Hollywood Undead = FAIL

Album: Swan Songs
Artist: Hollywood Undead
Genre: Shock Rap/Nu-Metal/Screamo.
Year: 2008
Label: A&M/Octone Records

Hollywood Undead is everything I hate about bad music all rolled into one giant ball of ick. I didn’t think this was possible, but they’ve actually created something more detestable than Bring Me The Horizon’s Suicide Season. That album, which I believe I referred to as the worst album in the world, was at least confined to one bad genre. Hollywood Undead, on the other hand, wants all to be the worlds first Horrorcore/Emo/Screamo/Crunk/Shock Rap/Nu-Metal/Wonderbread Mix. Any one of these genres is bad and any one of the bands that practice these genres are bad, but together? These genres combined create one of the most gallingly awful sounds I have ever heard. I swear I’m getting an ulcer just listening to them.

I think we established with my Slipknot review that the age of Rage Rock and Nu-Metal is dead. The corpse, however, seems to be making a strong effort to crawl its way out of the coffin. Slipknot’s most recent… no, I can’t call it an album… release was its most vigorous attempt yet, but the weight of the stones we piled onto the grave have been able to keep it down thus far. The problem is that this thing just won’t fucking die. We shot it, stabbed it, drowned it, set it on fire and threw it down a hole and still it clings to life like a leech clinging to your back. Still, its loathsome offspring try to dig it up and restore it to life. And still, way down in the hole, it gives birth to new malformed creatures that should have never been given life at all. Hollywood Undead is one of those unfortunate creatures and I feel a mixture of pity and revulsion as they enter the world. Mostly revulsion though.

Swan Songs is the six-piece’s debut recording and it sounds like Limp Bizkt combined with Eminem, with extra helpings of Heavy Heavy Low Low and Linkin Park. If you think that sounds bad, rest assured, it does. First of all, the Emcee’s, all six of them, have about as much lyrical skill as a dead puppy, and boy do they love to yap. The raps consist of a more or less constant stream of Faggot, Bitch, Bitch Faggot and Motherfucker with a few mentions of Punk-Ass here and there. When not spouting obscenities, the lyrics are an amalgam of the absolute worst Gangsta Rap and Emo clichés on the face of the planet. They’re homophobic, misogynistic and, to top it all off, posers.

Hollywood Undead say they ain’t nothin’ to fuck wit’ but they certainly are fuckwits and I love fucking with them. Furthermore, all of the voices on this album are more or less indistinguishable from one another. They’re all snotty, whiny, gravely or screaming and about as appealing as having a cockroach crawl down your throat. The music is shit too, all Crunk beats mixed with Metal guitars, a combination that comes from a special place in music, the one that makes me sick all over the floor. There really isn’t anything positive to say about Hollywood Undead. The music is bad, and, worse, it’s completely unoriginal. Anyone who survived the Nu-Metal era has heard this before. It was bad then, and remains bad now. If I thought they would listen, I would advise Hollywood Undead to make this an actual album of Swan Songs and call it a day, because if the girls you describe are as skanky as that, then you’re probably gonna get syphilis and die. Sorry.