'90s Eddie Vedder-esque vocals (have these gone away yet?)
white belts (it was cool when Dave Davies did it), tight “ironic” vintage shirts (it was cool when Frank Zappa did it), blazers with jeans (always bad)
“c’mon”
“make love”
the “sparkly glittery magical pixiedust sprinkling” sound effect
I-V-vi-IV
low-slung guitars (putting it really high is so much cooler)
egregious use of the “kicking it up a notch” key change at the end of a song (sometimes it works well, but mostly it’s really cheesy)
most slow wah/filter sweep sounds in techno – I think I killed a couple of entire genres there
Hey, don’t knock the California Raisins 
I second the Mariah-style “look at my octave range” wailing.
Idols contestants are allowed to make their one CD as per contract, then shot. Same for Popstars manufactured “groups”.
R Kelly is forbidden from dressing like a pimp. I’m not talking about “bling” or anything, I’m talking about the Mask -style zoot suits.
Bollocks it is. Stupid stiff style Beatles guitar up around your nipples? Fuck that. Simenon style as low as you can get it is the way it always should be in rock. The only exception I will make is Angus Young.
In Rap, having a shitty gruff voice and tonelessly shouting about cars and girls too - a la Ja fucking Rule & DMX. Its shit. Now, I love Dre as a producer, but his Eminem/D12 work really needs some freshness kicking into it - all the singles are basically the same backing. He can do better.
Anyone caling a song or using as lyrics ‘She said’. Knock it off.
This made my morning.
Allow me to add to the “waving of hands in air.” thought. No more songs trying to create dances or dictating dance moves. Limp Bizkits “rollin” and Fat Joes “I’m too damn fat to dance. I can barely breathe without sweating Lean back.” spring to mind. If you really feel the need to inflict that shyte on us, just redo the hokey pokey or the chicken dance.
I’ll third the vocal warbling rule. That crap makes me want to put screwdrivers into my ears.
Rap/R&B stars cannot have guests on their first two albums and cannot have guests on any more than three tracks off of all subsequent albums. It’s gotten so bad that I can’t tell who I’m watching without a scorecard.
Albums are not mandatory after you have been in the public eye for more than five minutes. Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, I’m looking at you.
Dressing like a slut is not who you are. It’s not liberating. You’re not flaunting your sexuality in a way that shocks us. You are annoying. If that is really who you are, get thee to a street corner.
If you need a backing track to strengthen your voice, you need a new career. If you need it because you are dancing, you need to decide if you are a singer or a dancer.
If you can’t write a song, you need to play an instrument. I don’t care if it’s a tambourine. Grab something and put yourself to good use.
Drugs need to be put back into music. It will either aid in creativity or weed out the sucky. Win-win baby.
Forgot one.
Not having a new album if it’s been five years between is fine. I’d like to add a minimum year and a half time period between albums. I can’t think of one good album that came less than a year after the previous. Take the time to make a good album and road test it or don’t do it at all.
Let’s be fair: I’m willing to grandfather in Barry Manilow on this one on the grounds that he virtually invented it. Anyone else caught doing it will be forced to wear a “I heart Barry Manilow” t-shirt at their next television appearance.
As a bonus, Barry himself gets no airplay except on soft rock stations, so we still won’t have to hear it unless we’re actively trying to.
Beat me to it. I like White Stripes a whole lot, but that cover is seriously good.
Except for…
1, 2, 3-Uhh! My baby don’t mess around…
More rules:
No more of this “start quietly with acoustic instruments, then get really really loud with bass and percussion”. At least, not on every song. It’s been done to death.
No vibrato for no good reason.
No more easy targets. All the Michael Jackson jokes have been made. They’re boring now.
world/unfurled in another put-to-death rhyme. It was cool when Jackson Browne did it thirty years ago. And world does not rhyme with girl.
All aging rock stars get one final tour. That is it. I’m sick of zombie bands rising from the dead.
And no aging rock star should be allowed to marry anyone more than twenty years younger than they are. That’s just oogy.
There cannot possibly be as many pimps as are claimed in rap music today. I took a quick census of the prostitutes I saw on the way home from work last night, and unless they’re being pimped on time share, some of you will have to back off of your claims.
Are you there God? It’s me, Cluricaun. Can you tell Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top we can all tell he’s bald and that his hat is just weird looking? At lest get him to wear an array of hats or something.
If you’re 30, or hell even 25, writing songs about high school love (i.e. Blink-182) you’re really creepy. Really.
Cluricaun, that’s it. I am officially going to start stalking you around here. You are simply cracking me up.
[sub]Disclaimer: no, not really, I’m not COMPLETELY psycho![/sub]
Last night, as I was futzing with my music collection, I thought of something. We’ve discussed outlawing band names with numbers in them (with some exceptions). We’re going to give a pass to U2, aren’t we?
Sorry, the high-guitar thing just looks stupid. No love for the super-low ones either. It’s become kind of a trend: if the waist of your pants comes to your knee, you also put your guitar at your knee. Looks awful and makes it clear you can’t actually play your guitar, so you need something to make it look cool.
U2 gets a pass on a lot of stuff - e.g., not changing the line-up every 5 years. I am not a huge fan - I love Achtung Baby, enjoy the last album and really dig the new single (starting to get played to death, though) - but they seem like they still have it.
Okay, my additional rules:
-
No more nu-metal - de-tuned low guitars, rappy bits over that and crushing choruses. Limp Korn Park - that means you.
-
No more croaking vocals - Vomiting is not singing, okay death-metal types?
-
No more well-packaged teen angst - okay, teens suffer, but bottling it and selling it is just wrong. If I hear another “low volume verse with lame rapping, vaulting into a bleach-gargling, throat-sanding chorus of utter pain” song, that’s IT. Yes, that means you Linkin Park. I lean to feeling this way about Good Charlotte, too - the anti-suicide song had a good message, but heavy handed much?
-
No more faux-earnest corporate metal pop - thankfully Creed has broken up, but you get the idea.
All for now.
The ‘new alternative’ pattern - soft verse, loud chorus, soft verse, loud chorus, louder bridge, soft acoustic version of first verse, loud chorus, end - needs to be put out of its misery.
I think we need a moratorium on moping in music. Feel sad, sure, feel angry, feel whatever you what. But what I hear of rock music these days has become painfully mopey. Just admit you feel some fucking emotion!
Oh, and a memo to all the teen-aged white girls singing like black women: learn some new moves. Everybody knows this style now and the girls learn it at 12 from their voice teachers; it’s no longer cool or credible. Better yet, just develop your own singing style. Better still, learn to sing without the studio help.
Creed broke up? Wow, they busted just about every rule in this thread, the future of music is breathing a huge sigh of relief.
To slightly amend the “Eddie Vedder imitator” violation, female artists may no longer be allowed to do the “Alanis Morisette growl”, I’m looking at you Avril…
Paging: Please Please Me, Meet The Beatles, Beatles For Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles, Abbey Road and Let It Be. There is a call for you on the white courtesy phone.
New rule: all songs must have at least four chords, or at least one chord that is not I, IV or V.
(Not to mention: A Hard Day’s Night)
How about…
Ramones (5/1976)
Leave Home (2/1977)
Rocket To Russia (11/1977)
Road To Ruin (6/1978)
4 classics in just over 2 years.
Or The Beatles.
Rubber Soul (12/1965)
Revolver (8/1966)
Sgt. Pepper (6/1967)
Not a bad run.
The Kinks’ Face to Face, Something Else by The Kinks, and Village Green Preservation Society were all spaced about a year apart (1966-1968)
On the other hand, I can’t think of any examples from the past 20 years.
Front Line Assembly put out three albums in three months that were generally pretty well-regarded.
A good example: Springsteen’s Human Touch & Lucky Town.
Two “meh” albums at the same time. Should have been one good album.