Now don't even try to get me started on today's music scene. Oops, too late...

My friends, I must say there have been drastic alterations in the palate of taste and I'm not too sure as to whether I'm digging this nasty residue left in my mouth. Whoever is distributing the new brands of music spawning out of the back alleys of record labels alike, must have a great sense of humour and definitely is a poor chef. Check please!

But seriously, I'm really bitching about the generic staleness that subsequently followed this year's lineup of manufactured rock bands. Yah, I'll bet that you thought I was rapping about the "boy and girl bands" that continue to plague our air waves with a barrage of verbal diarreah and insultingly-bubblegum-laden music.

But instead, ladies and gentlemen, I am unproud to have to announce that rock has morphed into another musical concept with about as much dignity as a TV evangelist. Dubbed "nu-rock," the predominant torch bearers come in the shapes of Limp Bizkit, Crazytown, Papa Roach, Everlast and a myriad of imitators that make it too tedious to even mention. Using the formula that meshes rock and rap, these gravy-train riding, iconoclastic fakers, are milking the industry's nipples to the last drop.

Ignorant hordes of youngsters eat this crap up becuase they were too young to see Run DMC and Aerosmith team up to do the same thing with "Walk This Way," they assume that this is a novel creation and should be praised accordingly.

Now Limp Bizkit (held together by the brilliant renaissance man, Fred Durst) do have my approval mainly for the fact that they made this trend fashionable, but when it comes to such atrocious dreck like the aforementioned Crazytown and Papa Roach; it's only now that we can see the blandness behind their musical approach.

Let's face it, they're as empty and trend following as the pop groups and Lenny Kravitz did predict the future, "Rock and roll is dead!"

By Zack Salsberg, 2001