Brendan Leonard has asked bloggers to list their least favorite band, not necessarily to debate the issue. However, he has thrown the gauntlet by adding Rush to his list of most hated bands. First, I realize a person can hate any band they choose, and I would defend to the death their right to do so.

Or something like that.

But as fate would have it, Rush is one of my favorite bands from decades past. I played my Moving Pictures (Mercury/Universal, 1981) cassette until the oxide-plastic tape either disintegrated or was eaten by my perpetually ravenous player (I can't remember which, because so many of my cassettes met their ultimate doom in one of these two inglorious manners).

I also saw Rush in concert at The Forum in L.A. You would not have believed the sound three guys could pump out---I was blown away, contact high from mind-altering clouds notwithstanding.

It's ironic that Brendan would choose to skewer his least favorite band on the merit of lyrics, because I happen to think Neil Peart is one of the best lyricists ever:

(From The Pass, a song about a suicide):

Proud swagger out of the school yard
Waiting for the world's applause
Rebel without a conscience
Martyr without a cause
.
.
.
No hero in your tragedy
No daring in your escape
No salutes for your surrender
Nothing noble in your fate

It may not be Yeats, and I understand not being partial to Geddy Lee's voice, but to mention Rush in a blog titled under Def Leppard lyrics? Sacrilege.

Okay, down from the soapbox, and on to the issue at hand. Calling out a least favorite band for me is really difficult, because there is a veritable pantheon of choices over the years, most of which came from my decade-the 80's. But that segues into my next point, and the crux of my difficulty:

Music---good, bad, or ugly---has always defined moments in time for me, and when I hear a particular song, it takes me back to those moments. There are many bands that I would not listen to, nor would I own their music, but still they do have a place somewhere in my history.

Yes, even Culture Club leaves a mark, albeit not a pretty one. (And, yes, they sucked horribly.) But in the end, I agree 100 percentwith Brendan: you can't pick a band that really wasn't good enough, or popular enough, to warrant such attention.

All of this, in the end, makes my choice easy, as the band I truly hate is really not from "my time", and as such holds very little sentimental foothold in my personal canon. My least favorite band is sure to draw more than a smattering of quiet boos, but I promise this is not a gauntlet laid, only my truly least favorite and, I wholeheartedly believe, most overrated group of faux musicians of all time:

The Beatles.

I would rather listen to Beetle Bailey, were he able to croon from the comic pages of my youth, than to three bars from that whiny, mop-headed, British "invasion".

(They invade something, but it's not a place I am going to mention in polite company.)

I realize it was the fifties, and, well, I guess that says enough. Heck, just watch Happy Days and you'll get my drift. And I am not saying there's anything wrong with the fifties---it is a generation of young men and women that included my parents, who were great people (but who also preferred Elvis and, later, Bob Dylan, to the likes of Paul,George, Ringo, and John).

In my humblest of opinions, The Beatles was nothing more than a quartet of talent-poor, beatnik dorks who couldn't sing, so they manufactured a cult personality and, like many things that suck, the world decided to give them their place in history. Not unlike the British version of Power Rangers or the Cabbage Patch Kids.

Take that, Simon Cowell.

On the subject of lyrics, I'll just say:

We all live in a yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine,
We all live in a yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine,
And our friends are all aboard,
Many more of them live next door,
And the band begins to play.
We all live in a yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine,
We all live in a yellow submarine,
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.

Will the mother of the six year-old please come down to the music studio? Your child is writing hit songs for The Beatles.

Obligatory Breakfast Club Quote:

"...And these children
that you spit on
as they try to change their worlds
are immune to your consultations.
They're quite aware
of what they're going through..."
David Bowie