Your Favorite Band Sucks

Settle in, young 'uns, and listen to a tale about the time an entire generation of rubes fell for the nonsense nursery rhyme stylings of a faux hippie who literally woke up one day and used his adult brain to decide his name should be Cat Stevens. How many times do you think this guy was called "a genius" in the 1970s? It doesn't even matter because if it only happened once that's still twice as many times as it should've been. Anyway, tune in to the episode for a quick education on why Cat Stevens sucks!

Life happens so we had to skip the last one but the traditional YFBS anti-Christmas episode is needed this year more than ever. Question: how many of you at this point in 2022 feel like you've already had Christmas marketed to you for two entire months and we still have most of December to go before it's finally over? Well that's because it's exactly what happened and your favorite workshop elves are here to dutifully break down the bullshittery of it all in an epic and timely fashion. Enough is enough! Stop the madness! Christmas music sucks!

We disperse this episode unto the wilderness not so that we may receive countless responses from peasants who "never even heard of these guys lol" and somehow believe that means they should be doing anything other than shutting the hell up when kings do talk of music. Nay! This broadcast shall transmit throughout the land for all who have likewise suffered the presence of yon unwashed hessians so bold as to claim this alleged Dream Theater be of utmost musical quality. And hasten ye not for to smirk, as these common folk surely do say so but never in jest.

By the way, who told the singer of this band that being in Steroid Rush means he's allowed to wear leather pants? Because as uncool as it is for anyone not named Axl Rose to wear leather pants, "singer of Dream Theater in leather pants" makes literally every other person on the planet seem as cool as Bruce Lee in the year 1972.

According to certain ancient pagan religions, bon iver translates to "world ender," which is fitting because this dude has single-handedly destroyed like three different genres of music - and he only had to sacrifice five or six elk in the middle of a frozen forest to do it! Have you ever wondered what would happen if you stared at laptop while mouth-breathing into a microphone for months on end waiting for an album to show up out of nowhere? Well, this guy did and apparently people love that shit because now everything with an acoustic guitar in it sounds approximately this bad or worse.

Don't even act like this episode coming out is the end of the world or something. Jimi Hendrix Experience is one of the most overrated boomer nostalgia acts in history and the only reason you think acknowledging that is blasphemy is because you've sacrificed the ability to judge for yourself in favor of assuming the last 50 years of rock music magazines as your own opinions. The first way to tell none of those people ever had a clue what they were talking about? Before they went nuts for Jimi Hendrix Experience, they thought the band Cream was for sure about to be the most important band of all time. Want to know what else they got wrong? Listen to the episode.

Sure, if crying was an Olympic team sport then maybe it would have been theoretically possible for Sunny Day Real Estate to do something that mattered. But even if crying was an Olympic team sport then Sunny Day Real Estate would still need to have been able to remain a team long enough to get to the competition and there is just no way that would ever have happened. Now, is it this band's fault so many clueless tryhards have thought and said so many idiotic things about their work and legacy? Of course not. Does that mean we're going to be nice about it? Of course not. Sunny Day Real Estate sucks and it's time to talk about all of the reasons why.

BREAKING NEWS: Today we interrupt our regular schedule to release an emergency update on the currently developing Maroon 5 situation. As fans of the podcast have come to expect, your trusted correspondents delve into the story and report nothing but the truth. These are the facts you won't receive from mainstream media outlets.

How did this even work? Oh, the plan is obvious - recycle all the late '90s/early '00s angst of grunge and nu-metal with a twist of 311 and pretend you have no idea any of that stuff ever existed so people think you've come original - but, like, how did that work? Today we'll get into these and other questions, just in case this band is ever able to recover from their most recent grease fire of an album and somehow remain relevant.

There are only two types of music that have this many "fa la la la la"s in the lyrics, T. Rex songs and Christmas songs, and it's still summertime so you know this ain't no Christmas episode. Nevertheless, we come bearing a gift: clear-eyed analysis of one of the most infantile, overrated and pretentious musical projects of all time. Hey, Bolan, if your music sounds like the soundtrack to a ten year old kid playing with imaginary friends in an enchanted forest, go ahead and don't name the band after one of the most fearsome apex predators to ever exist, okay?

Oh, no! Not an episode on baby's first "smart" band! Yeah, that's right, folks. They said it couldn't be done. They said it wouldn't be done. Well, we already done damn did it. Go grab your most over-sized suit and bugged out eyes and get ready to jog in place for half an hour because that's about how long it's gonna take us to explain why Talking Heads totally suck.

You do at least have to give The Chainsmokers credit for figuring out how to pander to the absolute lowest common denominator of people who pretend to care about music but, that being said, holy hell are these songs the worst thing you've ever heard or what? How is it actually legal to suck this bad at making music?

Well, we keep getting requests for more country episodes so today we decided to talk about a true, bonafide country legend, Taylor Swift. Usually we can't find many nice things to say on the podcast but what an authentic and legendary artist. Swifties are sure to love this one.

How shocked would you be if anyone in this band was able to explain to explain alternating or direct currents? That's right, folks. AC/DC is the soundtrack of being a complete dumbass. If chimpanzees could make rock music, it would be smarter than AC/DC. Actually, wait... Has anyone ever tried to teach an ape to play drums? An orangutan could for sure do Phil Rudd's job. Okay, we're gonna look into this just as soon as the episode is over.

A lot of people have asked us why Phish wasn't the very first episode of this podcast. Well, do you really need us to tell you that Phish is one of the worst bands on the planet? No, you don't. What you need is for us to tell you why Phish is one of the worst bands on the planet, so that's exactly and comprehensively what we're going to do. Find somewhere a little more comfortable than the ground to sit down. We're gonna be here for a while.

If only you'd thought of the right words to say, you could have prevented us from doing this episode. Unfortunately, your favorite band is The Cure, which means you know exactly how much you deserve the punishment you're in store for today. What will it be, then? Cherrypicking and criticizing a few songs the fans don't even really like? Spending the whole episode talking about which brand of lipstick Robert Smith uses? Calling Morrissey the superior lyricist? You know you're not getting off that easy. Go ahead and call in sick for work tomorrow, this is going to hurt.

You're not alone and you're not crazy. All anyone has to do is listen to any 5 Black Flag songs to confirm this has always been a terrible band. Everybody's just afraid to say it.

Maybe since you can't leave your house without seeing that logo, everyone assumes a ton of people must be listening to the band? Well, they're not. Nobody likes this music. (Except for Grateful Dead fans but you can't trust them.)

Is Ryan Adams' music great? Or was he the guy who paved the way for Ed Sheeran? If only there were two professional music listeners to lay out the answers! Oh, wait, that's us. This is the first episode we almost titled "Ryan Adams Sucked," past tense, because we're about to prosecute this dude's entire career into oblivion.

By pretty much any metric you want to choose, Van Halen was one of the worst bands of all time. This is the soundtrack to getting dumb, being dumb and staying dumb. Literally every fictional band from a movie about a band made better music than Van Halen. This is the musical equivalent of mixing every color of paint in the store together until you end up with brown instead of just buying brown paint.

If you're anything like us, at some point in the past few years you've asked the question "What in the hell is a BTS and why are all these kids talking about it?" Well, the difference between us and you is we are professionals, so we found out what a BTS is and, friends, it is not good. In fact, it's bad. In fact, it sucks, which means we had to make this episode even if it's the last thing we do... And there's a real chance it may be.

Ever since we opened up 5-star reviews on Apple Podcasts to requests, there've been a few bands who are by far requested above all others. We can't do all those episodes right away because you've always got to keep the crowd wanting more but, every now and then, it comes time to give the people what they want. Today is one of those days.

And it's not like this will be a tough episode to do or anything, right? Coldplay is one of the most hated bands in existence. If anything, it almost feels like punching down. Ah, well, it's a dirty job but someone must do it!

Nobody asked for it but we have to deal with it so now you do, too! Today, Mark and Tyler sit down to read the best YouTube comments left over the past few years. And by "best," we mean 99% of them are horrible because YouTube comments are one of the worst places on the Internet. Enjoy!

David Bowie is perhaps the most successful con artist of all time. You wanna hear about someone who got away with straight up grifting for like 50 years? Today we're talking about a guy who probably would have committed infanticide if someone told him it was the only way he could ever become famous. If you're imagining all the incredibly embarrassing and awful behavior one could expect from a person like that, buddy, it's worse. David Bowie sucks harder than it should even be possible to suck.

So here's a thought: you're legitimately a sadist if this is your favorite band. There has never been a greater real life example of a million monkeys in a room with typewriters accidentally reproducing Shakespeare's body of work, except The Replacements only took four humans hating how bad they were at life and their instruments for about a decade in order to make whichever four songs you believe justify the rest of this inexcusable career. Imagine being from Minneapolis and having to argue The Clash simply weren't drunk enough so you can pretend your city matters to the history of rock music.

Well, well, well... After several years of sidebar potshots in so many episodes, it is finally time for the original fuckboy pop singer to take a turn in the spotlight. And, look, we're not even going to do that usual thing where we pretend a bunch of fans are going to get pissed off about this because, let's be honest, everyone in 2021 is deeply aware of how much Frank Sinatra sucks. Anyone still listening to this trash has problems a podcast can't fix. No, that's not what we're here to do today. We're here to say all the mean things you've always wondered why nobody ever said about a talentless hack who absolutely deserves every word of it.

If P.T. Barnum had lived to hear Death Grips, he'd have updated to quote to say there are 10 suckers born every minute because there hasn't been such a successful grift as this in the music business since at least the Sex Pistols. The "music" is obviously unlistenable because the music is always irrelevant when it comes to bands who get fast-tracked through the hype machine. But Death Grips also sucks for reasons that go so far beyond the music itself. Want to know more? If only there was an episode of a podcast you could listen to about it...

[NOTE: this is the first episode available to paid subscribers in an ad-free version. Even our merch promos are removed from the middle of episodes! There will be ad-free versions of new episodes going forward. At some future point - not soon - we will also create an ad-free version of our entire back catalog. Become a paid subscriber of YFBS here: https://anchor.fm/yfbspod/subscribe]

It is undeniably tragic that so many people believe a trendy t-shirt design equates to good music. And you'd think doing an episode on Tool-for-sad-kids would be too depressing to be anyone's idea of a good time but this was such a bad "band" on every level that it actually pushes past the bleakness to become hilarious. Make sure you're ready to never willingly listen to Joy Division again before pressing play.

None of your other trusted sources of news were doing their jobs so it's once more up to the Joint Chiefs of Stuff to come correct with the scoop: music has officially been scheduled for extinction. Oh, you haven't heard how things are going at Rolling Stone magazine right now? You haven't figured out why half the bands you see on someone's t-shirt every time you go outside are selling their publishing catalogs? Well, friends, press play to receive the most critical information download of the year.

"EvERyONe ALrEadY kNoWs juSTin BiEBer suCks!" That's you. And what you should be doing instead is shutting the hell up and pressing play because a) we're hilarious and b) you'll probably learn some stuff, smartypants.

A trailer for everyone who can't grasp the importance of this podcast from the title alone.

First of all, none of you are prepared for how many of your friends are secret Pearl Jam fans. Go look up this band's sales figures. You think it's just everyone you've never met buying copies of these albums? Wake up, people! Not only is Pearl Jam's music terrible, they are parasitic masterminds of commerce! The war with TicketMaster was just a smokescreen! All will be revealed...

P.S. Anyone else think it's weird how Eddie Vedder sang about "goin' hungry" even though he was clearly eating mashed potatoes while recording half his vocal parts on Pearl Jam albums? 

Think you don't have much to be grateful for this year? Think again! Mark & Tyler are here to save 2020 from the bloody jaws of Christmas with the only holiday tradition that still matters: our annual Christmas Music Sucks episode!

As a cold darkness settles upon the land and trepidation rises in the hearts of a noble proletariat, fear not! Beneath these terrible trappings lay great opportunities and wonderful gifts! (Translation: we finally figured out how to kill off Santa Claus this year. Yeah, it's pretty chill.)

This one's on video as well, so find the YFBS YouTube channel if you'd rather watch than listen as these selfless heroes once more rally troops for a War on Christmas.