MTV2 22 Greatest Bands. - A Metal Sludge View

Not another stupid fucking list!!!

On the heels of my post yesterday, I find out that MTV 2 is running a thing this weekend called "22 Greatest Bands." Fuck, I can't handle this!!! I'm having a breakdown!

They had a poll on MTV.com that listed the following bands, and out of these bands, people voted. Supposedly 'you the viewer' picked the 22 bands. Why it was 22 and not 20, I have no clue. This poll's goal was to simply name the greatest bands that had their greatest string of commercial success during the post-MTV era, circa 1981. The bands were:

AC/DC
Aerosmith
Alice in Chains
Backstreet Boys
Beastie Boys
Blink-182
Bush
Bon Jovi
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
The Cars
The Clash
The Cure
Dave Matthews Band
Depeche Mode
Foo Fighters
Fugees
Goo Goo Dolls
Green Day
Guns N Roses
KISS
Korn
Limp Bizkit
Linkin Park
Metallica
Nine Inch Nails
Nirvana
*NSYNC
Oasis
Pearl Jam
Phish
The Police
Radiohead
The Ramones
Red Hot Chili Peppers
R.E.M.
The Replacements
The Rolling Stones
Smashing Pumpkins
The Smiths
Stone Temple Pilots
Soundgarden
U2
Van Halen
ZZ Top

First, why was Phish on that list? Can anybody tell me the last time they saw a fucking Phish video on MTV? And why wasn't Motley Crue or Def Leppard up there, since they both sold more records in the 80s than a majority of those bands listed? Also, you can't have a poll that includes both ZZ Top and Bruce Springsteen and also include Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. Fans of ZZ Top and Bruce Springsteen DON'T GO TO MTV.COM!! They don't give a shit about online voting! They're more concerned with paying the mortgage and having a life. So naturally Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit are going to be higher than those bands before the voting even starts, so that's bullshit right off the bat. That's providing the poll is even legit. Considering that TRL is a more rigged than a WWE match, I have my doubts that this is all on the up and up.

So who ended up on the stupid fucking list? Here ya go:

1. Nirvana
2. Metallica
3. Guns N Roses
4. U2
5. Radiohead
6. Linkin Park
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers
8. Green Day
9. Pearl Jam
10. No Doubt
11. Smashing Pumpkins
12. Nine Inch Nails
13. The Cure
14. Oasis
15. Aerosmith
16. Korn
17. Dave Matthews Band
18. Alice In Chains
19. Phish
20. Limp Bizkit
21. Van Halen
22. R.E.M.

I have a hard time believing that people actually voted this way. I don't even know anybody who voted. I didn't vote. Did you? No you didn't. And how many votes did they get? 20, 25? How legit is this stupid fucking thing?

If this list is totally legit, (and that's a big IF), and I owned MTV and saw how my viewers ranked these bands, I'd close my fucking channel. I wouldn't want fans that were that stupid. Linkin Park over Aerosmith? Phish over Van Halen? Not even on a weekend binge of smoking crack could make most people ever think that way.

Now I'm not going to go over if Nirvana should be #1 or not. The best thing Kurt Cobain ever did for his career was kill himself. Hey, the truth hurts. Had he been alive today, he could have ended up looking like Jani Lane or putting out some bad CDs, and then the critics would have turned on him in a heartbeat and forgotten they ever gave a shit about him. But since he killed himself in his prime, he'll always be a legend. So I'm not even going to get into if Nirvana should be #1 or not because that's a lost cause.

But why was Phish included and not Motley Crue or Def Leppard? Can you even name a Phish song? Has Phish ever been played on MTV or MTV 2? Phish has sold 4.5 million records in I don't know how many years. They have one platinum award and the rest are Gold. Motley Crue, who started the same year MTV was formed, has sold 22.5 milllion in the US alone. Dr. Feelgood alone sold 6 million records, which is more than Phish's entire catalog!! They influenced an entire scene of music. Yet Motley is nowhere to be found on the list. You couldn't even vote for them if you wanted to! If you surveyed 100 random people on the street to name a member of Phish, they couldn't do it. Ask them to name a member of Motley Crue, and they probably could. Or at least they'd say something like, "that guy with the big dick who fucked that chick on a boat." That would be close enough for me. But with Phish, you know nothing! The singer for Phish could walk up to me and tug on my nuts and I'd have no idea who he was.

Two other bands that were blown off the stupid fucking list include Bon Jovi and Def Leppard. I'm not the biggest Bon Jovi and Def Leppard fan in the world, but if they're going by "greatest bands that had their greatest string of commercial success after 1981" then those 2 bands need to be on the fucking list! Bon Jovi sold 31.5 million in the US, and Def Leppard sold 32 million in the US, both thanks to MTV. You couldn't turn on MTV back in the late 80s and not see a Def Leppard or Bon Jovi video. Bon Jovi's "Slipper When Wet" and Def Leppard's "Hysteria" sold 12 million albums each! Those 2 albums sold more than any other band's album on that list except for Metallica "Black" album, which sold 13 million. Pearl Jam's "Ten" came close at 11 million. Yet somehow, Phish made this list and Bon Jovi and Def Leppard didn't. And you mean to tell me The Cure, Linkin Park, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, and Oasis have had more success than Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, or Def Leppard? Or is that because MTV's demographics don't include kids who have any clue about Motley, Bon Jovi or Def Leppard?

And how is Van Halen ranked #21 and Linkin Park is ranked #5??? Linkin Park has put out only 2 albums, and their latest one only came out a few months ago! So they're at number 5 based on basically one record. Tell me, who's influenced more bands, Van Halen and Aerosmith or Linkin Park? Exactly. MTV should be embarrassed to even have this on their channel with results like this. If fans really did vote that way, they should have just said, "Our fans are idiots, we can't air this. This is insane!" But since Linkin Park is popular at this very moment, and Van Halen hasn't done anything in a while, all the kids of today would naturally vote for Linkin Park. It was rigged from the get-go.

And while I'm bitching, just let me say FUCK RADIOHEAD! I'm sick of those bastards. I just don't get it. It's great music if you want to slip into a comma. "Oh, the guy is a genius." Shut the fuck up! "Hysteria" alone and "Slippery When Wet" alone sold more records than all of Radiohead and Oasis sales combined! What does that tell you? It tells me people rather listen to Def Leppard and Bon Jovi than Radiohead and Oasis! But critics love Radiohead and Oasis and you're supposed to as well since they're so fucking great! The singer for Radiohead even shits gold! They can do no wrong! They'll even probably discover a cure for cancer! Radiohead is the greatest band on the planet, yet they've never had anything more than a platinum record after putting out 5 records over the last 10 years.

Fun Fact: Skid Row has played for more people and sold more records than Radiohead. Skid Row is at 7.5 million in the US and Radiohead is at 4.5 million in the US. According to the general public, you know, the people that actually BUY the CDs and not get them for free in the mail like critics do, they would say Skid Row was more succcesful and enjoyable than Radiohead. But do you ever see Skid Row's name pop up anywhere on these lists? Fuck no!

And just to be a dick, let me point out that Korn has sold just as many records as Poison, and Poison was all over MTV as well. But again, it's cooler to have Korn on the list than Poison.

Another thing that is as annoying as having a red hot poker shoved down your dick hole is during all these lists that MTV and VH-1 do, they have people talk about why the artist is so great. But it's always people you've never heard of, as if I'm supposed to give a shit what some geek in a tie has to say about somebody. Or they have some really played out celebrity like Re-Run from "What's Happening" or somebody who is just totally random. For the "22 Greatest Bands" they had Jim Breuer from Saturday Night Live talk about bands. Who gives a shit what he has to say? Yet he wasn't as bad as Matt Pinfield saying almost the exact same thing for every band! He sounded like he was going to cum in his pants the way he talked about every band being great. That guy needs to get out more.

It's much more politically correct to put REM, The Cure, Phish, Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nail, Korn, and Linkin Park on the list than Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Poison, etc. I don't really buy that "you the viewer" picked these bands. The powers-that-be sit around and drink their fucking Starbucks and try to make a "politically correct" list that makes them look like hip and will impress the other music critics, and that's it. Just like the Rolling Stone list. They're out to suck each other off and impress their intellectual music buddies.

You know what, I'm going to come up with my own list called "20 Worst Lists Of All Time." The first one is going to be Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time" and I'll work my way down from there. Then I'll rank some of Blender's stupid lists and the shit VH-1 puts on every so often, like "Best One-Hit Wonders" which includes bands that have multiple hits. Idiots.

I'm out like Metal Sludge's future mentions in Rolling Stone,

OZZY STILLBOURNE