using the english language, I would imagine you are a fucking moron. You want anyone to take your opinion seriously, why don’t you produce something better. Fuckin moron
A) Darren is an accomplished songwriter who’s got more talent in one of his toenails than this d-nozzle.
B) Judging from your grasp on the ‘english language’, you’re no one to judge anyone’s writing prowess, let alone a great scribe like Darren.
C) You’re a muldoon.
To be fair, I’ve talked to MC Lars and he’s a genuinely nice guy, and not a pretentious judgemental person like the guy who wrote this, who’s sole opinion on an artist is based on one poster. This guy hasn’t delved any deeper into the production, recording technique, or lyrical content associated with an artist he’s reviewing. Instead he’d rather reflect on the ‘good old days’ when Pink Floyd and The Beatles were the commercial rock mainstream.
The ironic statement in this review is the guitar hero one I think. Lars actually has a song where the prominent lyric is “playing guitar hero doesn’t mean you play guitar”. Paul Gilbert from Racer X appears on the song and in the music video, and is an incredibly talented guitarist.
Slash has performed with Cypress Hill and Fergie. Kerry King performed on an Atari Teenage Riot song. If all these amazingly talented musicians have no problem with electronic/rap/hip-hop artists, then it’ll take more than one lazy uninformed critic’s opinion to undermine that times have changed and we do things a bit differently here in 2010.
I like MC Lars. You, on the other hand, hate MC Lars. Actually, I used to hate MC Lars too. I saw the video for “Singing Emo” like five months ago and his white-boy rapping instantly turned me off. However, people I knew kept playing his music, and eventually the freshness he was bringing to the table in terms of what he was rapping about won me over eventually.
Do I care if I convince you to like MC Lars? No, not even a little bit. Go ahead and hate him. My problem is your pretentious attitude. Anybody who looks down their nose at others is a prick. I hate, and I mean hate to the very deepest fibers of my being, modern pop music. I hate even more the current teeny bopper fashions, slang and culture. Does that make me better then them, more superior to them, do I think that they are worthless insects polluting the space around me? No. Why? Because I’m not a fucking prick. Every time I see some asshole sitting in a coffee shop or restaurant, making sure everybody sees how *exasperated* he is by the peons around him, rolling his eyes at the “morons” who like different things and yammering on about why every person he sees is a “tool”, I just feel sad for him. Why fill your life with such negative energy?
For every change in technology or culture, there’s an older generation bitching about it. Pink Floyd? Rock music used to be groaned at too, by adults pissed off by Little Richards noisy music and screaming. Eventually they believed that rock music was from the devil himself and was corrupting the minds and culture of the younger generation. I’m sure older folk had alot to say about the Haight-Ashbury area, but nobody can argue it had an important impact on modern music and culture. And I’m sure that some old-school newspaper printers would have something to say about your online-article medium.
Basically, if you think that you are *better* than somebody else and not merely *different*, I mean unless that “somebody else” is a murderer or rapist or something, you’re an asshole. By the time you’re 60 you’re going to be the guy who gets egged every year on halloween because you stand on your porch screaming “Damn Kids!”, stealing their whatchamacalit tehcno-dohickeys when they fall into your yard and generally being a miserable fuck. Have a fun life.
If you were just hating on the music because you thought it was bad music, that would be one thing. Even if you were hating on MC Lars as a person after doing some background checking, maybe i’d get it.
It’s the fact that you used one image to base your opinions on a person, opinions that end up being not true after a bit of research (Hot Topic slavedom, abandoning of real instruments) that smacks of douchebaggery. If you’re going to have that kind of outlook on people, it’s going to come full circle right back on to you.
MC Lars purposely dresses like an ass in Hot Topic clothing for shit like this. He has a whole song slating Hot Topic which is genius. Like people before me have said; he’s the nicest guy in person, he’s actually pretty damn talented and inspires youngsters upwards to get creative as they can nowadays with pretty basic freeware for ypur laptop or computers. He writes his own lyrics which are pretty good, funny and sometimes silly – he makes himself look a fool on purpose much to the adoration of his fans. He’s a pretty smart mofo with like degrees in English Literature and Physics as well I think. He plays guitar and composes a lot of the intrumentation on his tracks, along with mixing and mastering. He could amateur produce any bands or musicians in a studio with little trouble. Don’t slate him on first appearance. Give some of his stuff a listen. – “Download This Song” with Jaret Reddick from Bowling for Soup, catchy as it is, he’s making a valid point about the music industry these days, and as he says in the song “…Welcome to the future” He is right.