We live in an age of hyperbole, a time where if you disagree with someone on any political issue you go straight to calling them Hitler. Maybe that’s why Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, owner of Twitter, and the world’s richest man, is so commonly compared to a Bond villain. We’re going to take a hard stand and say this comparison is exaggerated and unfair. Every villain in the James Bond franchise is more personable and nuanced than Elon Musk.
Here are the top 50 villains from the world’s longest-running film franchise ranked by how much less insufferable they are than Elon Musk:
50. Hugo Drax
Drax is the closest approximation to Elon Musk on this list and thus last. He builds spaceships, he’s into eugenics, and he’s arrogant. Probably thinks he’s funny too, all spot-on Musk attributes. Plus he’s hard to work with—even Jaws quit on him! Still, he’s at least straightforward about his plan to abandon Earth and start a master race on the moon.
49. Elliot Carver
This evil media tycoon is clearly based on Rupert Murdoch, but that old Leviathan is finally stepping down, and if Musk has his way Twitter will be the Fox News of the future. His plan to start World War III simply to get more engagement on the platforms he owns feels pretty Musky, but there’s a sense of genuine fun to him that Elon could never replicate.
48. Helga Brandt
Killed by piranhas by her boss after she failed to kill Bond, Helga’s fate is too similar to that of the average Musk employee for us to lose all sympathy for her.
47. Kamal Khan
Rich, snobbish, and hell-bent on plunging the world into chaos simply because he can, Musk and Khan would get on like gangbusters. He’s not far off from the Boring Company founder at the end of the day, but at least he has a touch of class.
46. General Georgi Koskov
You know what a loser villain you need to be to get outshined by the charisma of Joe Don Baker? Musk does. Next to him Mark Zuckerberg almost seems like someone you could have a beer with. He can, however, land the occasional one-liner, putting him miles ahead of Musk likeability-wise.
45. Tov Kronsteen
A chess master and chief strategist for SPECTRE, Kronsteen is one of many many characters on this list who are genuine, capable examples of what Musk pretends to be.
44. Erich Kriegler
Not much personality, but when he ripped a sink out of a wall to smash James Bond with he didn’t quip “Let that sink in” so he’s the better man.
43. Franz Sanchez
You would need to be a real piece of shit to be less likable than the guy who maimed Felix Leiter and killed his wife. You would have to say, accuse a rescuer of being a pedophile just because his plan worked and yours wouldn’t have.
42. Professor RJ Dent
He gave us one of the most iconic death scenes in the James Bond franchise. What has Musk given us, exploding electric cars we can’t afford?
41. Hans
One of many, many blond muscle men in the James Bond franchise and a particularly bland one at that. Still, he would never name a kid X Æ A-Xii.
40. Gobinda
His overwhelming loyalty suggests a capacity for human connection.
39. Emile Leopold Locque
Sometimes, all someone needs to do to be more likable than Elon Musk is to fall off a cliff.
38. Morzeny
Morzeny runs the training facility on SPECTRE island, hardening the world’s top assassins to kill James Bond. He’s able to work for Blofeld long term, but it’s hard to picture him working for musk more than a month before he says “Fuck this guy” and quits.
37. Emilio Largo
You know the bad guy trope of holding the world ransom? Largo invented that. Musk would have hired people to invent it for him and then taken all the credit.
36. Dr. Kaufman
Kaufman specializes in making his assassinations look like suicides. He’s not a nice guy, but he never tweeted “pronouns suck,” so there ya go.
35. Boris Grishenko
He’s an egotistical, morally bankrupt computer programmer who looks like he would be right at home ironically smoking weed on Rogan, but he does actually know his way around a computer.
34. Mollaka
Mollaka is as good at parkour as Elon probably likes to think he would be.
33. Alex Dimitrios
He’s got a cool “I bet my sports car in a hand of poker” story at least. Elon would float the idea of raising with an Aston Martin, then take 30 minutes explaining that it’s a very funny joke, then make like he’s actually going to do it anyway, then back out.
32. Le Chiffre
Any character played by Mads Mikkelsen and Orson Welles is more likable than Musk, including Hannibal Lecter and Charles Foster Kane.
31. Baron Samedi
The laughter of this immortal voodoo priest is sinister but genuine. The laughter of Elon Musk is clearly rehearsed minutes before camera time.
30. Renard
His scars and demeanor suggest a working class background making him worlds more relatable than Tesla’s CEO.
Let’s get it: Unfortunately for the cast of “The O.C.,” A Static Lullaby were LET GO from major label Columbia Records after the also underrated and oft-disrespected “Faso Latido” failed to connect with a larger audience via radio, MTV, Friendster, and Tom Anderson. Honestly, it’s a low down dirty shame! Sigh. Still, ASL signed with Fearless Records shortly after and released a self-titled follow up just one year later to more acclaim. Something about its heavy tracks must have been contagious and eager for cannibals from all over the world and Chino Hills, and we’re not complaining that the LP shared lovers in lovely Antarctica and not-as-lovely Orange County. ASL’s third album is this particular record, and oftentimes a third or fourth release is either a return to glorious form and/or a self-titled one. This is both!
Bigwig formed in the universally known SARS and toxic chemical-ridden wastebasket of New Jersey in 1995, and their third studio album “An Invitation To Tragedy,” which came out just six years later, might be named for such. We don’t know but kind of do. Anyway, this one may be your favorite LP here, firming your appreciation for us as you are counting down to our extinction, but we’re not complaining. No frills; just melodic and biting pop punk. Also, Bigwig have a song called “Moosh” on “An Invitation To Tragedy,” and we love that word and the fact that said tune appears to be the highest streamed song from this particular record on both Spotify and an AIM away message. While the band hasn’t officially broken up, their next LP “Reclamation,” also released via Fearless Records in 2006, is their last… for now!
Fearless has been putting out quality records for the majority of this century, and Orlando’s Capstan not only exemplifies such despite being Floridian, but this particular record is not only the most recent release listed, but it showcases a strong musicianship and knack for melody not often showcased in “the scene” or the particular scene from “Forrest Gump” wherein young Forrest impersonates the creepy sounds that his eventually-disgraced principal, Mr. Hancock, makes while having coitus with his mom, Mrs. Gump, who is such a saint that her legal name is “Mrs.” Still, we’ll always have Greenbow, ALA-BAMA! Anyway, Capstan originally signed with Adventure Cat Records, and Fearless snagged the group shortly after using a combination of stars and suns, and this LP was the band’s first release with the label.
Fun “fact”: Austin, Texas’ band that put “un” in “pop punk” known as Dynamite Boy, and not the World Wrestling Federation’s now-disgraced wrestler Dynamite Kid, opened up the current six-hundred-and-sixty-six volume “Punk Goes Pop” series with their sterling cover of ‘NSYNC’s acoustic track “Baby Got Back”; we’re very, very trustworthy. Honestly, it’s surprising and saddening that this particular album didn’t catch on to the massive Drive-Thru Records pop-punk heights showcased by such DTR bands as New Found Glory, Allister, The Starting Line, and Morbid Angel around this time. Perhaps there was too much assembly required here, but regardless, this catchy LP is a deep cut Fearless Records, uh, record, and deserves both your attention.
Tonight the sky is painted. Tonight the sky is painted melancholy: Seattle, Washington is widely known for making the word “grunge” a word for music, fashion and “creative” journalists. However, it should also be a footnote to all as the city that birthed the esoteric and unique unit known as Gatsbys American Dream. Despite the band not having an apostrophe in the correct spot like underrated label mates Yesterdays Rising and Canadian megastars Marianas Trench, the group is a literate bunch of rockers that spout verbiage unheard of before in the Warped Tour world… And don’t even get us started on their tight and complex musicianship! Sadly the band made only one more full-length, their sharp self-titled LP which was also released via Fearless Records, before hanging their collective hats. Happily, they’ve had several reunions since then, and continue to be discovered by dorks clamoring for AP English to rock.
Gob’s fantastic record “How Far Shallow Takes You” is the oldest Fearless Records album here, proving that what is shallow always ages in a manner that is popularized and renowned. Released in the US just after the third wave ska craze ended with horns taking a backseat to glossy keyboards, Gob’s sophomore LP likely was the gob-way drug for many fans of the Canadian band, and proved that they were a mainstay in the aggressive and rock world, and that more incredible efforts were to come. We are making no low hanging “Arrested Development” jokes here, but everyone reading this piece is a sad clown that plays “Magic: The Gathering” at least once per month; tools. In closing, try to find a succinct and better opening song for a punk record than “236 E. Broadway,” of which other Canadian heroic band Silverstein covered to perfection on their “Short Songs” album.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Grayscale sounds nothing like they did then, right now. Change is necessary unless it isn’t; carry on my wayward son. Anyway, whether you’re a fan of 2017 Grayscale and/or where the band is at in 2023, “Adornment” is a perfect pop-punk record from start to finish. We don’t want to even know how many people misspell the band’s name with an “E” instead of an “A” but before “Y” except after “Grrrr”. If you previously slept on this studio album or haven’t slept in days, this LP is for you. If not, it still is, as said album is chock with beautiful things for your mum in Manchester. Since DSPs aren’t removing this album, this effort is forever yours, and will never slip away from your consciousness.
Numbered bands may have gotten lost in the shuffle in the plethora of numerical acts in late-90s/early-00s, especially with Turin, Italy’s cream dripping cannoli known as Eiffel 65, the most hardcore of hardcore punk acts of all time, but Abington, Massachusetts’ Junction 18 truly warrants your love, but Abington itself absolutely doesn’t, all the cops in that town are no longer allowed to get their coffee at Mary Lou’s, look it up. Anyway, we’re still quite upset that this act never really took off, and we’re repaying their debts with this particular underrated album ranking mention, which will likely bring the band to Imagine Dragons’ heights via saccharine, sweet, and another adjective beginning with the letter s’ steps. Haters need to be taken down with a “West Side Story”-esque granite street knife fight, and Bernardo and Tony both still need to perish via a butter knife with margarine slice wound.
Subsidiary FR labels count here, so The Static Jacks’ Old Friends Records/Fearless Records LP “If You’re Young” deserves a mention here, but not just because its hipster status warrants a set at Coachella or the People Magazine offices, but because TSJ are the second of two groups referenced with the word “static” here; we can’t work it out. It’s a shame that this fantastic off-brand Fearless Records album reminiscent of The “Poor As Hell” Strokes’ songs never catapulted the band, but happily, vocalist Ian Devaney is still doing the thing with the cooler-than-you-but-not-your-lying-parents’-portfolios, Nation of Language. Speaking of The Strokes, Devaney also plays in machinegum with Strokes drummer Fabrizio “Fab Four” Moretti, likely fulfilling a Will/Aaron Eisenberg dream for both him and particularly their drummer Nick “Sports and Arts Center at Island Lake Rules” Brennan, who beats the drums so well, it serves as mercy/hallelujah to 2001.
In the aughts and beyond it was very commonplace to have a band member playing a four, five, six, or eleven-stringed instrument whilst singing, as a screamer, rather, unclean vocalist, yells at the hot, hot sun and bites a coiled, coiled cable sans instrument in hand. Los Angeles by way of Dallas, Texas’ TWN combined melody, grit, and a love for Anthony Kiedis’ property known as California in an incredible manner. Sadly, the band hung their hats just over one year after this album’s release, but happily, they referenced a classic Jawbreaker timekeeping album on their way out; dear you, they ARE punk and we’re telling everyone.
Speaking of the word “Go,” go may be the last two letters in a popular H2O cry, but this major label release was their first and last LP with such a conglomerate, accidentally succeeded at making many longtime fans whimper. The songs here aren’t that bad but the band sounds sterile, and that isn’t typically how water tastes. Fun opinion: The band’s Madonna cover here, which is a hidden track on “Go,” is enjoyable for fans of any genre, and said tune truly deserves your attention. Sadly this album was their last full-length from the band for just over seven years, as H2O released an EP called “All We Want” in 2002, and nothing else until 2008.
Todd Morse, brother of H2O vocalist Toby, still joins the band on stage on guitar and backing vocals for select shows/tours, but this cover LP is his last with the band… For now! Todd currently moonlights as the full-time bassist in a little-known punk band from Southern California known as The Offspring. Anyway, the group’s sixth album “Don’t Forget Your Roots,” an obvious nod to getting old whilst still listening to Warzone, is fun front-to-back and serves as a solid introduction to many of the band’s influences including Bad Brains, Embrace, and early Tony Bennett, but falls short of the rest of what’s yet to be listed. Still, someday we’re more than down for another studio album like this, at least we suppose, as times are changing… We wanna live!
It’s been almost eight years since the last H2O album “Use Your Voice” hit cool indie rocker stores, and from the heart, we’d like another one STAT! The black sheep father figure of hardcore known as Chad What’s Eating Gilbert of Shai Hulud, New Found Glory, Hazen Street, and Bang Tango produced this one and its former that wasn’t a cover LP, “Nothing to Prove,” and Gilbert must still be dreaming about recording such a credible, noteworthy, and legendary band in the fun, fun, fun world of punk rock; honestly, we think that everyone wishes that they were from New York, especially Floridians who have a true romance for anything outside of a swamp except for your grandma. Through thick and thin, NYHC, which means New York Happy Club, skate punk, aggressive music, and doo-wop all owe a lot to H2O and their mantra: “Little. Yellow. Different.”
At just under twenty-four minutes over the course of ten tracks, it isn’t much of a time investment to listen to “Nothing to Prove” from its Bamm-Bamm Rubble beginning to the critically charged end, but this record STILL isn’t the band’s shortest album, which is nutty in the best way; the aforementioned newest H2O record “Use Your Voice” is slightly shorter and thus, slightly better, obviously. Anyway, “Nothing to Prove” is the band’s fifth studio album, and it served as a sort of return to form to showcase that the band is aware of what happened and that they’re still here whilst unconditionally loving hardcore punk. We know that we’re wearing our hearts on our sleeves by saying this, but we feel that without hesitation this is the best H2O album from this century. What happened? Well, they were quite inspired after the blowback regarding their previous LP, “Go”. Maybe?
You may want to flip this ranking with what is listed below at number two, but you’re wrong day by day, chance by chance, life by life, in every which way, hey hey hey, that’s what I say. Can you overcome? Yep. “F.T.T.W.,” the last H2O LP to be released before the new millennium, and also the band’s final of two records for Epitaph Records, is a hard-hitting nearly twenty-track set of songs that almost knock you off your feet as quickly as “Thicker Than Water” did before it… Almost. Still, by the time this record came out, H2O went from a side-stage Warped Tour band to a main-stage headliner powerhouse group literally moving so much faster than many in their world… And deservedly so! The band were road warriors at this point, showing that the five-piece’s forcefield helped much more than it hoped for in the late nineties.
H2O signed with rock powerhouse Epitaph Records after their Blackout! Records album debut, and released “Thicker Than Water” shortly afterwards, which was a part of hardcore punk briefly affecting American aggressive mainstream culture, with peers like CIV leading the charge two years before. H2O provided a transition from that sound into the eventual aughts Drive-Thru Records blend of pop-punk/mall punk which combined the aggression of H2O with saccharine choruses. Also, “Thicker Than Water” definitely had a part in making cargo camo shorts a mainstay of a band’s stage show whilst angry audience members joined a circle pit pointing their supportive index fingers at the stage while screaming particular lyrics and crowd killing those that couldn’t sing along to hardcore’s now universal language. In closing, T-shirts with a specifically badass hard-hitting lyric on the back, and a black and white live band shot were popular in this world as well.
Our curse, but we know why: There are no “skip it” tracks on this super self-titled debut from H2O, which, like all of the band’s albums, consists of a beyond killer opening song; we love chants, being surrounded by Gen-Eric, well-cited book reports, family trees, and Jim Carrey’s “The Mask.” In addition, the album features here are noteworthy in that Dicky Barrett of ska-core, the devil, and plaid suit-wearing eight-hundred piece, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Armand Majidi and Pete Koller of the like-minded Sick of it All, Tim Shaw of New Jersey’s hardcore punk act Ensign, and Buddy Holly of the metalcore act of all metalcore acts, The Crickets, all appear prominently on “H2O.” Recorded at Brielle Studios in NYC, this record was made quickly, and even mixed in a rapid timeframe, at just three days. Anyway, we are confident that you like this ranking, unless you don’t.
The Golden God’s road rage knows no bounds. He also claims to drive women to the airport all the time “because of the implication.” Can’t quite figure out what that means, and somehow the car ride over would be more stressful than the airport security line. That’s not the kind of untethered energy I want to kick off my semiannual vacation to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Liam wears a flesh-tone eye patch with a drawing of an eyeball on it so no one notices. While it’s effective in more ways than one, he keeps complaining about his depth perception. I generally want someone who can see all three dimensions on my ride to the airport. Two dimensions at minimum.
Duncan runs around with a wild crowd who all hang out under some bridge and listen to underground Hawaiian trip hop while hosting a luau. While I won’t judge anyone on who they hang out with, I will come down hard on the location. Untrustworthy.
Gail the Snail wouldn’t be able to get off from her shift at the Wawa to drive me. Good thing too. I don’t want to be packing extra salt on the ride just in case. You never know.
The gang destroyed Dee’s last four or five vehicles, so she’s between cars right now. That pretty much disqualifies her.
The gang destroyed this guy’s vehicle too (see Dee Reynolds).
Brad is a little too into revenge. That sort of personality quirk doesn’t translate well into favors. However, if I needed to enact vengeance on someone for refusing to drive me by sending them, say, a box full of hornets, I know exactly who to call first.
I have never seen this man blink. While that’s probably a good thing when you’re driving because it allows you to see the entire road ahead of you and give it an ocular pat down, it just makes for an uneasy car ride.
Ingrid has her own clothing line. That means she’s going to talk about entrepreneurship the whole time, and I’m just not up on buzzwords like “ROI.” I need someone less ambitious for this task.
As a Mets fan, I simply cannot get behind this one out of principle.
Hwang would only drive me to the airport if I paid him handsomely because he’s a landlord and those types of people have a documented history of exploiting basic needs for their financial gain. Not cool.
Cats can’t drive. At least that’s the excuse she is going to use. I really can’t argue with that thought process.
Ryan would somehow be drinking milk in the car the entire way. Not from a carton. Not from a hydro flask. A glass from his kitchen. What disturbs me most is that he rests it in the center console’s cup holder as if it’s not going to spill everywhere.
Uncle Jack would try to pass off comically large fake hands as his own, one of which would be one of those giant foam fingers from a sporting event. It’d be hard to watch, especially since I have the same exact anxiety, and his fake hands are larger than my fake hands.
Anyone who believes shushing is an acceptable form of communication in a functioning society shouldn’t be allowed to be in public. We all know that it’s much healthier to keep your interpersonal grievances to yourself and only address them when you’re no less than eight beers deep.
While Cricket has a lot of stories about his days living in a crawl space and he “brought enough PCP for all of us,” there’s just something about him that I don’t trust behind the wheel. Can’t put my finger on it.
Jackie is part of the mainstream media, so it’d be like getting a ride from Wolf Blitzer. I don’t know if that’d be a good thing or a bad thing, but I don’t want to be the one who finds out.
This man would bring various small woodland creatures along with him on the ride. While I’m normally fine with that, he wouldn’t address it in the slightest. Are they even his? Am I the only one seeing them? Does he think I’m taking them with me on my flight? I don’t think they’ll let me have a dozen emotional support animals with me.
I don’t trust anyone who owns an establishment that would have a door marked “pirate” on it. Just can’t get passed that.
Sometimes you just want to prank the person who agreed to drive you to the airport by tying their shoelaces together when they aren’t looking. Only the waiter would find that “reckless” because he “has to focus on the road.” Man, can’t anyone take a joke that puts our lives in immediate danger anymore?
I’d likely be coming in too hot for this guy. He was hoping for a more relaxed ride while I’m more like a “have an unsheathed sword in the passenger seat in case we need to defend ourselves from other vehicles” kind of guy. Our energies probably wouldn’t mix well.
There’s an interesting sort of thing that happens whenever baby boomer rockers make comeback albums. Because on these albums, they’re not just reckoning with their own sound, but reckoning with the groups that have come after them and taken influence. Much like how Christopher Nolan made “Oppenheimer” to reckon with the legions of douchebags that gravitated towards “Joker” for surrogate personalities. That’s the feel of “Drama of Exile,” a faster goth-rock and punk-forward record that feels touched by groups like Siouxsie and the Banshees, while also taking on a more ‘80s flavor. The result here, much like guacamole made by a depressive… is sadly mixed.
There is a really excellent scene in the biopic “Nico, 1988” (probably one of the only music biopics that does anything remotely creative or interesting) in which Nico (Trine Dyrholm) performs the song “My Heart is Empty” at an underground venue in Soviet East-Berlin, while her management flees from armed guards. That’s the flavor of Nico’s jazz-infused final album. It’s a record that doesn’t give up its secrets easily and seems to have the head-up-assness of some of the most pretentious new-wave acts. But there are some genuinely great moments in this one if one has the patience to look.
Speaking of excellent movie scenes, who can forget that moment in “The Royal Tenenbaums” when Gwyneth Paltrow’s Margot steps off the bus only to be greeted by her incest-driven adopted brother (Luke Wilson) and “These Days” starts to play? We certainly didn’t. “Chelsea Girl” is a classic. But maybe… just maybe, it’s a classic for some of the wrong reasons. The songs on here seem to showcase how others felt Nico’s career should go, with songs penned by folk icons like Jackson Brown and Bob Dylan and even some more avant-garde tracks by former V.U. bandmates. It’s a great album, it sounds good, it’s cozy. But there are deeper places Nico could go.
The last of Nico’s great gothic trilogy (and the darkest of them by far), “The End…” is a collection of moanings, wailings, tortures, hauntings, and banshee keenings. And you know something? I love it. Essentially a eulogy for Nico’s songwriting mentor Jim Morrison, this album features a creepy truly, creepy cover of “The End” by the Doors and “You Forgot to Answer” an account of Nico trying to reach Morrison just before she was informed of his death. This album is probably Nico’s most ambitious work, but much like a lasagna with a weird extra ingredient (probably zucchini or some shit) it’s too messy to be perfect. But then again, Nico is a V.U. vet. And what’s more Velvet Underground than a mess?
The launchpad to the Nico we know best, “The Marble Index” is, without doubt, one of the creepiest albums ever written. And its best song “Evening of Light” is so psychologically unnerving (with droning mandolins and monotone singing) that it’s honestly inadvisable to listen to it if you’re alone after dark. Still, many of Nico’s greatest… hits?… are on this record, including “Frozen Warnings” and “No One is There.” Ah yes. Nico’s greatest hits. You know how you always hear them on the radio? Those songs with the dissonant violins and the singing about demons? Songs of the summer here, folks.
As every middle-aged man points out before trying either Hims or truck-stop dick pills… it’s not the size that counts. It’s how you use it. In this case, Nico uses a not-quite-29-minute record to make her greatest cultural footprint. So much so that the English group Throbbing Gristle launched “The Desertshore Collective” a multi-day live performance of songs on this album. Which is perfect, both as an artistic vision and as a version of the Bad Place for the people who got trapped at Burning Man this year.