29 Going on 14

We all remember what it was like to be 14, when the days were long and unfair and everything seemed to piss us off. But every teen grows out of those stages of angry poetry and perpetual bad attitudes as they mature and eventually realize how stupid they were acting. Music is much the same. It has its “way too emo” periods when band members were young and foolish, when they would pour out their hearts in attempt to express the hardships of life in the suburbs of Kitchener, Ontario, or how nobody would ever understand the minds of emotionally complex children such as themselves. For almost every artist, this is only one phase in their musical career as they soon discover fresh beats, new sounds, and meaningful lyrics. Regretfully, this is not always the case.

Some bands simply seem to be stuck in an excruciatingly painful-to-listen-to, eternal teenybopper rut that just makes the world want to cry. "Nobody cares cause i'm alone and the world is having more fun than me tonight". Oh ya, I went there. Girls and boys, I dare you to listen to the musical stylings (if you really can call this music) of Simple Plan's "I'm just a kid".

"I'm Just a Kid"

But wait! Before you strangle your computer’s speakers, there’s more. Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, New Found Glory, Yellowcard… I don’t think you want me to go on. These guys continue to produce songs about the same things in the same voices with their spiky gelled hair and man-eyeliner. How do you make an album out of that, and more importantly, who buys this crap? So please artists, cut the teen angst will you? Every time you put out a song about how the universe hates you, the music industry dies a little inside. There are millions of people who have it way worse, so I beg of you. Either cheer up, or shut up.