{"id":365,"date":"2007-03-12T09:37:10","date_gmt":"2007-03-12T13:37:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-17T11:42:04","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T11:42:04","slug":"michael-stipe-is-he-an-irritating-dickhe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/michael-stipe-is-he-an-irritating-dickhe\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Stipe: Is He an Irritating Dickhead, or What?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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So: REM<\/strong> is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. There have been a number of laughably inane choices made by… well, by whoever does the choosing over there — but this one causes an especially bitter bile to rise in my gullet. I mean, really — why REM? Okay, so that first album was a breath of fresh air with a good four or five songs on it, worth listening to more than once. And you might<\/em> get me to admit that you could make a decent C-30 mix tape<\/strong> of their better material from across their career, but — I mean, come on! What good did their existence bring us? Who’s next? The B-52s?<\/p>\n

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Anyhow, as much as I find REM’s music boring, repetitive, and just plain irritating, I’m not going to waste any of your valuable time trying to explain just how much they suck. And I’m certainly<\/em> not going to do so in the context of a spurious discussion of whether they “deserve” to be in the RRHOF. (In truth, I suppose they’re perfect for the Hall. Just don’t put ’em anywhere near the Seeg, or the Zeez.)<\/p>\n

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No, instead, I thought I’d just riff on a central component of that band’s utter lame-assedness: their front man, Michael Stipe<\/strong>.
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I’m really a nice guy, and know of precious few people who just plain bug the shit out of me. Michael Stipe is one such person. Everything about his rock\/public persona is just wrong<\/em>. I admit it’s hard to put my finger on the problem. It’s not just that he’s one of those irritating Rock Dreamer<\/strong> types or that he’s ungainly and spastic or that he looks like he hasn’t bathed in a week or that he comes off like an assholeish know-it-all. What is it then? I dunno, he’s like — like Rock’s court eunuch or something — no real spine, but just clever and “cool” enough to hoodwink the Czarina<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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I agree those are “qualities” that I can’t really do a decent job of backing up or pinning down. But I do level one serious charge against Michael Stipe for which I have irrefutable photographic evidence: that he’s got the worst current Look in rock and roll<\/strong>. Which is especially shameful when you consider the fact that he actually used to look pretty cool!<\/p>\n

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And, folks, before you accuse me of hair-ism: it’s got nothing to do with his baldness. Isaac Hayes, the drummer from Spirit, Sinead O’Connor — hell, even Moby<\/strong> — all these folks got no hair and look varying degrees of cool without it. But this Stipe character? Uh-uh. Nope. Sorry. The fact that he fancies himself a fashion maven, complete with man-purse, dandy-gloves and other groan-worthy accoutrements just makes things worse.<\/p>\n

But don’t take my word for it; review the photos I’ve posted here and see if you can stomach the idea of this man staring disinterestedly at you through the glass walls of a display case in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. Please, no!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So: REM is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. There have been a number of laughably inane choices made by… well, by whoever does the choosing over there — but this one causes an especially bitter bile to rise in my gullet. I mean, really — why REM? Okay, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}