Yo, I stopped actually trying to figure out lyrics years ago and it's made life so much better. It's just an extra instrument.

Plus with all the brick-walling going on you can barely hear them anyway so why bother.

I think the band for whom there is the widest gap between how intensely I once loved them vs. how much I care to listen to them now is Guns N' Roses. There was a period of about two years, freshman and sophomore year in high school I'd say, where probably 50-60% of my listening was committed to this band; had I been aware of internet forums back then, I would have no doubt showered them with gushing superlatives that I would now be embarrassed to know were preserved via the Wayback Machine. For some reason I felt compelled to listen to "Use Your Illusion I" last night -- I legitimately used to love every single song on this record, but last night almost every single song on it sounded unfathomably and irredeemably terrible ("Don't Cry" and "November Rain" still sound pretty good, and I still seem to have a soft spot for "Bad Apples"). I also made the mistake of reading along with the lyrics -- gadzooks, Axl really comes up with some zingers:

"Sick of this life
Not that you'd care
I'm not the only one
With whom these feelings I share"

"My mother never really said much to me
She was much too young and scared to be
Hell, Freud might say that's what I need
But all I really ever get is greed"

It's remarkable how virtually none of this retains even basic nostalgic appeal for me -- it just sounds really, really bad.

This place used to be great for discovering new artists, now that's limited to the jazz and metal threads. The whole front page is just bullshit. What the fuck happened?

This place used to be great for discovering new artists, now that's limited to the jazz and metal threads. The whole front page is just bullshit. What the fuck happened?