I've said before that I think criticizing bands for changing their sound is usually a bullshit complaint, but people complain about it nonetheless, and as the old saying goes, "Where there are people complaining, there are people who need to shut right the fuck up." People who whine about bands not making the exact same album 10 times in a row need to do just that, and this label might help. Say goodbye to the days of going online to complain that Metallica's St. Anger album doesn't sound anything like Ride the Lightning, because duh, motherfucker, it says so right on the label. The bandwidth we'd save in angry message board posts and YouTube comments alone is worth the investment this sticker would require.

Should Apply To:

The aforementioned Metallica is an obvious choice here. People have been complaining about Metallica not sounding like Metallica for about as long as there's been a Metallica.

Some would argue that Weezer deserves it, but I'm more of the opinion that their sound hasn't so much changed as their songs have just kind of started to become awful. It still probably applies, though.

A more recent contender is Best Coast, a band who released a few early singles that sound like they were recorded on a 1980s boombox placed in front of a floor-model television speaker ...

... and have been dealing with fans clamoring for them to make songs that "sound like the old stuff" ever since. Sure, by the time they released their first proper studio album they'd already moved on to recording in much more acoustically pleasing closets ...

... but people still treat every moderately well-produced record the band makes ...

... like some kind of radical departure from "the sound that made them famous."

That seems a bit harsh to me. Can we at least give them a chance to become legitimately famous before we start giving them shit for selling out once they became famous?

There are actually a few practical applications for this label. As mentioned previously, fancy studio tricks are always difficult to recreate onstage, so R&B sensation T-Pain would be an ideal candidate ...

... if people still gave a shit about that guy. There are plenty of acts that are just as deserving, though, and most of them are way less honest about the magic they employ to make their voices presentable.

Even in cases where bands can reproduce technologically complex songs in live settings, the odds of them doing it regularly are slim to none. Case in point, check out this performance of Radiohead's electronics-laden "National Anthem" single:

If I'm not mistaken, playing that song in concert requires the use of an old-timey telephone switchboard and at least one 13-inch television monitor.

YouTube
Practical!

A band might be fine hauling that kind of contraption around when the songs are fresh and new, but rest assured, five years down the road they'll have reworked all that fancy computer music into something they can play on regular instruments.

Also, it's probably a moot point now that Courtney Love definitely didn't kill the band's lead singer years ago, but Nirvana's landmark Nevermind album probably should have come with a heads up about the differences one should have expected to hear when those songs were released into the wild. So much trickery went into making that album sound HUGE in the studio ...

... that a three-person unit could never come close to accurately recreating them in concert:

Like I said, it doesn't matter now, but it's something you might have wanted to know in 1992 or whatever.

Believe it or not, there used to be a time when guest artists and collaborations in rap music were a rarity. Albums were a place for artists to display their own unique talents and nothing more. Obviously, that was a long fucking time ago. For the better part of two decades now, rap music has been all about the guest appearance. Putting a record label in the hands of an established rapper is a great way to make sure every album they release from that point on will basically be an open mic for their less talented friends. It's goddamn epidemic in rap music, but one name in particular excels in this area of deception.

Should Apply To:

A lot of people should, by law, be applying this label to their albums, but no entertainer has run up a longer list of offenses related to inviting unwanted guests to the party than Lil' Wayne. Of the 15 songs on his album Tha Carter IV, eight of them feature guest appearances from other artists. That's all fine and well if the guests are of the same caliber talent as the main star, but this is almost never the case. For every Drake or Nicki Minaj that emerges from Lil' Wayne's circle of friends ...

... there are twice as many Mack Maines and PJ Mortons that no one will ever care anything about.

If you're paying full price for an album that's secretly half about furthering their careers, a warning of some sort is definitely in order.

As unfortunate as having quality time with your favorite emcee cockblocked by some talentless interloper may be, it still beats the shit out of buying an album that looks like it's packing more than 20 songs only to find that half of them are nonsense skits that wouldn't even be enjoyable at the awful improv comedy classes where they belong. This is another borderline epidemic in rap music. At some point in time, it was decided that just being able to string together words that rhymed was no longer entertaining enough. I don't think a single person has ever gone on record to admit to actually enjoying between-song skits, but sketch comedy and rap songs have been inseparable ever since.

Should Apply To:

Even if we never attach this label to any album ever again, it at least belongs on De La Soul's first two albums, Three Feet High and Rising and De La Soul Is Dead. As I've mentioned before, those albums clock in at a jaw-dropping 24 and 27 songs, respectively.

Look at 'em all!

But when you subtract the useless filler that permeates both albums, like this nonsense ...

... you're actually left with about half as many real songs. Don't get me wrong, they're both fantastic albums and a bargain at damn near any price, but the "comedy" you have to sift through to hear them all is definitely worthy of a warning of some kind.

Nirvana's In Utero wasn't completely rejected, but there were rumors that it was going to be on account of it not sounding as much like a Tiffany record as the one that came before it, but it's a way better album if you ask me, which you should, because I'm already here talking about it and whatnot.

In general, record labels just tend to make shitty decisions in this department. A little selective labeling might go a long way toward helping us reap the benefits of those shitty decisions.

Well, did you know the lead singer of Journey is a Filipino dude? There's nothing wrong with that, obviously, unless you were buying the Journey DVD pictured above. It's the one in the middle. It's barely distinguishable as a Journey product at all, much less one featuring the lead singer who replaced the lead singer who replaced the original lead singer.

If you were buying that as a gift for your baby boomer dad because you knew he was a big fan of Journey in the '80s, there isn't a whole lot there to tip you off to the fact that the band's original frontman, Steve Perry, hasn't been around for ages.

Of course, it's ultimately your dad's fault for having such shitty taste in music, but still, a label would be nice.

Should Apply To:

Well, it's almost impossible to tell. Willie Nelson made the point pretty clear when he released an album called The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories? to pay off a gigantic tax bill. Then again, that's Willie Nelson. He's been talk-singing along to the exact same guitar for so long, he's literally worn a hole in it. You generally know what you're getting when you buy a Willie Nelson album, no matter what the inspiration for recording it might have been (I'm assuming it's usually weed).

Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment
At least he can smoke with it now.

You'd think a youngster like Justin Timberlake would still have a lot of musical adventures left in him, but there are rumors to the contrary, surprisingly enough. A recent Hollywood Reporter story claims that he was forced into recording his most recent album, The 20/20 Experience, solely to fulfill a contract obligation, presumably one that called for him to finally release one truly awful song before he hangs it up.

The "hang it up" is the concerning part of the story, because he apparently wants to do just that as it pertains to music, and would have a long time ago if business didn't necessitate one last trip to the studio. He has been saying for a long time that he wants to focus mostly on acting. Will history someday prove that his first truly award-worthy role was convincing the world he cared about music one last time?

I don't know, but that was a great fucking sentence.

Adam hosts a podcast called Unpopular Opinion that you should listen to on Soundcloud and a live stand-up comedy show of the same name that you should come see sometime if you're in the Los Angeles area. You should also be his friend on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.

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