Diversion 2.0 Thirty Day Song Challenge -- Day 2: Your Least-Favorite Song

Well, this one’s a bit easier than yesterday, though not by much. The song that immediately comes to mind is “Chelsea Smile” by Bring Me the Horizon, because it showed me exactly where my definition of “music” ends and the sound of grinding, shrieking metal-sharpening begins. This isn’t quite fair, though, because BMTH represents an entire subgenre of music just like it, and “Chelsea Smile” isn’t any worse than the hundreds of other bands that all want to sound like Cannibal Corpse. You may think me a wuss for not liking this grindcore bollocks. You’re right. Deal.

Which brings us to my least favorite song, and it’s only grudgingly that I acknowledge it’s even a song:

Hinder – Lips of an Angel

For a while, my least favorite group was Nickelback. I remember liking “How You Remind Me” when I was in 7^th grade, but it didn’t take long before my opinion of them went south like a flight of turbo-charged geese. I suppose their instrumentation abilities are fine, but Chad Kroeger must be one of the worst band frontmen since Fred Durst; his songwriting ability is absolutely horrid, and his Southern fried “‘Merica!”-sounding voice gets on my nerves—it’s the audio equivalent deliberately smashing your thumb with a hammer, then lighting the hammer on fire and doing it again. Imagine my surprise and disgust when I found a band that took the worst aspects of Nickelback and made them even bigger.

Yes, that would be Hinder. Pop pseudo-rock sound drained of all edge and other interesting elements? Check. Song catalog full of vaguely misogynistic tracks about how all women are bitches? Check. Douchey-sounding frontman whose very utterances make me want to find a very tall building and cast myself from its top floor? Ohhhhhhhh check.

I’m pretty sure there must be other, worse songs from Hinder (though I pray that I’m wrong), but this one gets to me the most. From the very first, breathily-sung stanza to the ending chord fades, this song spells sonic misery for one Andrew Testerman. Perhaps there are other songs that piss me off more than this turd of a number three charter, but more than any other piece of music I can think of, this track makes me want to take my radio and throw it on the ground.