Annoying Songs to Play at Bars: Vol. 1

I decided -- due to lack of anything else to write about -- to try my hand at a recurring feature on this here blog. As you can tell by the title, this particular feature revolves around music. (I swear, this isn't a music blog! I'll write about something else at some point...)

I don't know about any of you, but when I go to a bar with a jukebox -- I don't go to clubs or bars that employ DJs -- the music inevitably sucks most of the time. Now I realize solving that problem is fairly easy: hang out at a place that has a crowd that has the same tastes in music as I do. Except that 1) I don't like people, so fitting in with a "crowd" or "clique" isn't easy for me, 2) I grew up in a cultural wasteland (read: suburb) and still go to bars there, so a place like that doesn't actually exist in my part of the country, and 3) That's no fun, anyway.

So what's a boy to do when some douche at the jukebox thought it would be great to play ICP or Nickelback or Dream Theater for 30 minutes straight? Fight back with some songs that'll take the piss out of him/her/everybody!

You have to be aware of your surroundings: I couldn't walk into a heavy metal bar and play Slayer because they would dig it, and I couldn't play Elton John because they would kick my ass. It's far easier to pull this off at a bar that caters to all sorts of demographics, yet it can't be a place that's completely indifferent to the music being played.

Walking that line between annoyance and indifference really is the key to making it work. You don't want to piss off the crowd too much. If you're single -- and I am not, so I guess this doesn't apply to me -- you wouldn't want to chase off the cute girls/guys with a 25 minute set of Hank Williams Sr., would you? Or, more applicable to me, I wouldn't want to piss off the bartenders: they could serve me slower, not consider me for free shots even though I tip fairly well (compared to my drinking buddy, anyway), or even worse, they could skip the song altogther. So you gotta be careful with these songs.

I'm not sure if this goes without saying but I'm going to say it anyway: A digital jukebox is essential for this mission. Hell, if you're in a bar that still has a CD jukebox (they're becoming extinct where I am) you're probably comfortable enough with the music inside anyway, so why even bother?

Finally, it's very important that you actually like the song. Sure, if you really wanted to assault the ears of certain patrons by playing some tracks from any of Nine Inch Nails' remix albums. But no one -- not even Trent Reznor himself -- wants to listen to that garbage.

With this in mind, I give you (and I promise there will be no more long-winded intros in the future) the first of hopefully many Annoying Songs to Play at Bars.

Band: Metallica
Title: Seek and Destroy
Album: Live Shit: Binge and Purge (this is key!)
Length: 18:06

This song is kind of deceitful because at first it's like, "hey, it's Metallica, all right!" At least, if you are a current fan or one that likes their older material... and if not then the song is annoying right off the bat, making it an easy choice. But back to the deceit: it starts off like any other good Metallica song - heavy riffs and an awesome solo or two. But then it gets, well, interesting.

You see, "Seek and Destroy" in its original album configuration is "only" a seven minute song. So what does Metallica do to fill the remaining 12 minutes of this behemoth of a track? They jam. And not improvisational jamming, just the main riff over and over and over again. But that's not all folks, no, they decide that it would be really cool to have crowd members sing "seek and destroy!" into the microphone about a million times. This is already incredibly annoying, but to make it worse they're in Mexico city, so now you have people who already speak poor English doing their worst James Hetfield impressions.


This song is annoying on sheer length alone, but compounded with there's far too much crowd participation and the fact that it's actually a good song to begin with makes this particular version of "Seek and Destroy" a prime choice to annoy the living hell out of anyone in earshot, especially those who thought it a good idea to play Justin Timberlake and 50 Cent over and over again.


I have devised a ratings system just for fun, and mostly because I thought it incredibly funny to use "Lars Ulrichs" as my rating instead of stars or numbers.

Ratings go from 1-5, least to most.

Obscurity: 2 Everybody knows who Metallica is and have probably heard their music at some point. However, only hardcore fans would know that they have a live box set with some ridiculously lengthy songs. That, and stuff from Kill 'Em All isn't all that popular with the average music fan.

Length: 5 18 freaking minutes? Are you kidding me? That's long by even Metallica standards.

Tuneoutability: 5 You try ignoring a pumped-up Mexican screaming "Seek and Destroy!" in broken English at the top of his lungs.

I will explain that category, because it is weird:

I made up "tuneoutability" as a way to explain several different factors. The musical arch-nemesis and I discussed this and came up with something that may or may not make sense. Is the song played out or -- and this goes hand in hand with obscurity -- will it garner a reaction like: "wow, I haven't heard that in a while. Cool!" This is important because, though both are actually negative reactions to something that's supposed to be annoying, the former suggests indifference which is not what we want. T-O-A (I will come up with a new word at some point) is also about whether or not the song grabs your attention. This can be as simple as quietness or loudness, but (hopefully) also makes the listener go "What the fuck is this shit?" That is really what I'm aiming at here with these songs. As far as the rating is concerned, the higher the Ulrich count, the LESS easier it is for one to tune it out.


I hope that helps.


Overall rating:


Goddamn, I can't stop laughing at that image. Anyway, "Seek and Destroy" gets knocked down half an Ulrich because even I can't stand it for all 18 minutes. Which is, of course, the very reason why it is easily one of the most annoying songs you could ever play.