A Song By My Least Favorite Band | She Loves the Lovin’ Things
Once upon a time, there was a boy. This boy had friends, and they were driving around trying to find something to do on some random night.
They were too young to drink, as such, so a bar was out of the question. Nothing they wanted to see was showing at the movies. It was too cold to go play outside.
They ended up at a pool hall, just a place to kill a few hours. The boy and his best friend dropped a few quarters into the hall’s Time Crisis machine and proceeded to kill a few dozen bad guys. They couldn’t hear the game over the hall’s music; there was a speaker mounted directly above the machine that drowned out any noise the game might be making.
That speaker suddenly let loose with the famous opening line: “Any way you want it, that’s the way you need it!”
The boy played on. He was too much a professional, so to speak, to walk away from a game for a reason like that, so he continued to mow down the enemy until his lives were, at last, mercifully depleted.
Still, the speaker wasn’t able to drown out the sound of his screaming.
When it came to light that the music was controlled by a jukebox, and the song had been chosen by his alleged friends? There should have been hell to pay.
The boy, though, was a good sport about it, and laughed it off.
They all lived happily ever after.
(Full disclosure: that boy was me.)
I understand, truly, that Journey are technically very talented. Their songwriting is good, their proficiency at their instruments is good, even Steve Perry’s vocals on all of their biggest hits is good. But just because a band is technically very good doesn’t mean I can’t fucking hate them, and fucking hate them I do.
I’ve had the argument about Journey dozens of times. I will probably continue to have it the rest of my life. Yes, I know that there are hundreds, probably thousands, tens of thousands of bands that are worse than Journey in any way you care to name. Just as you should know by now that no amount of being worse than them is going to change my mind about their status as the worst fucking band in the universe.
It is with no small amount of venom that I say now: Journey, I fucking hate you.
Mine are the Chili Peppers. GOD. They make my skin crawl.