Maybe I put this one off after asking for suggestions in January because it wasn’t the right time. Maybe, I just knew that there would be a time and a place for it.

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Well, at least in part, here’s that time. A bit of a blip, perhaps, but I felt in the right mood for a few days over the past week to write about songs where things are terrible (or simply pretty shit, or not very good).

Funnily enough I got a great set of suggestions for this, and I’ve been able to feature a number of artists that I’ve never included before. Thanks, as ever, to everyone that contributed. Next week will be the flipside, where things get better.

A quick explanation for new readers (hi there!): my Tuesday Ten series has been running since March 2007, and each month features at least ten new songs you should hear – and in between those monthly posts, I feature songs on a variety of subjects, with some of the songs featured coming from suggestion threads on Facebook.

Feel free to get involved with these – the more the merrier, and the breadth of suggestions that I get continues to astound me. Otherwise, as usual, if you’ve got something you want me to hear, something I should be writing about, or even a gig I should be attending, e-mail me or drop me a line on Facebook (details below).

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/Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq
/Well, This Is Shit
/Making Friends At 40

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I was not previously aware of this artist, until my friend Ness suggested this song in the thread. The title got my attention, and one listen cemented the inclusion. It was written and recorded during 2020, when there was a period where we are all in lockdown as a result of COVID. It isn’t a time that most of us ever want to repeat – the isolation and removal of most things to enjoy away from the four walls of our own homes was something to be endured.

Yes, we got through it, but fuck me, it was a broadly terrible time, and this song enables me to look back with a bit of smile, as it is something of a way of laughing in the face of adversity.

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/Frank Turner
/Haven’t Been Doing So Well
/FTHC

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Frank Turner is one artist who has always worn their heart on their sleeve, unafraid to admit when times are bad, and creating a deep sense of empathy and togetherness between him and his fans (his live shows are something to behold, and I’ll be back again at Show
3000 early next year). And on FTHC – his best album in some time – he was shouting about his struggles from the rooftops. Haven’t Been Doing So Well is less of a cry for help, more a noisy admission that things aren’t great, and working out what to do next to make things better. Been there, more than once.

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/Faith No More
/Everything’s Ruined
/Angel Dust

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Quite how I’ve never featured the greatest Faith No More song of all (I will brook no argument on this) in seventeen years of /Tuesday Tens, I’ve no idea. But finally, 562 posts in, it can feature. One of the most direct and melodic songs on the surprisingly challenging Angel Dust, it sees Mike Patton comparing the growth of a child to the insatiable march of capitalism, as if they are simply a means to make more money (for someone else). Yep, late-stage capitalism has resulted in a enshittification, a new technology fad every five minutes (the latest being AI), and a tiny handful of people getting more money and influence than the rest of the fucking planet. If that isn’t truly terrible, I don’t know what is.

The song, however, remains fucking perfect, thirty-two years since release.

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/The Offspring
/The Kids Aren’t Alright
/Americana

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Talking of late-stage capitalism… The Offspring were some years ahead of the curve in identifying that the next generations were going to have it tough. A disintegrating planet thanks to climate change, advancing technology reducing the jobs available – and with no effort from Governments yet to mitigate this, and as more Governments move further to the right, less options to move elsewhere. Not to mention the poor state of education and the increasing cost of higher education… I mean, I wonder why the youth are so pissed off?

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/Garbage
/Not My Idea
/Garbage

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I missed the latest Garbage shows this weekend – having seen them a few times over the years since 1996 – but I was happy to see that there is new material coming. But here, I’m going back to that beloved debut album (and the seventh song I’ve used from it). This bouncy, guitar-led track (long a live favourite) sees Shirley Manson spitting with rage at terrible relationships, unfulfilled promises and a world where she seems to be losing each time. The kicker being, that Manson does come out on top in this song, with a searing, imagined revenge…

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/The Indelicates
/Everything is Just Disgusting
/Diseases of England

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The Indelicates have never been a band to be subtle in song, and here, Simon Indelicate’s vocal is dripping with disdain in a lament for the ages, as he doesn’t want to speak to anyone, or expect anything from anyone, as they will just fuck up and let him down – and worse still, when he does fail and disappear, they will celebrate the failure and say that “he tried”. It’s hard not to agree vigorously.

Also rather marvellous is the puppet-based video…

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/Type O Negative
/Everything Dies
/World Coming Down

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As I get older, it becomes easier to relate to later-period Type O Negative. World Coming Down was about as dark as Type O ever got, mostly shorn of Peter Steele’s often ribald humour and sexual themes, but it was perhaps understandable – in the years up to this release, various family members had either died or had serious health issues, and it was obvious Steele was considering his own mortality as he watched them die (and indeed, he would die aged just 48 a decade later). But even by his standards, Everything Dies is him staring into the abyss, and feeling absolutely wretched doing so.

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/Iron Monkey
/Bad Year
/Our Problem

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One of those bands whose reputation was way inflated beyond their actual pull, sadly (it’s well worth reading this article from a decade ago about just how unfortunate they were), but there’s no debate that at their peak, the original incarnation of Iron Monkey were one of the nastiest-sounding bands going. Bad Year opens their debut album – and only full-length with Johnny Morrow – in a flurry of fuzzy riffs, thundering bass and punching grooves that could be used to level buildings. The lyrics are a cut-up set of words, hinting at a disgusting, stench-filled world, and sum up Morrow and the band’s outlook nicely. The world is fucked, and we’re going to make it nastier by playing the dirtiest, most violent grooves you can deal with.

Johnny Morrow died all too young, suffering from a fatal kidney condition, he died in 2002.

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/Cyanotic
/And Still Nothing Changes
/The After Effect

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Last year’s release from Cyanotic was the best from the band in some time – even by their high standards – and contained this stomping track that is disgusted with the world that they see, and sick of the lack of positive change that seems to always be out of reach, and is perhaps the most nihilistic the band have ever got. It’s also sugars the pill with some smart sample use (from In The Mouth of Madness and Aliens, and another that I recognise but can’t identify the source…) and the usual top-level production from Sean Payne.

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/Godspeed You! Black Emperor
/The Dead Flag Blues
/F♯ A♯ ∞

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We close this week with sixteen minutes of forboding menace. Godspeed You! Black Emperor were something of a mysterious sensation when F♯ A♯ ∞ first appeared in 1997/98 (the original, LP version was 1997, the then reworked and expanded CD version is the one most of us know best), a large Montreal collective who made epic music that didn’t really fit into the post-rock description they were given. The sounds were a collection of soundscapes, found sounds, vocal samples and on occasion, gigantic guitar-led crescendos of noise.

The Dead Flag Blues, which opens the CD version of the album (most of it appears, in a shorter form, as Nervous, Sad, Poor… on the LP) feels like a state of the world address, if you feel the world is going up in flames. The opening monologue sets the tone, of a world disintegrating politically and literally, and twenty-six years later, as it appears an appalling demogogue looks set to be US President once again, it feels terribly, terribly relevant.

Next week, I try and make things more positive, I promise.