This week we’re discussing and dissecting Usher’s inaccurately titled “Nice & Slow,” and returning guest James Hernandez talks about dedicating slow jams on the radio to his middle-school crushes and making the switch from RnB to Slayer.

We’ve got helpful Genius annotations for lyrics that are anything but nice and slow, and a cinematic music video featuring probably-fake sign language, an inefficient kidnapping, and a load-bearing eyepatch.

Stuff We Like: Steven Malkmus & The Jicks and Rochelle Jordan’s “Follow Me”

This week we have an episode that I’m shocked was possible. I’m talking to Kevan Aguilar, who was more than happy to subvert expectations by sharing his summer-long love affair with the incredibly awful Kottonmouth Kings.

We’re dissecting Peace Not Greed from the year 2G featuring Jack Grisham of TSOL and an total lack of perspective on police brutality. Kevan talks about identifying with the anti-authoritarian message of the song, his mom being cool with him hanging a poster of the band holding a giant platter of weed, and how this may relate to him becoming straightedge shortly thereafter.

Also: a quaintly optimistic take on the effects of weed legalization, a weird intersection of fake libertarianism and new age spirituality, and lots of juicy youtube beef.

This week we’ve got a scoff-heavy episode as Derek Chacon and James Hernandez help me dissect the goth silliness of Coal Chamber’s “Loco.”

Derek recalls a weird goth kid in his guitar class introducing him to the band, loving their edgy darkness as a kid, and, from his current vantage point, likening it to a stranger’s fart.

Also: Are these nonsensical lyrics doing ANYTHING for unstable kids? Does buying a “vintage” Pantera shirt make you a hipster? And a last-minute epiphany that might mean nothing or everything.

Music we like: Tribulation’s “Strange Gateways Beckon” and Helms Alee’s “Tit to Toe”

This week we’re covering the totally insane video for Livin’ on the Edge by immortal creepsters Aerosmith. My guest, Alexander Shaw, recounts his adolescent love for the band, allowing Stephen Tyler far too much influence over his fashion choices, and trying to reconcile a universe in which they coexist with his juvenile daughter.

In this episode: Bizarre, moralizing lyrics, a non-sensical hodgepodge of music video set pieces, including cartoonish, post-apocalyptic wrecking yards and green-screen train solos, Edward Furlong playing a confused (and confusing) angsty teen, and a possible cameo from Johnny Depp in drag.

This week we have another anthem from the Post Breakup genre with Fallout Boy’s poppy, idiom-ridden crossover hit, “Sugar We’re Going Down.” 

We cover the fairly funny music video and, with help from dozens of overzealous Genius.com contributors, analyze its indecipherable wordiness. Also: “Double” dad jokes, possible Simpsons references, and a three-way mashup.

Music we like: Autolux’s “P*ssy’s Dead” and Field Music’s “Commontime"

This week we cover Taking Back Sunday's 2002 anthem? dirge? ballad? "You're So Last Summer," and the peak of ironic hip hop in pop punk with a music video featuring Flava Flav for some reason.

Guests Matt Booth and Nick Guenzler (@TerminalRadness) revisit the hard two weeks in which they were fans of the band, and I forget that I remembered them altogether. Also: wearing girl jeans, peeing next to the lead singer at a urinal, a shared HS web design teacher's eccentricities, and the worst grin/grill combo I've seen in my life.

This week Aaron Brock and Kenny Geary return to help me cover Price William’s favorite band, Linkin Park, and their blessedly short debut single, “One Step Closer.”

We go over their straight-forward, impossible-to-misinterpret lyrics and the random choices featured in the music video, including clueless teens, parkour, and levitating Monks.

Also: my guests reveal their y2k-era DJ ambitions, a lengthy relationship with spiked hair, and another mysterious design from the 90’s.

This week Aaron Brock and Kenny Geary return to help me cover Crazy Town's infamous RHCP sampling, pet name spewing, single entendre of a song "Butterfly," and we keep a close eye on our drinks amid the greasy energy of the water-color crack-rave happening in its music video.

Also: an entire segment devoted to the tattoos found therein, Shifty Shellshock's time on Celebrity rehab, and the terrifying origin of the album art featuring a character known as "Little Lolita."

On this episode of That Awful Sound podcast, guest Shaina Turian and I revisit the TRL-retired, Seth McFarlane-directed, sentient bullet-featuring video for Korn’s mega-hit “Freak On A Leash.”

We cover why Korn can’t be a Chill Rap Rock band, how frequently the word “r@pe” appears in their lyrics, and analyze the song’s spooky scat.

Also: Head’s born-again Christianity, An acoustic, renaissance-faire-sounding version of this song feat. Amy Lee of Evanescence, and a Nick News special that scared my guest into thinking she had AIDS at the age of 9.

This week Angie Burian and I revisit the incredibly urgent “Separate Ways” by karaoke anthem kings Journey.

We dissect the infamous music video (named 13th worst by MTV), and its cocaine-fueled, sleeve-adjusting, invisible-intrument-playing stars.

Also: why this feels like stepdad rock, dad-centric mustache phobias, early experiments in music video technology, and strong feelings about Steve Perry’s hair from keyboardist Jonathan Kane

This week we’re revisiting the CD single Michael Muñoz’s estranged grandma gave him as a peace offering: Ricky Martin’s Livin’ La Vida Loca. We’ve got trumpets upon trumpets, deceptively emo lyrics, and a fun drunk driving accident.

Plus: Barbara Walters forcibly outing the singer on TV in 2000, Separate covers of the song performed by two entirely different anthropomorphic mice, and a serious conversation with Dad about Fastball’s “The Way.”

This week, first-time guest Tony Boswell details his childhood love of Cypress Hill’s orchestra-filled crossover hit, “Rock Superstar,” and how rap rock in general was a way to connect with both sides of his multicultural family.

We dissect the spooky, goofy music video which seems to be at complete odds with the message of the lyrics, Cypress Hill channeling their superstardom into a lucrative free-weed racket, and a plethora of late 90’s artifacts, including evil jacks in the box, jesters, 8 balls, and the mysteriously ubiquitous Stüssy S.

Also: scaring away extended family members and potential stepdads with Van Halen and Slipknot, ghost congas, and monkey grease.

This week Matt Booth and I "back-muse" Teenage Dirtbag, the self-produced, nakedly sensitive, “comfortably pathetic” song I ended up kind of loving. Matt remembers using these lyrics to experiment with cussing, and I remember how weird the song sounded to me as a kid.

We cover the violent DJ scribbling, superfluous (and completely inaudible) percussion instruments, “controversy” over the singer’s middle name, the teen-movie music video, the bizarre wikipedia/history of the band, an archived bio from their y2k webpage, and ironic sex.

Good music: Blink-182's new-ish single (with Matt Skiba) "Bored to Death"

This week Michael Muñoz returns to dissect childhood favorite “Slide” by the Gru Gru Dolls and its long-winded promises, half-assed marriage proposal, and very aggressive statements about abortion. We run down the ultra-literal music video, Johnny Goo’s terrible, “tattooable” quotes, and also just his terrible tattoos.

Plus: Now That’s What I Call Music Vs. Kidz Bop Vs. Jock Jams, the record for most Simpsons references in one episode, and a dispatch from an Alien Ant Farm show.

Good music: O’Brother’s “Endless Light” and Autolux’s “Pussy’s Dead”

This week we have a first for the show: a song by fart-comedy legend Adam Sandler called “Steve Polychronopolous.” My guest Leigh shares her storied personal history with the comedian, including the time his jokes grounded her for a year.

We also discuss a few of the eight-minute, one-note sketches found on this album, the merits of Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, and the inexplicable hold he has on talented actors and comedians. How was there a clean version of this song? How is Will Forte in Ridiculous 6? Why do sharks exist?

Good music: Flight of the Conchords’ “Hurt Feelings” and Mastodon/Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s “Linoleum Knife”

This week Travis Duscay returns for our “spiritual” sequel to the Woodstock ’94 episode: Woodstock ’99!

We revisit the festival that qualified as an EPA Superfund site and was described by Kurt Loder as a “concentration camp” to analyze Creed and Robby Krieger's butt-rocking interpretation of Riders on the Storm, as well as the band's christ-channeling, sex-shaming, mid-tempo slog, "What's This Life For."

Also: An Adam Baldwin/Mel Gibson/Simpsons Conspiracy Theory, Travis’ dad buying him a Phish album for his birthday, and misunderstandings of satirical news articles

This week we have a very special episode: our unofficial Awful Band Spotlight on AFI. Devyn Trujillo (voted “most goth” by the AFI message boards) and Travis Duscay (voted “most frequent guest” by me) help turn what was supposed to be an episode on “Love Like Winter” into something much bigger.

We cover the many voices of Davey Havok, the Duchovny-esque lyrics on this track, and Devyn remembers knowing, even at 12, that the band’s credibility had been damaged by Sing The Sorrow. Also: insufferable AFI fans, making life-long friends on their message board, camping out overnight to see the band, Sing The Sorrow-era press releases, and Warped Tour stories from both sides of the railing.

Episode 50! Two brand new guests join me to confess their middle school love of edgy pop punk(?) band Good Charlotte and the very 80's "Girls & Boys." One remembers this being her perception of "hardcore" music, while the other grew too cool for the mainstream popularity that the group achieved.

Also: celebrity crush protocol, unsuccessfully trying to spike your luscious hair with egg yolks, and tales of the bro-smashing chair of my philosophy department.