Popular belief is that this band got their start as an Alice in Chains cover band. This is not the case. However, their musical stylings have been compared to AIC frequently, and the name of the band itself comes from an Alice in Chains song. If you can listen to the music long enough during the many Marines and Army commercials they are featured in, you can almost pick up the influence.
This is where any favorable comparisons to Alice in Chains will stop. Unlike the Layne Staley headed AIC, Godsmack is one of the most lyrically retarded bands to grace the airwaves. The music is alright, if you're into the more contrived end of the hard rock spectrum, but the words come off as hastily written attempts to end each line with an "ay" rhyme scheme.
Examples:
"I'm not the one who's so far away..." - Voodoo (rhyme continues throughout the entire song)
"Twistin’ everything around that you say (Yeah)! Smack me in my mouth 200 times every other day." - Keep Away
"I feel for you: better fu**in go away. I will behave, you better go away. I'm doing the best I ever did. I'm doing the best that I can. I'm doing the best I ever did. Now go away. " - Whatever.
"And I can’t take it any f***ing way! Can you feel it? I gotta live with it everyday. And I can’t take the pressure, I’m going insane. Now go away! " - Bad Religion
"Hey, why don't I just go and eat some hay. I can lay by the bay, make things out of clay, I just may, what'd ya say? " - Happy Gilmore
Ok, the last one wasn't a Godsmack song, but it easily could have been.
Despite the band being a musical Wal-Mart version of Alice in Chains and as lyrically capable as an Alzheimer's patient with Down Syndrome, this band maintains a sort of popularity. Personally, I blame monster truck shows, NASCAR, and crystal meth. They get steady airplay on most rock stations, and are featured on a number of motion picture soundtracks. I hope one day the world will catch up and realize what a crap band this is, and leave them in the same place I first saw them: Broken down on the side of the road, waiting for a tow-truck to haul them away.
Disclaimer: The above content is solely the opinion of the author. Anyone who thinks otherwise is entitled to their opinion, however horribly wrong it may be.
4 comments:
"Smack me in my mouth 200 times every other day." That's some bad lyric writin' right there! So bad that the smacks should come every day. But they wrote a song called Bad Religion? The band Bad Religion is great, never heard of the song, though. Good piece.
Thank you.
They did release a song called "Bad Religion" which would throw me off when listening to the radio and the DJ would say "We have some Bad Religion coming up next," only to be hit in the face with that crappy Godsmack song.
Their songs are perfect for army commercials. I'd like to see more realism in those ads...maybe show a group of twenty-something American boys barging in on sleeping Iraqis at 3 am...ransacking the house and humiliating the men in front of their wives...you know, winning hearts and minds.
It'd be better if they showed their lives of quiet desparation before signing up for the military.
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