Hey there and welcome to another one of my Mixtapes. This is different however. This is the first time I've remade a Mixtape. Best of Teenage Angst II? Yes, because six years ago I made the Best of Teenage Angst. It was one of my first ever Mixtapes, possibly even the first. Click here to see it.
So why have I remade my Mixtape? Well I listened to it recently and looked at the list of songs, and I just thought it looked wrong. It looked a little dated in some ways; some of the songs were popular back in 2006 and have not really been as good. Obviously songs from the eighties live on, but modern songs die quickly, some of them do anyway. And also, I was looking at some of the songs and wondering what the logic was behind their selections? Johnny Mercyside of six years ago made some odd choices. For instance, why "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine? That song isn't a song about teenage angst. Is it a rebellion 'fuck you' song? Yes. But that's because they're sticking two fingers up at a lot of problems with the world. They weren't whining about things that weren't fair for kids. They were being adults. I could talk about other songs that aren't in the new list but I'd be here for a while.
So this is the NEW Best of Teenage Angst. New and improved. What is the logic behind the selections of these songs? Well either the lyrical content is a little immature, or aimed at young teenagers. Songs like "I Hate People" by Anti-Nowhere League is an example about how silly the lyrical content is. But then you have "I'm Eighteen" by Alice Cooper in here, a song that deals with the dilemmas of teenage life. "I'm a boy and I'm a man, I'm eighteen and I get confused everyday". So hopefully that explains it.
Don't know much about Mixtapes? Here are the rules.
A Mixtape is a playlist of a certain genre, band or era. The
list is generally 80 minutes long, the same length of a blank CD, with further
recommendations if some of the songs aren't to your taste. Remember kids,
downloading is wrong!
So here we go! Best of Teenage Angst II! Also, this
Mixtape is now available to listen to fully on YouTube so subscribe to me if you want to listen to it properly.
Orange Font - Artist was featured in 'Best of Teenage Angst I', but song has changed
So that's the new and improved Best of Teenage Angst! What songs can you think of that makes you think of teenage life, for good or bad? Comment below. Also do you think it's a better list of songs? Let me know. That's it from me, have a good day!
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Hello
and welcome to another Mixtape entry. Here's the third of three Mixtapes in three days. Missed yesterday's Mixtape? Click here. What about Sunday's? Click here.
Your welcome. Yesterday's Mixtape is my favourite licensed WWE wrestler
entrance themes and Sunday's is my favourite original non-licensed WWE
wrestler entrance themes.
Today
I celebrate my favourite WWE themes for Pay-Per-Views and television
shows. Not only do the WWE usually choose good songs for their wrestlers
they choose good songs to go with their PPVs and their two major
television shows, Raw and Smackdown!. They're not as consistent with
these as they are with their entrance themes, but there have been some
great tracks to go with certain WWE events and I'm going to share with
you my favourites.
Not familiar with my Mixtapes? Here are the rules.
A Mixtape is a playlist of a certain genre, band or era. The
list is generally 80 minutes long, the same length of a blank CD, with further
recommendations if some of the songs aren't to your taste. Remember kids,
downloading is wrong!
So here are my favourite WWE Pay-Per-View and television themes! Enjoy!
And
that's it! I hope you enjoyed this list. I don't just do wrestling
mixtapes, check out the "Music" tab above for other Mixtapes I've made.
Do you want to suggest me some other Mixtapes to do? Comment below with
some suggestions. That's it from me today, have a good night.
For the latest updates on my work, 'like' me on Facebook here!
“Gold Cobra” is
for the hardcore Bizkit faithful; it’s like they travelled back in time and
remade their first album from scratch.
Gold Cobra is Limp Bizkit’s sixth major album release and
their first in six years. The album was released back in June and marks the
first album by the original Limp Bizkit line up in 11 years, when the band
released their most successful album, “Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog
Flavored Water”. Before I go into the album review let me take you down memory
lane.
Limp Bizkit were on top of the world when nu-metal and rap
metal was at its peak, the turn of the decade. Alongside the Bizkit was Linkin
Park, Papa Roach, POD and others and they all churned out hits and rock anthems
that were very successful considering the genre they were associated with. None
of these bands got a #1 hit, apart from Limp Bizkit, who got to #1 in both the
UK and Ireland with the now classic track “Rollin’”. “Chocolate Starfish and
the Hot Dog Flavored Water”, the album the song was on, got to #1 in the album
charts in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and
New Zealand, and has sold at least 12 million copies worldwide. As I said, Limp
Bizkit was on top of the world. However, as the years progressed, nu-metal was
dying a quick death and was often a mocked genre rather than one that was
considered ‘cool’. In the ashes of nu-metal raised another genre of music, that
of emo music, which dropped a lot of the rap vocals and started mixing punk
with metal, alongside modern ballads about youth and young love. A lot of the
nu-metal bands started incorporating these themes and musical changes into
their music to stay relevant and successful, and some since have remained
successful, Linkin Park especially, where as others have struggled to keep up
with the changing times and transitions in teenage interest in music, and have
been dropping into the obscurities of metal music.
Limp Bizkit struggled to keep up with the times. “Results
May Vary”, while on paper was successful, getting to #1 in many countries and
selling well, started to show cracks in the band. There were band members that
came and left and came back again, there were problems on tour, the band got
mocked a lot due to the waning popularity and Fred Durst, the lead singer,
became a bit of a joke. The band released “The Unquestionable Truth Part 1” two
years later, six years ago, which barely hit the major music radar in any way
at all. Limp Bizkit then went on indefinite hiatus. Both albums after
“Chocolate Starfish” showed glimpses of the band giving baby steps into the
world of emo, but it was always unsuccessful and often criticised.
Four years later, it was officially announced that Limp
Bizkit were getting back together, with the complete original lineup. They did
a few short tours and festivals, most of them were well received. Being out of
the spotlight and thrusting themselves back in it was a bold move but it was
one that seems to be working, the band’s tours are doing well and there was a
certain reminisce and quirkiness about people seeing the band live again. They
decided to enter the studio again and that’s where we are now, with “Gold
Cobra”.
The album’s beginning, “Introbra” does very little but start
to prepare you for “Bring it Back”, a decent little track that does a great job
of set you up for what’s to come on the rest of the album. The first thing
you’ll notice is the great music; something that Limp Bizkit have often
done is produce decent sounding metal with the help of Wes Borland who has always
been a good guitarist. Fred Durst’s rapping vocals are as fierce and venomous
as always; the profanity in this album is definitely cranked to 11. “Bring it
Back” is a good song, but the confusing element of the track is that the verses
and the chorus are on two different speeds and it feels like the song jigs from
a low gear to a high gear too quickly. It’s still good and transcends nicely
into “Gold Cobra”, the title track, which was later released as the second
single off the album. “Gold Cobra” is definitely one of the best songs off the
album, and it’s a nicely polished song in comparison to what else is on here.
Fred Durst claims he wanted as much rawness and as little polish on the album
as possible and “Gold Cobra” does go against that intention, but that’s a good
thing in a way, sometimes the better songs on these albums are the tracks that
can work with a broad audience. “Gold Cobra” is a better track than some of the
songs released as singles in the latter part of Limp Bizkit’s career and it’s like
a mellower “Eat You Alive”, to compare it to another single.
I mentioned it before, but I’d like to emphasise there’s a
lot of swearing in this album. Now this isn’t new for Limp Bizkit, they’ve
taken this approach in nearly every album they’ve produced, but it does take
you aback slightly when you compare it to the music around today. Not only is
there a lot of swearing but there’s a lot of scathing lyrics and threats in the
album, once again, this isn’t new, it’s something Fred Durst has done many times
before. The reason I’m mentioning this is because it’s very reminiscent of the
anger and malice Fred showed back in the late nineties when he was an immature
man in his mid-twenties. Now that Fred Durst has hit his forties it’s a little
surprising to see him using the language and lyrics he uses; the man is over
twenty five years past his adolescence. But in a certain way it’s once again
very reminiscent of the old Limp Bizkit that got them popular way back in the
nineties.
There are two songs that come to mind when it comes to this
type of lyrical content, the first is “Get a Life”, one of the hardest hitting
songs on the album, where Durst screams “Get a life, get a motherfucking life,
you don’t want to see what I can do with a knife!”. It’s a little tragic but
there’s a certain aggression that sound good in the lyrics, it does bring me
right back to when I started listening to the band a good ten years ago. The
song, the lyrics aside, is actually quite good, and the lyrics are fine and
unsurprising even, if you’ve listened to Limp Bizkit properly before. The other
song is “Douche Bag”, a song that Fred Durst claimed he wanted released as the
first single but for reasons more likely politics related rather than a change
of heart, it was then pulled from single release. “Douche Bag” has a similar
chorus, one that has “I’m a fuck you up, fuck you fuck you fuck you up” as it’s
hook. It’s immature, it’s childish, it’s ‘naughty!’, but it’s really catchy at
the same time. I can’t help but like these two songs I have to admit, but if
you’ve not heard much Limp Bizkit, this type of lyrical content might come as a
surprise, not many bands do this nowadays where it was a lot more commonplace
in the early part of the last decade.
The first single was actually “Shotgun” in the end, and this
is a slightly more raw track in comparison to “Gold Cobra”, but it’s nothing on
the two songs above. “Shotgun”, a song that mixes in that threatening lyrical
content of the use of a shotgun, and the neighbourhood having them, is quite a
cool song. The song barely charted, actually, none of these Limp Bizkit singles
have sold particularly well which is a shame, as the songs are nearly as good
as the stuff that was released by the band in the early part of their career. I
definitely like the ‘shotgun’ sample used later on in the track to work as a
beat; the song is one of the best on the album.
My favourite track though, is “Walking Away”. Limp Bizkit
usually have one or two of these songs on their albums where Fred Durst sings
rather than raps or shouts. This is one of the best pieces of singing Fred’s
done in his entire career, and the song really stands out in an album full of
frenzied aggression. That being said, the song then twists into an angry output
towards the end, and once again, it makes the song stand out even more. Hearing the relatively nice singing clashing
with the fierce screams in the same track work very well here. After “Walking
Away” is another one of softer songs, a song called “Loser” which deals with
either the difficult relationship with a loved one, or the end result of an old
relationship. It’s one of the more mature tracks on the album, especially in
comparison to what’s available on here, and deals with Durst contemplating what
he had done and how he feels about what happened.
All
in all “Gold Cobra” is a good album, not great, but
good. There’s nothing really outstanding on here, but the album is
consistent
in its ability to be an album with good metal, decent rap vocals, lots
of
aggression and lots of nostalgia. This isn't Limp Bizkit trying to fit
into the new 'emo' genre. In the end this is Limp Bizkit doing what got
them their fame in the first place, rocking hard, rapping harder,
swearing lots
and sticking middle fingers up at anything and everything. If you liked
Limp
Bizkit’s old stuff, seriously, give this a listen, it’s like Limp Bizkit
travelled back in time and remade their first album from scratch. If you
don’t
like Limp Bizkit, quite simply, this isn’t for you, and I wouldn’t even
recommend this album if you like some of their material, it’s purely an
immature
indulgence for the hardcore faithful, and no one else. If you’re in the
Limp
Bizkit party, enjoy it motherfucker, if not, keep away because you’re
not
invited.
Rating: ***1/2 stars
Stand out tracks: Walking Away, Gold Cobra, Loser
Here's the video for the second single, "Gold Cobra":
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To view part 1, click here. To view part 2, click here. To view part 3, click here. To view part 4, click here. To view part 5, click here. To view part 6, click here.
Here's the beginning of my official Top 40, from #40 to #31!
#40. "I Predict a Riot" - Kaiser Chiefs Released: 1/11/04 Album: Employment Accolades: #36 in NME's 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever Chart Positions: UK - #9, US - #34 (in Alternative Songs Chart), Best Elsewhere - Ireland - #25 For a song with no appearances in the media and one major accolade it's ridiculous that this song hasn't gone more. This song is just simply one of the biggest anthems of the decade. It's a proper lads song, it's one of those songs that you can just shout the lyrics to at the top of your voice. It sounds great, it's got awesome lyrics and it's quite simply one of the most important songs of the decade. If it wasn't for this song or the popularity of it, the band wouldn't have been the same.
#39. "Fell in Love With a Girl" - The White Stripes Released: 23/4/02 Album: White Blood Cells Accolades: Rolling Stone's 40 Songs That Changed Rock History Chart Appearances: Rock Band (video game) Chart Positions: UK - #21, US - #121 (#12 in Modern Rock Tracks Chart) Another song that makes you wonder how it hasn't got any more accolades or appearances to its name. But this isn't a list just about accolades and appearances, it's about other things. It's about airplay, it's about how often the song was played at the time, and more importantly, going in to the future. And "Fell in Love" is one of those songs that just stand out so well in the decade as a quick little ditty of greatness. It's a song that sounds so raw yet it has such fantastic charm it's unbelievable. How often can you describe something as raw and charming in the same sentence? Well this song does both. Naturally the video is the appeal to a certain extent, such a simple idea of getting band playing in lego form made such cool viewing. But the song itself, while probably wouldn't have been commercially as successful without the video, can stand on its own two feet against other songs and win many climatic battles as one of the most important songs of the decade. This song won't leave our radio stations and music channels anytime soon, trust me.
#38. "Last Resort" - Papa Roach Released: 23/4/00 Album: Infest Appearances: The One (movie), Training Day (movie), Pay it Forward (movie), Smallville (TV series), Cold Case (TV series), Rock Revolution (video game), Rock Band (video game), Tap Tap Revenge 2 (iPhone game), G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (movie) Chart Positions: UK - #3, US - #57 (#1 in Alternative Songs Chart), Best Elsewhere - Germany - #4 Wow I never knew this song got to #3 in the UK. For a song of its genre, of its lyrical theme, you wouldn't have imagined it getting this high up our pop and RnB orientated charts. You can easily make a case for this song to being on of the first true modern "emo" songs, although it was in the badly reputable "nu-metal" genre at the time. "Cut myself into pieces, this is my last resort" is arguably one of the most well known lines in any song of the decade. The video, while very simple in its broadcast, is very iconic, showing poor little kids being depressed in their homes, and then apparently enjoying a Papa Roach gig. Papa Roach have had a decent career, their lifespan is longer and more respected than Limp Bizkit's and they haven't "sold out", something a lot of people Linkin Park have done. But this song will never be beat for popularity, and most importantly, it's significance and impact on the world of music.
#37. "Dare" - Gorillaz Released: 29/8/05 Album: Demon Days Chart Positions: UK - #1, US - #87 (#8 in Alternative Songs Chart), Best Elsewhere - Belgium - #3 For a song with no appearances, no major accolades, this song gets a TONNE of airplay. Surely this song is one of the most played songs of the decade, in clubs, radio stations and music stations? This song was much more prominent on its release than "Feel Good Inc" was, although the former was a bigger hit in the US. "Dare" was just a fantastic blend of alternative rock, brit pop, techno and dance music. This song pretty much sums up the Gorillaz in one sweep in terms of what their music sounds like. It's still the bands only #1 hit in the UK so far, and you could argue it was universally accepted by all music fans of all diversions. It's a true quality track that lives up as arguably the bands most popular time in their career so far.
#36. "Supermassive Black Hole" - Muse Released: 19/6/06 Album: Black Holes and Revelations Appearances: Twilight (movie), Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (video game), FIFA 07 (video game), Supernatural (TV series), Doctor Who (TV series) Chart Positions: UK - #4, US - #6 (in Alternative Songs Chart), Best Elsewhere - Denmark - #7 It's quite hard to choose one single by Muse as their most important, their most groundbreaking, their most popular, their best song in the decade. My punt is "Supermassive Black Hole". It's arguably their first worldwide hit, with it hitting the Danish, Finnish, European, Irish, Italian Top 20's. When "Time is Running Out" came out, America still paid very little attention to the band. When "Uprising" came out they were all over Muse. Yet this was the middle ground, this was when America started to notice this cool British band, yet Europe embraced them. It's still their biggest hit in this country. It's also, in a biased way, one of their coolest songs, the riff is fricking awesome. So that's my justification for it being the highest Muse entry in this listing.
#35. "The Pretender" - Foo Fighters Released: 21/8/07 Album: Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace Accolades: #47 in Rolling Stone's 100 Best Songs of 2007, Nominated for Best Rock Song at the Grammy Awards, Nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards, #5 in Triple J's Hottest 100 Songs Appearances: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (video game), Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (video game), Rock Band (video game), Tony Hawk's Proving Ground (video game), Californication (TV series), CSI: Miami (TV series) Chart Positions: UK - #8, US - #37 (#1 in Alternative Songs Chart), Best Elsewhere - Norway - #3 This was a huge song. For a hard rock track it got very high in many charts and it topped the US Alternative Songs Chart for longer than any other song in the year 2007. It was #1 for 18 weeks. Not only is it a big song chart wise but look at those appearances and accolades, despite it not winning, I don't think any song so far on this chart has been nominated for two Grammy awards. The Foo's always pull big about of the bag and have done so now consistently for a good 12 years, they're just this big and fantastic band that has universal praise. I just have an infinite amount of respect for this band and this song was easily one of their biggest of the decade, there is one more song by the band that I think is more important however... stay tuned to see it and how high it gets on this chart!
#34. "Use Somebody" - Kings of Leon Released: 8/12/08 Album: Only by the Night Accolades: Winner of Record of the Year Award at the Grammy's, Winner of Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal Award at the Grammy's, Winner of Best Rock Song Award at the Grammy's, Nominated for Song of the Year Award at the Grammy's Chart Positions: UK - #2, US - #4 (#1 in Alternative Songs Chart), Best Elsewhere - Belgium - #1 What was the bigger song? "Use Somebody"? Or "Sex on Fire"? They were both HUGE hits, and both are responsible for the Kings of Leon being on top of the rock world right now. For me, "Sex on Fire" is the bigger song, you'll find out how much bigger in this listing later on. "Use Somebody" was the song that finally brought the band's breakthrough in America. It was a beautiful ballad, and was proof that the band's sound was changing, for better or for worse. It was definitely a more mainstream sound that's for sure. But the transition of Kings of Leon, including their beards, is a fascinating story, it's one of the most interesting stories of the decade artist wise. I remember, and I'm sure many of you do too, a time when Kings of Leon were just random Americans singing country and garage rock hybrid songs on MTV2. Now look at them, you couldn't have imagined this song being any wheren near as big as it was six or seven years ago. It's fascinating, and kudos to them for that.
#33. "Oh My God" - Kaiser Chiefs / Mark Ronson Released: 17/5/04 / 16/7/07 Album: Employment / Version Appearances: Driver: Parallel Lines (video game) Chart Positions: UK - #6, Best Elsewhere - Ireland - #27 / UK - #8, Best Elsewhere - Ireland - #21 / I was debating whether or not to put this original song in, the very well received Mark Ronson cover version. So I thought I'd put both as one entry as they're both important and successful. Also, it's the same song. Now I'm effectively cheating as this is the fourth and final Kaiser's song on the list, when I said in the beginning that I'd be setting a cap of three songs per artist. But if we're getting THAT picky, consider it Mark Ronson's entry. "Oh My God" is still arguably the Kaiser's most important song, it's got one of the greatest, catchiest and simplest choruses in the decade. The song, while being released the second time, did very well in the charts and shows you how far the band had came. In 2004, this song got to #66, yet in its re-release it jumped 60 places. The Kaiser Chiefs, as explained in other entries, are just a great, humble band that are just so happy making music and enjoying the fame they are getting. "Oh My God" was their little baby that started it all off, and it's arguably their finest moment. The Mark Ronson cover version was great, the band also appeared in the video and it was just a really cool jazz version of the song. Mark Ronson did a great job of covering many songs, and this one is one of the bigger and more important songs. I don't think you can go through this decade of music without mentioning Mark Ronson.
#32. "Hurt" - Johnny Cash Released: 8/3/03 Album: American IV: The Man Comes Around Accolades: Winner of Single of the Year Award by the Country Music Association, #1 in Rate Your Music's Top Singles of the 2000s, #1 in UpVenue's Top 10 Best Music Covers, #60 in Triple J's Hottest 100 Songs of All Time, #15 in Rolling Stone's Top 50 Songs of the Decade, #2 in CMT's Songs of the Decade Listings: Best Videos, Top 100 Songs of the Decade Chart Positions: UK - #39, US - #33 (in Alternative Songs Chart), Best Elsewhere - Norway - #8 No song in the world, even the original Nine Inch Nails version, gives me the goosebumps, the feeling, the emotion that this song gives me. I could probably babble on for paragraphs about how this song makes me feel, I've already talked about it twice on thie site before, on the Best Videos page, and on the Favourite 100 Songs page. It's not hard to explain why this song was important. No, the song didn't chart well, but some songs on this list have a legacy no sales records can touch. Johnny Cash, country rock 'n' roll legend, took a song from an industrial metal artist from 1994 and turned it into this heart wrenching, tear dropping, dark yet elevating masterpiece. It's hard to imagine a better way to end your long 50 year career than this way. Most rock stars (I know he's a country star but I always see him as a rock star too, he's far cooler than other people who call themselves "rock stars") die in their prime, or just after their prime. But was there a prime with Cash? Was there a sparkling moment in his career? You could argue it was the Folsom City Blues era, yet "Hurt" is arguably more prominent than any of his original songs, I think "Ring of Fire" is the only song that touches the song for popularity and "I Walk the Line" for importance. This was a man around half a century in his career. And look at the song. It's just so amazing, so real, his iconic vocal chords trembling through the guitar and piano. It's just an iconic moment in the decade, and in music history in my personal opinion, it's the hardest song to place in this list that's for sure, but I've put it here at #32.
#31. "Run" - Snow Patrol Released: 26/1/04 Album: Final Straw Appearances: The Chumscrubber (movie), Rescue Me (TV series), The Guardian (movie trailer), Doctor Who Confidential (TV series), Cold Case (TV series), Jericho (TV series), Life As We Know It (TV series), Wide Sargasso Sea (TV series), One Tree Hill (TV series), Empire Falls (TV series), Mad Dogs (TV series) Accolades: #874 in The Rock FM's The Rock 1000 Songs Chart Positions: UK - #5, US - #15 (in Alternative Songs Chart), Best Elsewhere - Netherlands - #22 Someone like myself, who doesn't hasn't (until now) done a great deal of research on Snow Patrol, never knew that "Run" was on their third album. Third time lucky I guess, as this was a mega hit. It was also the second single off that album too, so the song's quality shines very well. More evidence is the fact that Leona Lewis chose to cover this song, and got it even more mainstream attention, so much in fact that it this original version re-entered the charts as a result four years later. Snow Patrol would later have more chart success than this track, yet when I, as someone who isn't a fan of the band, think of one song by them, this comes to the front straight away. I'm sure a lot of people feel exactly the same.
To view part 8, click here. To view part 9, click here. To view part 10, click here. To view the winner, click here. To view my methods and explanations, click here. To view a full archived stats index of the songs listed, click here.
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