ST. LOUIS – Budweiser is once again battling backlash after airing a Super Bowl commercial featuring Hank, a fancy Clydesdale pulling a hitch full of icy cold Bud Light who many conservatives and anti-LGBTQ+ organizations claim is gay as the day is long.
“While Budweiser strives to be inclusive of all communities, the choice to feature Hank in our advertising had nothing to do with his political alignment or sexual orientation,” said a spokesperson for Anheuser-Busch. “We just really like fancy horses. Gay or straight we just can’t get enough of those fluffy fucking feet and Hank has some fantastic hooves. We don’t judge Hank for who he chooses to love, and it’s sad that people have politicized Hank’s television debut.”
People on both sides are wondering how Budweiser would have determined the sexuality of a horse and warn that assuming a horse’s orientation is misguided and harmful to the Clydesdale community.
“I know for a damn fact that Budweiser put extensive research into choosing the right Clydesdale for the job. They basically had 24-7 surveillance of the horses,” said local beer drinker, Wayne Matthews. “They saw how Hank continuously mounted the other stallions and still chose to use him in their commercial. This isn’t about his charisma, or how great he looks on camera. They have an agenda, they want to turn our horses gay, then our children gay, and then turn our children into horses. They go really into detail about it in my Reddit sub. It’s sick.”
Budweiser has a history of pushing progressive policies. Back in the ‘90s conservatives boycotted the brand for adopting the controversial, “Drink Responsibly,” tagline.
“When Budweiser started selling out and caving to liberal rhetoric about drinking in moderation I could see the writing on the wall. If a hardworking, patriotic man or woman wants to get loaded at their son’s little league game and drive the family into a telephone pole on the way to Little Gino’s Pizzeria, that’s my right as a citizen of this great country,” said conservative media analyst Brian Welk. “Now they’re pushing us to accept these fancy horses. That beer cart should be pulled by something All-American like a Bald Eagle. Not a horse with leg-warmers.”
At the time of press, Papa John’s debuted their Super Bowl commercial meant to appeal to religious conservatives which showed a man and a woman eating the pizza in silence while staring at a television screen.
Fans of the frenetic Skeleton Key’s “Fantastic Spikes Through Balloon,” a major label album so underrated that it is nowhere to be found on DSPs outside of YouTube despite being Grammy Award-nominated, will clamor for some dark-colored organs of sight courtesy of BE. Formed in 2001, Black Eyes eventually inked a deal with Dischord Records, and released their self-titled studio album two years later to some acclaim, but not enough, and sadly split after just more LP. Pity, as day turned to night much quicker than normal, but not as fast as it does on December 21. Anyway, post-punk had a revival around the time that this LP was released, and Interpol took over inferior publications just one year prior, and The Rapture broke your heart as well. We wish that THIS broke through.
Drive Like Jehu had more of a critical than commercial impact, and the band that called themselves The Crownhate Ruin, who fans of DLJ would love deserved some more affection and non-creepy hugs via both sides as well. Formed in the wake of post-hardcore superstars Hoover, who were also great in their own right, The Crownhate Ruin had a truly short run, and released several singles, and one LP, “Until The Eagle Grins,” only to split up that same year. Maybe it was the band’s meh name that did ‘em in, or maybe the fact that “Until The Eagle Grins” was released in an overly saturated genre in the mid-’90s. Whatever it was, we know that outside of your cool step-brother, a non-blood relative who still lives in your stepmom’s basement, no one in your life knows about this album and band.
Possibly the most successful effort referenced in this piece, yet still underrated to most pedestrians and most certainly you as well. Dag Nasty’s debut album “Can I Say” inspired a lot of underground chatter when it was first released, and not just because it featured former Minor Threat bassist and current Bad Religion guitarist Brian Baker, but that it acts as a sort of sonic blueprint for melodic hardcore in terms of quality, whatever that means. Anyway, while the band’s history was quite tumultuous in terms of a career start-stop stop-start, overabundance of band members and labels, and for just being NASTY like Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags, “Can I Say” has stood the test of time via circles and shapes, and was even remastered and re-released by Dischord Records sixteen years after its initial release.
Ian MacKaye’s bands Minor Threat and Fugazi are not mentioned here, as neither act is underrated in any way, shape, or form, but in a sort of loophole, Embrace sure is, and the band’s self-titled and sole full-length studio album was one of the first to be categorized as emotional hardcore, even though its members publicly and privately lambasted said description. While we will forever wish that the band stood the test of time and released more music, it can be said out loud or privately that the band went one for one, and the act you crazy kids call Fugazi may have never existed if not for the fall of Embrace. If you’re a fan of aggressive rock music, do not consider yourself free unless you listen to this album front to back and then some.
Formed in 1997, Faraquet’s post-hardcore blend of sonic comparisons to former-Dischord Records act Jawbox and a meticulous master’s degree in jazzy mathematics from a Tier 1 university showcased that the view from this tower, which was an unintentional eerie foreshadowing of 9/11, was quite monumental. Like many who call themselves and who are called “underrated,” AND are mentioned here, Faraquet only made one full-length studio album. Still, the band is for sure one of the underappreciated power trios, though we doubt that the band would have ever called themselves “underappreciated” or a “power trio”. Actually, we’re sure, and don’t quote us unless you must for your term paper in MLA format, that they used the term “three piece” instead.
Let’s start this Lungfish mention with a note that may alarm youngsters: This album is NOT a Dance Gavin Dance title. Lungfish is one of the few acts mentioned here that are not from Washington, D.C., but it’s not like Baltimore, Maryland is that far away from the city where Ian MacKaye still resides. Anyway, Dischord Records caught wind of this unique act after their first full-length studio album, and the band subsequently released all of their other works via said label… but this is not about their entire catalog, as “Artificial Horizon” is not only the one that most deserves your time, but outside of DR-heads, many don’t know of this band/record, which is truly sad.
Are you live with us, baby, are you live, are you live in the rhythm hive? Well, we know we are! Hive assemblyman and constituent Ian Folke Svenonius is a man who doesn’t often get enough public flowers, but we are here to give him two, one for his next to be mentioned prequel band Nation of Ulysses and one to its prolific sequel act, The Make-Up. Do you like gospel music? If you do with a splash of garage rock, and buckets of weird, well, The Make-Up is for you. If not, Brokencyde has your number. Serious question sans hyperbole: Have any tracks from this LP been used in a Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese movie-film? We assume no, so if any music supervisors are reading this, and we know that you all are, use your connections/make it happen!
How this reverential and difficult to apply a moniker to act has under 5500 monthly Spotify listeners is far beyond our comprehension and deplorable. If we have a small part in making the figures go up by at least a dozen then we are extremely satisfied but we’d prefer more, much more. The Nation of Ulysses’ debut LP “13-Point Plan to Destroy America” came out the year that Kurt Cobain personally shot hair metal in the head from behind, and Mr. Cobain would certainly think that you are behind if you never heard of TNOU. Fans of punk may prefer The Nation of Ulysses to The Make-Up but fans of odd will definitely choose the latter. Regardless of where you are on the Svenonius spectrum, you cannot deny that this and the former studio album deserve inclusion here, unless you do.
Maybe the third or sixth biggest band listed here, the uniquely named four-piece that eventually became a three piece released their debut full-length studio album, “No Kill No Beep Beep,” via Dischord Records in 2000 just a short two years after forming, and erratically and succinctly danced into the hearts of many hip post-hardcore fans who were looking to boogie. Violent and murderous fans of The Road Runner’s nemesis Wile E. Coyote ardently championed this band and record, albeit not as much now as they did during the aughts. Sadly the band only released two more LPs before hanging their collective fedoras with no signs of reconciliation any time soon. Pity, as the more we got from Q and not U, the more we wanted!
Let’s close this piece with a record that not only came out in 1994, the year that punk rock broke with such acts as Green Day, Bad Religion, The Offspring, and Ben E. King conquering Mother Earth, but it freaking contains an asterisk: Slant 6’s “Soda Pop * Rip Off.” The band also has the distinction of being a part of the riot grrrl movement, and no one, we repeat, no one will ever take that away from them, so don’t you ever try. Many call the band’s guitarist/vocalist Christina Billotte one of the better female guitarists in rock, but we here say that the word “female” is not necessary there, Christina is just one of the better GUITARISTS in rock. What kind of a monster are you if you publicly say something different? In closing, the band ended their career just one album later with the epically named “Inzombia”.
Before we get into the most recent and likely final effort from Ben Folds Five that came out just over a decade ago, which proves the adage that time does in fact fly, the eight full-length studio albums that we are waxing poetic about here are a sort of MySpace Top 8 for nerdy theater kids, and our verbiage on this entry, BF5’s fourth full-length “The Sound of the Life of the Mind” starts now with a short note: sometimes reunion albums should finish before they start. While “The Sound of the Life of the Mind” is Ben Folds Five’s first top ten album on the Billboard 100, and opens with a top twenty BF5 song in “Erase Me,” this LP should have been a reunion EP, and if the band released such, their legacy wouldn’t have had a meh asterisk.
Like the aforementioned “The Sound of the Life of the Mind,” Ben Folds’ most recent full-length solo studio album “What Matters Most” consists of just ten tracks, but unlike the final Ben Fold’s Five release, it has a tad more replay value. Produced by extreme AF multi-instrumentalist Joe Pisapia, formerly of contemporary peer band Guster, “What Matters Most,” uh, matters, and deserves your time and attention. Still, one BF and BF5 had to be listed last, and so this one and its number eight ranking predecessor, land in the not so golden stinker spots, but remember this, a dud from Folds is a gem to most others. We’ll get into it more later, but the best solo and band efforts from Benjamin are “no skip” releases, and that is HARD to do for anyone not named GG Allin.
Likely best known for its Regina “Orange Is The New Black” Spektor collaboration, the gorgeous and catchy, “You Don’t Know Me,” “Way to Normal,” Ben Folds’ third full-length studio album without the Five or other acts like author, yMusic, symphony, Nick Hornby, fellow Ben, like Kweller, Lee, or Franklin, and superstar A&R, Marcia Clark, is a fun listen front to back for both fans of Folds and people not in the know like you and all of your grubby friends. Also, “Way to Normal” has Folds’ best song title with “Free Coffee,” and we are totally serious about said assessment unless we aren’t; “Fred Jones Part 2” remains a not-so-close second. Fun fact: The word “Normal” in this album’s title does NOT mean “usual,” “standard,” or “ordinary,” but it IS about “Illinois.”
While many were first exposed to this LP via the uncontroversial in every sense of the word Bill Maher’s documentary or “documentary” “Religulous” and its smart and well done placement of our “play it again” song below, “Jesusland,” which came out three years after “Songs for Silverman” hit stores, ardent Folds fans sang this album’s praises before said “Politically Incorrect” endorsement and justifiably so. Also, it says A LOT that one of the better records from this century is ranked FIFTH of eight here, but that’s how the North Carolina cookie crumbled for this studio release, which is the best solo album in Folds’ catalog not named “Rockin’ the Suburbs.” In closing, “Songs for Silverman” contains backing vocals from the man, the myth, and the legacy known as “Weird Al” Yankovic on track ten, “Time”… Ain’t nobody got time for that? Nah, we do!
Now we’re at the second half of this sterling piece, which is 75% BF5, 25% BF, and 0% incorrect subjectively OR objectively, and we aren’t taking any questions on the matter: Ben Folds Five’s self-titled debut album stood out and rocked the mid-’90s harder than most three-pieces could, and did so in a unique manner sans grungy guitars with fantastic piano playing, epically fuzzy and intricate bass work, and a solid drummer who kept the quirky songs in line, but that’s just our philosophy. Released via Passenger Records, a boutique subsidiary of Virgin Records/EMI with a strong partnership from Caroline Distribution, “Ben Folds Five,” from, err, Ben Folds Five, inspired an epic bidding war which was ultimately won by Sony on Epic/550. Too much biz for you? Here’s the short version: The band’s next LP, “Whatever and Ever Amen,” was doomed to succeed from the start!
“Brick,” Ben Folds Five’s biggest hit single from this bronze medal entry effort, “Whatever and Ever Amen,” their sophomore full-length studio album, is likely what most pedestrians in this thing that we call life know of as BF5’s only song, and certainly one of the bigger ones referencing an abortion… AND fun(ny) fact: Jonathan Davis of Slipknot talked smack about Ben Folds Five shortly after this album came out, saying that they “sucked” and compared the music to what he would hear on “Cheers.” Funner fact that gets better every single time we think about it: Ben Folds got the band back with a vengeance via the title track to, “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” his debut solo album’s music video, and we will let you watch it for yourselves so you can see his visual clever dig retort involving “Freak On a Leash.”
It is extremely difficult to find a bad Ben Folds Five or Ben Folds solo song, at least to your Great Aunt Enid, so it made sense that his highest-ranked band album, the underrated and sad silver medal-winning “The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner” is a “no skip” effort, as well as the next to be mentioned debut solo studio LP. The homophobic entity known as Chic-fil-A’s reference in this record’s biggest single, the minor hit they call “Army,” is difficult to sing out loud with a, wait for it, STRAIGHT face in 2024, but otherwise a catchy and solid effort. “The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner” was also quite an orchestral departure from the quirky pop-rock sounds that many knew ‘em for, and that didn’t earn the band too many favors. Still, it’s the band’s most superior work and you know we’re right, unless you don’t.
Let’s start this suburban homesick blues entry with an interesting, interesting footnote for your dumb noggins: The subject of this piece, Ben Folds, played the majority of instruments which included piano, keyboards, guitars, bass, drums, and Hurdy Gurdy on this LP, “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” which proved both that he was hip to the kids with the apostrophe in “Rockin’,” and that he was a creative force that way too many slept on in their used Temper-Pedic beds. Ben Folds kickstarted the 21st century with a flawless bang/banger in the form of these twelve tracks, and you will feel like the luckiest, in fact, not the same ever again, if you previously overlooked said record and listened to “Rockin’ the Suburbs” right about now, the funk soul brother. If you were cool in 2001, you should revisit it now, as its replay value grows each and every time.