RockRoast

Love songs have long been a staple of rock music and many of its various subgenres. That is perhaps why it is so amusing to come across a rock song that seems to give the concept of love the proverbial middle finger. So after a bit of thought and a lot of lyric-reading, I’ve drawn up a list of what I consider to be the least romantic rock songs of all time.

10. Queensryche – Fear City Slide
The main character in the song is sitting there with a gun, contemplating suicide, when the ghost of his dead lover whispers, “Trigger…pull the trigger!” I’m sure the lyrics were meant to lead into a heartwarming reunion in the afterlife. But something about your lover trying to convince you to kill yourself seems a bit wrong.

9. Simon & Garfunkel – I Am a Rock
Somebody’s a little jaded. The narrator of the song hates laughter and loving and has apparently suppressed every kind of positive emotion for fear of being hurt. It’s a pretty bleak song, and not one you often hear a young lad using to serenade a young lass.

8. Muse – Time is Running Out
Don’t play this one during a candlelight dinner. It contains several potentially awkward lines like “I want to break this spell that you’ve created” and “I tried to give you up, but I’m addicted.” But wait for when it all culminates with “you will suck the life out of me.” I really hope that this song is about alcoholism or something, but the amount of personification of the unnamed thing the narrator is talking to worries me that this song really is about a relationship.

7. The Rolling Stones – Under My Thumb
From what I’m told, if you tell a woman you’ll suppress her personality, control her life and generally treat her like an object, she won’t melt like butter. Who knew?

6. The Guess Who – American Woman
So, he’s trying to get rid of this woman that he worries he’s irrationally attracted to. It’s not exactly romantic to begin with, but the icing on the cake is “I got more important things to do/Than spend my time growin’ old with you.” If that’s not a burn, I don’t know what is.

5. Nickelback – Someday
You know the guy’s committed when he promises to fix the relationship “someday…but not right now.” The beginning of the second verse cracks me up, too: “Well I hoped that since we’re here anyway/We could end up saying/Things we’ve always needed to say.” It’s like he’s hoping to patch things up whenever it’s convenient. And the use of “end up” instead of a more voluntary, motivated phrase is also amusing.

4. The Cars – You’re All I’ve Got Tonight
Under the guise of being an “I love you no matter what” song, the lyrics tell a completely different story. I felt like an idiot when I finally realized that the song was really saying, “You’re the best I can get right now, so…I guess I’ll take it.”

3. Porcupine Tree – The Start of Something Beautiful
It’s not exactly a love song to begin with, but when the chorus kicks in things go sour pretty quickly. The chorus contains one of the most casual, dispassionate let-downs of all time: “Innocent, the time we spent, forgot to mention we’re good friends.” That, followed by the cruel, “You thought it was the start of something beautiful? Well, think again” makes this song deliciously unromantic. Whoever the narrator was talking to just got emotionally destroyed.

2. Meat Loaf – Paradise by the Dashboard Light
After spending well over five minutes telling the story of two teenagers making love in a car, this song takes an ironic twist. The female character convinces the male character to promise to love her until the end of time. Immediately following that, the male character claims that he is “praying for the end of time to hurry up and arrive,” because he can’t stand the woman anymore and he’s anxious to be free of her. That’s such a horrible thing to say that, quite honestly, it makes me laugh every time I hear it.

1. Violent Femmes – Ugly
It’s song about a guy who doesn’t like some ugly person. And to add insult to insult, singer Gordon Gano begins chanting and screaming “Ugly!” at the end of the song, just to make sure he got his message across properly.

How’s that for pillow talk?

Well, my hopes for a great new album from Into Eternity were veritably murdered by an April 2nd post on their official website.

The band have announced that the title of their upcoming release is The Incurable Tragedy. Earlier, I had expressed interest in their next album because guitarist Tim Roth had described it as a concept album. But it seems the concept will revolve around the cancer-related deaths of several of Roth’s friends and family members.

Poor guy. But cancer isn’t exactly the best subject matter for a concept album. I was hoping for something along the lines of Pink Floyd’s The Wall or Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime. I wanted something with one of those awesome fictional plots. But it appears that Roth’s lyrics will be intensely personal and overwhelmingly depressing. Kind of like his lyrics on the band’s last album, unfortunately.

I suppose only the release of the album will be able to confirm whether I’m right about the concept, but I’m not as optimistic as I was before this news.

Couple that with the release of a demo track from The Incurable Tragedy recently released on the band’s Myspace page and I’m hardly optimistic at all. The song, “Diagnosis Terminal,” sounds like it would have belonged very well on Into Eternity’s previous release, The Scattering of Ashes, in that it is bursting with unused potential.

“Diagnosis Terminal” contains some of the band’s trademark sounds: quick, ill-transitioned time signature changes, mediocre vocals ranging from throaty screams to low growls to clean falsetto, melodies that alternate between flatness and beauty, moments of instrumental brilliance buried between loud solos and hyperactive riffs, and the usual raping of the double-bass pedal. It’s discouraging to hear so many things in one song that are so similar to the mess that was The Scattering of Ashes. I’d hoped to hear some kind of progression, a different direction, or a bit more variety. But “Diagnosis Terminal” is only one song. Hopefully the rest of The Incurable Tragedy will be better.

We can only hope.

Ultima Ratio (2002)
Superior

Superior is a German progressive metal band that has seen very limited exposure outside of their home country. Ultima Ratio is easily the least progressive of their three releases, but it’s also the best.

Ultima Ratio is a concept album, following the journey of two men who start a religion based on rationalism and the mastery of emotion. Over the course of the album, their religion’s massive, worldwide success causes things to spiral out of control, and the two friends, seeing two different problems, plan different, drastic solutions. Complex and riveting, Ultima Ratio’s plot is by far my favorite storyline of any concept album.

The music is ingenious, too—there isn’t a weak song on the entire disc. Superior also maintains a good balance between unbridled aggression and calming beauty. The first song, “Ultra,” shows Superior’s dual-guitar attack at its best and immediately plunges the listener into the story. Later on, “Terror Fantasy” begins with a kind of joint guitar/keyboard riff that blows me away every time. And the final song, “Judgment Day,” is difficult not to sing along with. Throughout the record, Jan Becker’s keyboard work adds considerable depth to the sound. Meanwhile, Michael Tangermann croons, growls, whispers and perfectly matches every kind of feeling the music requires of him.

This is a fun album for Queensryche fans, too. It’s filled with little nuggets that briefly pay homage to Queensryche, especially to Operation: Mindcrime. Ultima Ratio avoids blatant ripoffs, however, and the whole album comes off as a brilliant achievement in musical expression and creativity.