By: Andrew Roden

Edited for Article By: Elizabeth A. Baker

Local musician, writer, producer, and engineer, Andrew Roden, is a student of the Music Industry and Recording Arts program at SPC. The following article is an adaptation of a project he presented for Dave Greenberg’s Critical Listening class. The annual assignment calls for students to speak to the class about a song, which they utterly detest. [To stay true to the original spirit of the presentation I have chosen not to present this in a typical essay/article format.]   

I Absolutely Loathe the Steaming Pile Of Song…

“Bad Girlfriend” by Theory Of A Deadman

Theory Of A Deadman hails from Canada much like Justin Beiber  and Avril Lavigne and Nickelback.

If for whatever reason you don’t want to take our word for it a YouTube video of the song in question is included below and the video is about as terrible as the song itself.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcJU6zsNWyM’]

“Bad Girlfriend”, is a textbook example of a horrible phenomenon that should get out of here and go far, far away to a land of the deck that is known as buttrock. Andrew does a wonderful job of explaining…

“What exactly IS Buttrock?”

Buttrock:

(n): a term to identify a band trademarked with cheap, unoriginal song lyrics, cheesy rock arrangements, and an all-around lack of ability or originality. 

Buttrock derives its name from the grunting, groaning, “raspy” effect that vocalists in the genre use to hide their lack of actual vocal ability.  This effect produces some very constipated sounding vocals, hence the term Buttrock.

Artist such as Nickelback, Hinder, Bush, and of course, CREED, are the “Crown Jewels” of Buttrock.

also,

 “(adj.): a term to identify anything, abstract or concrete, that is distasteful, poorly conceived, or overtly offensive.

1) Why is that guy wearing all real-tree camouflage in the middle of downtown?  That is so BUTTROCK!.”-urbandictionary.com

NOTE: Buttrock is often confused with crotch rock, which, while also terrible, is not the same thing.

 The Buttrock genre has come to a (turtle) head in the form of songs such as this, the target of this presentation. 

Why It Deserves Your Disgust

-Typical hackneyed modern rock arrangement.

-Overall clean and unapologetically un-ballsy rock production aesthetic.

-Seriously, is this Nickelback?  I couldn’t tell the difference.

-No real unusual sounds or processes featured in the mix.

-Lyrics such as “My Girlfriend’s a Dick Magnet”.

-The Vocal performance, especially when the singer tries to get up into that higher range, and where he tries to cram an extra syllable into the chorus, is purrty bad.

-The track feels very compressed & restricted.

-Sadly, this band does not help Canada’s cause…

All this being said, though I am not really a fan of the production job, the performance and composition are what I really loathe about this musical Mud-Baby.

Some Pros

-It seems to be mastered for loudness.

-Kind of cool slide guitar riff in parts (hurts to admit).

In Conclusion

It is my firm belief that if Buttrock were to be played on repeat worldwide, that the Great Unwashed that actually enjoy this genre would:

1. Eventually realize how terrible this butt-clenching music is,
2. Be overcome with regret and self-loathing,
3. Commit musically induced suicide,
4. For lack of space in musical purgatory, the dead would walk the Earth and a new order of zombified culture would arise.

The importance of this presentation and its feature here lie within the sad fact that there is a trend in commercially produced music today to emulate the production and composition traits of bands such as Nickelback. Though there seem to be trends in sub-genres of the population who take extreme time to explore and seek out new music that has substance and musical merit; there are many people in the greater population who just turn on the radio and accept whatever drivel the corporate moderators and fat cats deem acceptable for the general listener. And it is this, ladies and gentlemen, which is leading to the devolution of musical tastes and the human ear. So I urge you to share this article with your friends particularly those who are found to be frequenting plays of Nickelback and Creed on their iTunes playlist. To quote Andrew’s last line:

“So, for the good of the planet, please say NO to Buttrock.”