iwrestledabearonce

Ahh hipsters. Since about the mid-2000's you guys have been moving outward, conquering musical territories beyond your home plate of folkie Jesus cosplayers. It's pretty depressing. Despite this, a rather naive and optimistic part of me always believed the realm of loud guitars and headbanging would be left relatively untouched by the hipster invasion. Surely the world of leather jackets, greasy unkempt hair, and obtuse shredding was far too uncool to be worth the time of hipsters. Sadly... no.

Ladies and gentlemen...

Hipster metal...



Sweet heaping pile of Christ, where do I start? Who would of thought the first band to embody hipster to the point of self-parody would be a metal band? Just watch :17-:44 and try not grinding the enamel off of your teeth.

Let me start with the music itself. iwrestledabearonce are described by themselves, critics, and their numbskull fans as "progressive" or "art" metal. Which is a laugh, because nothing they're doing is particularly progressive or arty. Unless of course you've never actually listened to progressive music or deathcore at any point in your life. Which, when you consider that most of their audience are probably musically retarded hipsters, might actually explain their rabid cult following. All they're doing is playing generic deathcore interspersed randomly with "cra-hey-heyyyyyyyyzeeeeeeeeeeee" genre/pop culture references. I'm pretty sure your typical iwrestledabearonce songwriting sessions involves pulling little note cards out of a hat. Supposedly, another major part of their "unique", "arty" sound is their tendency towards having clean vocal, synth heavy bridges. But those are just as uninspired and generic as their metal parts and their genre hopping, so fuck them. Their songs are Family Guy episodes, they follow no connecting themes, no connecting ideas, it's all copypasta'd and while it is quirky, it's really nothing else beyond that, and it doesn't aspire to be anything but that. It's Shakespearean, "full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

I feel like these guys are actually worse then brokenCYDE, if only because brokenCYDE aren't really musicians. They're like guitardouches in skinny jeans, they only play music to get laid.

But IWDBO (because I'm fucking sick of typing out that whole, ridiculous name already) are different. They're all pretty technically proficient, their lead singer's screaming vocals are very good. They seem to be taking this all seriously! That makes their awfulness seem all the worse.

Now on to their personality. Which pretty much fucking sucks. Judging by their band name, their song titles, and their music videos, IWDBO are a couple of the most slappable people on the face of the planet.

"Oh! They're so clever and funny and ironic because they draw mustaches on themselves in their music videos but it's funny because the guys with the drawn on mustaches already have facial hair isn't that funny and ironic and clever and awesome and stuff?"

"Hurr durrr! They're funny because they have a song called "Tastes Like Kevin Bacon" it's funny because Kevin Bacon's last name is bacon which is a food that you can taste."

There is not enough "fuck you" in the universe to describe my response to their endless aren't-we-just-so-funny jokes. You're not being funny, you're just being a bunch of smug hipster douchebags.

And when they're not doing stuff like that, there are points in their music videos/lyrics/songs/their band name itself that you see/hear, and you know it's supposed to be funny, but you don't know the punchline. You know they're laughing, and you're supposed to be laughing, but you don't know what you're supposed to be laughing at? I'm guessing a lot of this stuff are in-jokes that only the members of the band understand. Well, if that's the case, that just makes them that twat at a party who tells bad jokes that only they laugh at, saying stuff like "Oh! You guys don't know Jeff! It's only funny if you know Jeff! If you knew Jeff this would totally be hilarious." In other words, they're not just gigantic hipster douchebags, they're gigantic hipster douchebags that laugh at their own bad jokes.

And who could forget their fans? To one of their fans, if you don't like IWDBO, then it's not because their music is liquid diarrhea in musical form, it's because you just like boring music and you don't understand "edgy" or "different" or "progressive" music. In IWDBO fandom land, IWDBO are a good band because they're all technically proficient, their lead singer is a good screamer (for a girl, as they always mention), and their lead singer is hot. In IWDBO fandom land, there have never been other, better bands with eye candy lead singers, there have never been other extreme metal vocalists that are women (who are good regardless of their gender, not in spite of it), and there have been other, better bands with technically proficient members. Not to mention the fact that none of the above necessarily amounts to a band being "good". In IWDBO land, IWDBO are the first and only experimental metal band ever. Faith No More? Never heard of them. Atheist? Doesn't exist. Nope, IWDBO are the only metal band to ever dabble in multiple genres outside of metal.

I was talking to a friend, and he suggested that maybe, just maybe, IWDBO are this awful on purpose. Maybe their awfulness is "meta-art", it's purposefully bad in an attempt to make a statement. By filling their music with humorless jokes and pointless pop culture references, they're making a massive, nihilistic statement about the ultimate meaningless noise of life.

If that's the case, then IWDBO are the most pretentious shits on planet Earth and are still gigantic douchebags.

Fuck them, and fuck Jeff.

More shit.

MOAR!!!

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Ahh hipsters (...) folkie Jesus cosplayers.

Hahaha I love you, Doobie. I do.

grmblfjx wrote:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Ahh hipsters (...) folkie Jesus cosplayers.

Hahaha I love you, Doobie. I do.

. . .

Leave us out of this.

If you're going to be generic and lacking in hummable melody, at least stay that way the whole song. There's nothing more moderately annoying than putting on some background music and having it nudge you in the ribs just as you've tuned it out.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

their lead singer is a good screamer (for a girl, as they always mention)

Odds of her dumping the losers and finding a decent band?

It does sound like the bajillion other screamo bands my ex-roommate used to blare and expect me not to complain about. And she felt entitled to complain about loud sex... I don't know what was worse, my extremely misogynistic, transphobic extremely-stealth transguy roommate or her who I don't know how the hell she'd blow her whole paycheck on doing stupid puerile shit and complain about being poor. Yeah I know you work at Walmart but you made more than I did and I still was less broke than you

Maybe the in-joke is that it's generic and ironic in that they look like Justin Bieber?