The 14 Worst Things That Happened To Music

1. Clay Aiken
This androgynous, smiling facade of corporate production is enough to make even the most welcoming music fan cringe. Hollow and undynamic lyrics + sunny melodies + sweeping, over-the-top, "motivational" body language = just the recipe for all the homogenized, Oprah-watching couch junkies to spoon feed. His success meant more idol acts could attempt solo vendettas of their own. Thankfully, he never had a successful post-American Idol career, despite record labels attempting to make him a star. Excuse me while I vomit!

2. Shawn Desman
My dissection here starts with a simple rhetorical question–who exactly bought the records and watching the videos that kept this guy a viable product in the 2000s? Can I even imagine what a Shawn Desman fan would look like? Naïve 15-year-old dude, going through a brief dance-stepping, bad boy phase? Poorly masquerading as a slick R&B crooner, he put face to the universal, early 20s, high school-cruising, suburban dance club Nancy-boy; another confused and culturally alienated kid. Luckily enough for everyone except MuchMusic Canada, this guy went completely unnoticed, due to his identity and his rather unfortunate lack of dignity.

3. Nickelback
Another Canadian export gone horribly wrong. Moped rock in a motorcycle genre. Nickelback and Chad Kroeger are the poster children for post-grunge rock spinoffs, of pop punk/power pop spinoffs, of "emo" spinoffs that have the same damn beats and chord progressions as Nickelback. They've followed/inspired an army of Theory of a Deadman and Puddle of Mudd, disasters that threaten to discredit an entire generation of radio-friendly rock. Never again, let's pray.

4. Nelly
This guy is shameless. The over-the-top decadence, narcissism and stereotypes of modern rap have expanded since his debut. No one can keep up with Nelly. Money, cash, hoes, cars and jewels. Let's not confuse ourselves, he's not an artist, he's a marketing ploy. He's a cash grab for soulless consumption and unparalleled greed. Nelly and everyone else at Arista Records have shown the world just how far you can stretch tired production and considerably limited talent.

5. Celine Dion
Has anyone in the history of music ever been so full of themselves? OK, maybe the artist formerly known as suckjob. Celine is a runaway cash train for Sony/Arista execs and a magnet for fake feminists and overzealous divas around the world. Canada and the “Lilith Fair” and “anti-Britney” movements can keep a healthy separation from this living trainwreck for all I care.

6. Toby Keith (B.I.H.)
Unfortunately, he epitomized the insidious disease affecting adult contemporary. Recycled "tin can" melodies paired with hollow tearjerker lyrics. If there is a more generic, facsimile genre of music today, he must have had something to do with it. Toby was to credible musicianship what sauerkraut is to toast. Have just a taste and try not to vomit. "How do you like me now?" About as much as a shovel to the head.

7. Lindsay Lohan
Remember her? Of course, you do. Lindsay managed to prove what girls with small waistlines have always known: image can replace an obscene dearth of talent, real sexuality and judgement. She proved that when we thought we'd hit rock bottom with the second wave of supersaturated diva trash (Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Lopez, Kelly Clarkson and the like), the well was a lot deeper than we'd hoped. Surely to God, we scraped rock bottom with Ms. Lohan's first big blowout hit. She had already been enveloped in A&R-manifested controversy, wet clothes and dirty, "accidental" rumors. Anything to keep our minds away from the music and concentrate on her carefully manicured image. Lindsay rewrote the rules for future flash-in-the-pan acts and paved the way for the limitless myriad of processed, repackaged sewer vestige that would be forced down our throat for decades to come.

8. Good Charlotte
How they're still around is beyond me. There was a time when the punk movement had some amazing integrity about it. It was a torch passed by disenchanted youth rebelling against the status quo, the superficiality of the mainstream. Punk represented the anti-theme of self-censorship and compromising ideals for sales. Of course, this only lasted until big business record execs smelled profit with Green Day in 1994; thus, the saturation of the industry began. By the time Good Charlotte arrived in 2000, modern Billboard charts were no longer as focused on image and the almighty bottom line. From tattoos and eyeliner to piercing and "black so we must be gothic clothing", there is no law too deep for these "guys" to make a buck. At their peak from 2001 to 2005, they single-handedly discredited the punk genre, and their remarkable success meant record companies would be spinning off reproductions for the next 14 years. "Girls will laugh at boys when they're not funny," indeed. Bubblegum punk rock, packaged, mashed and easily digestible.

9. One Direction
Screw you, 1D. Screw you.

I just can't stand to turn on the radio because of these guys. It's all bubblegum pop and Auto-Tuned vocals. They sucked the soul out of music and replaced it with shallow hooks and overproduced beats. They were at the forefront of it all.

I remember when they first came onto the scene. The world couldn't get enough of their teenage heartthrob status and their boy band charm. But beneath the facade, their music was just the same generic, formulaic pop as everyone else. Catchy on the surface, but completely hollow. Every song sounded the same, with the same tired lyrics of love and heartbreak. It was like being stuck in a bad rom-com soundtrack, being brainwashed by the machine to consume, consume, consume.

10. The Veronicas
I remember when Mom first heard of them, back when they were still popular. Even then, I'm pretty sure their sole Billboard hit confused her with its corny lyrics and their cutesy act. It got worse, as they were already transitioning into the pop world. Suddenly, they were prancing around in skimpy outfits, belting out vapid songs about their boyfriends and generic "girl power" messages. Ugh, they're pandering to the lowest common denominator.

11. Taylor Swift
Oh God, not you again, Taylor Shit. I've always despised you with your cheesy lyrics, shallow "love" songs and bubblegum pop sound. And you embody everything I loathe about it. You're probably the most manufactured artist out there, a fake persona created by record label executives to sell to teenage girls. Your sappy love songs and so-called "empowerment" anthems make me want to throw up.

12. Pink
Pink is a manufactured act, if there ever was one. Some record executives scouted a cute face, created a persona, wrote catchy but vapid songs and built a pop star. Just like Britney and Miley and Selena would later. With Pink, it wasn't even an attempt to produce art anymore. She perfectly encapsulated the soulless, focus group-tested pop that would dominate radio waves for the next 20 years.

13. Avril Lavigne
Between late 2005/early 2006 and 2008, Avril's song "Complicated" assaulted my eardrums. I was only a kid at the time, but even back then I knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the music industry. Avril, along with Britney and Christina (who had already tainted a whole era of music), took things to a whole new low.

Here was this petite, "skater punk" chick, dressed in a baggy T-shirt and cargo pants, singing about teenage angst and rebellion. Except it was all an act. Underneath the carefully crafted image of a troubled youth was just another pretty face, devoid of actual talent. The lyrics were shallow and the guitar riffs were unoriginal, but the public ate it up like good little sheep.

Fucking generic pop music. Fucking Britney Spears. That's all she ever was from day one.

14. Fall Out Boy
These guys. I can't stand them. At first, they sucked because their soulless, manufactured emo pop trash represented everything wrong with modern music and was the same tired, "woe is me" lyrics–not to mention radio-friendly hooks. Nowadays, they completely suck because they're poseurs.

When you become an even bigger sell-out than you were already or you abandon your roots and settle for a more mainstream pop rock/pop sound, that's when you become a poseur band. Blink-182 and Sum 41 were pop punk. My Chemical Romance was emo pop. Foo Fighters was post-grunge. These guys went full-tilt pop the moment they released Folie à Deux in 2008, which managed to be even worse than their previous three albums, which were more on the "emo" side of pop.

And "Save Rock and Roll"? More like "Save Our Bank Accounts" with the way they pandered to the EDM crowd and top 40 radio. It's like they took a shit all over their legacy. And for what, a few extra millions? I'm sure Pete's hair dye and Patrick's lip gloss don't come cheap.