Everybody always rags on Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys and other bubblegum acts, but frankly that’s like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s like saying you don’t like puppy-kickers.
So who does everyone hate in the music scene, present or past, who isn’t a talent-joke a la Britney? You have to pick someone at least one adult will think is terrific.
My first pick
SARAH McLACHLAN. IMO, Sarah McLachlan is unquestionably the biggest hack in music.
Being a Canadian I got to watch her first few videos when she was unknown and they were getting airplay because of Canadian content rules. She was okay. Then she came out with more videos, and then more, and it finally dawned on me that she sucks. Why does she suck?
a) She’s been singing pretty much the same three damned songs since she came up. “Building a Mystery” is just “Possession” redux. She’s a remarkably untalented songwriter inasmuch as she keeps writing the same songs Philip Marchand (and allegedly a few other folks - ask Daryl Neudorf) wrote for her ten years ago. Hell, she even stole the title and cover of her last CD from Neil Young.
b) Sarah McLachlan is every bit as carefully marketed a product as Britney Spears, and always has been. From the get-go she’s been tagged as an “artsy singer-songwriter” to fill a particular genre - her recording company freely admits to this, BTW - to the point that they had other people write her songs and gave her the credit.
I saw her live on MuchMusic last year and it was the funniest goddamned thing I’ve ever seen. The set was lit with candles of varying colours, despite the ample lighting available, to give it that Artsy Look. McLachlan was dressed in Artsy Clothes. The audience appeared to be entirely comprised of people named Jason and Muffy, all between the ages of 20 and 29 wearing Gap khakis and blue button-up shirts. There were no visible minorities to be seen. The entire audience was seated on the floor, presumably because that’s much artsier than chairs. In between songs McLachlan gave carefully prepared speeches on what they meant. I was on the floor; it was great in a bad sort of way.
Then two years ago she released a forGodssakes cookbook. You have to see this cookbook to believe it. Everything is a Highly Artsy Dish - no chili dogs in this cookbook, believe me. Most are vegetarian dishes (of course) and are made up for looks, not taste. They look as appetizing as a box of two-inch nails.
One dish was called “Possession Pancakes,” which had me laughing for several minutes. I assume her sequel cookbook will include:
- Path of Corn
- Building a Moussaka
- Sucrose Surrender
- Fumbling Towards Eggs
c) I’m fucking sick of her voice. She can sing properly when she wants to, but instead she prefers, when holding a note, to hold it with that funny back-of-the-throat tone she’s famous for, which of course is the easy way out but also seems to be the artsy thing to do. I don’t know how to describe it except to call it “Kermit voice.” I hate that.
d) I don’t have any problem with Lilith Fair, though to be honest I’d be likelier to go if Sarah McLachlan wasn’t performing at it. I’ve seen McLachlan live and I think she sucks shit; she doesn’t hold a candle to live acts like Sheryl Crow.
A few years back McLachlan was tasked to perform live at the Junos, which is kind of the Canadian Grammies. Or maybe it WAS the Grammies, I dunno. No, it was the Junos. Anyway, she gets up there with two assholes with guitars and, rather than breaking into song, implores the audience to sing along with her as she does “Ice Cream.” This was right after “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” was released, so of course nobody knew “Ice Cream” and stumbled along while she did an atrocious rendition of it. Friends, when you’re on a nationally televised awards show and you don’t even bring your whole fucking band, instead choosing to do a second-rate scaled-down version of an mediocre, unreleased single,
all the while imploring the audience to help you out even though YOU’RE the one with the record contract, you have not yet mastered the concept of good live music.
Maybe I’m ragging on her too badly for a few live performances but my yardstick of high-quality rock and pop acts is how good they are live. If they’re better than they are on their albums, they’re good. If they make you want to listen to albums by other bands, they’re not good. Sarah McLachlan is the latter.
And another thing; I don’t believe for one fucking instant she started Lilith Fair as a feminist statement, though I believe lots of people got involved with it for that reason. I think she started it because it was a way to make moolah and get more people out to her concerts because some people will come to watch actual talent like Sheryl Crow and the Indigo Girls, but Sarah gets a fat cut of the take. There’s nothing WRONG with starting a concert to make dough, but at least be honest about it. Side note: I cannot help but notice that despite her alleged support of female acts, HER band is made up entirely of guys.
e) It’s unrelated, but I think she’s fuckin’ ugly, too.
To summarize my rant: I think Sarah McLachlan is a phony, lying, plagiarizing, two-faced harpy who’s been hacking her way through success more because of her canny marketers than anything she’s ever done herself. Her music is repetitive, boring, unimaginatively written and essentially unchanged from 1988, except now it’s a little bit worse. She’s a mediocre singer, a shitty live act, and her videos suck too. I’d rather spend forty-eight hours power-felching for a live studio audience on FOX’s “World’s Worst Dysentery Cases Weekend Marathon” than spend ten minutes watching Sarah McLachlan on stage. Sarah McLachlan fucking eats it raw.
Who else do you folks hate?
