Wrath Of My Mattness

Okay. Wrath. Well let’s just get this out of the way first, let us just stipulate that there probably isn’t an angrier song to be found than Marshall Mathers’ “Kim”. Sure, it’s acted pretend wrath, but that’s what our little website here deals with; performance pieces, usually in song form. I mean if you want real wrath, turn on the evening news. And during the broadcast you’ll probably get your fill of the other six deadly sins as well. So yeah, as far as wrath in song form, “Kim” takes the cake. And then does evil scary hard-to-listen-to things to that cake. (Then again Ray Charles once mused in “Understanding” that if he ever caught his woman playing around, he’d chop off her head with an axe, so…) Anyway so we’ll just all agree that Mr. Mathers certainly makes his feelings clearly understood, and move on. It’ll save me six minutes on my playlist, and save you the psychic damage of having heard the track.

Now, when thinking of Wrath, immediately the genres of hip-hop (especially “gangsta rap”) and punk rock / metal come to mind. Angry, dissatisfied youths, railing against society, all in the name of… well, record sales, sold-out concerts, groupies, MOYchandising, MOYchandising… Like any good artists, they are embarking upon a path that will, if successful, lead them to become the very thing they are currently dead-set against. Hence you get Public Enemy, who when they were struggling angry youths, recorded some classic anti-establishment anthems. Then they became successful affluent adults, and were left with nothing to complain about nor anyone interested in what they had to say anymore. When Bush The Second rolled around, they gave it the old college try again, but it had been far too many years since they all met in college. Similarly we get many aging punk rockers and metalheads, appearing on reality shows and late-night CD compliation commercials, reuniting for their third or fourth “last tour ever”, proving with every breath they take the old adage that it’s better to burn out than to fade away.

That’s why you’ve just got to admire the lightning in a bottle that was The Sex Pistols. A bunch of guys who really couldn’t stand each other, slapped together by a manager with whom they shared a mutual disgust, thrown in a studio despite not really being good at playing or singing anything, and voila, it wasn’t just the unqualified stylistic success that McLaren was going for, they actually created a classic album that threw up two fingers to just about everything, and managed to do so through great songs with clever pointed lyrics, powerfully emotional music, and surprisingly deft production values. Instantly, success beckoned! So the hell with that, we’re all going to say sod it all, go our separate ways, get into electro, get into heroin, get into films, whatever. But that moment of Never Mind The Bollocks will stand forever, undiluted by any further attempts at recapturing that emotion.

Okay, I’m ranting a bit. I’m pretty sure my narcissistic delight in my own words is a sign of Pride… But one more thing: I mentioned to Rudi right at the outset that between the two of us (Rage and Lust), Mr. Roger Waters will surely give us plenty of ammunition. And yeah, the guy’s written album after album in which he grabs the military industrial complex that killed his Dad, shakes it to make it see the bitter end it’s heading towards, and oh yeah along the way works out his bitter personal relationship adventures and disasters for all to see. I mean as far as Wrath goes, this is the guy who gave us the lyrics:

“The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in, Gives way and suddenly it’s day again.”

on Pink Floyd’s “The Final Cut”, which is really just Waters’ first solo album. And he keeps on giving us anti-war opi one after another, I’m sure hoping in the back of his mind that one day he’ll be out of a job.

Alright I’ll try to cut this short before I incur the Wrath of all of you. On my playlist I attempted to spotlight songs that are representative headings of the subgenres of Wrath that I kept thinking of. There’s outright “Ahm a’gonna keel yeew”, the creepier hints of “I was there and I saw what you did”, there’s the righteous “make we wanna holler” indignation of protest songs, there’s the brokenhearted bitterness and recrimination of lighting some Scandinavian lumber on fire, cautionary tales like Tribe’s “Show Business”, etc etc etc… All different facets of Wrath, and I’ve tried to include some bits of it all below. I’d say “enjoy”, but… well, this stuff isn’t supposed to please, it’s supposed to enrage. So get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell some Twisted Sister lyrics.

1. Black Sheep, “U Mean I’m Not”
Well I guess we do have to deal with the angriest and most violent sub-genre to come along since… what, Wagner? That’s right, gangsta rap. sigh… Well let’s let Black Sheep deal with it as they did on the opening track to their classic album “A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing”; parody the cop-killing bejeezus out of it. Here we have Dres starting off in a Nightmare With Attitude, pushing the violence envelope to hilarious extremes.

2. The Killers, “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine”
Okay so this one is representative of a whole sub-category I set aside in my research, the “am I wrong or is there something really creepy and dangerous about this one…” file. Other songs that fit this bill are of course Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight”, Flaming Lips’ “Felt Good To Burn”, Hybrid’s “If I Survive” and Jack Kittel’s mesmerizing “Psycho”. I’ve seen reference to this Killers song being part of some murder-themed song cycle, but I didn’t really look that far into it. I do like the song a lot even if it does seem a bit like something someone disturbed might whistle as Batman is beating him to a pulp…?

3. Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddam”
Another sub-category, the protest and/or movement song. Other shining examples of course are Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”, Zappa’s “Trouble Every Day”, Peter Gabriel’s “Biko”, CSNY’s “Ohio”, lots of stuff from Dylan, Ochs, Consolidated, U2, etc…

4. Public Enemy, “Bring The Noise”
I know I mentioned them in the prologue, but man, I just couldn’t do an “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” list without PE. They have more specifically angry songs, “Fight The Power”, “By The Time I Get To Arizona”, but this has endured as a general scathing rebuke against their critics and those on “black radio” who were scared to play them. And Chuck has a couple of verses here that are as good as anything any rapper has ever written. Turn this up.

5. Ween, “Baby Bitch”
Here we go with the bitter, simmering, biting, sarcastic rage that comes when you are forced to confront the fact that opening yourself up to feeling love also means opening yourself up to possibly getting your heart cut out with a spoon. (Because it’s dull, you twit…)

6. Rage Against The Machine, “Wake Up!”
I guess this one was pretty obvious, huh? Well setting aside its now inescapable association with The Matrix, I really like this song, which makes it a singular rarity among Rage songs. Let’s let this one stand in for other angry screaming men such as Iggy Pop, Johnny Rotten, and oh yeah that guy from Linkin Park.

7. Northern State, “Sucka Mofo”
The State girls are just a little sick of pop culture, posers, politics… lots of other stuff beginning with “p”… Anyway they let it all hang out here in typically catchy clever style.

8. Sesame Street, “I Get Mad!”
And finally a word from that goat on Sesame Street, who reminds us that sometimes it’s good to blow off some steam. This is from the same show that told us having invisible monsters roaming our streets and grumpy green things living in trash cans were also fine.

Download: Black Sheep, “U Mean I’m Not” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: The Killers, “Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddam” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Public Enemy, “Bring The Noise” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Ween, “Baby Bitch” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Rage Against The Machine, “Wake Up!” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Northern State, “Sucka Mofo” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Sesame Street, “I Get Mad!” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

One last (and timely) word on Wrath: “The Wrath” is one of my favorite Batman characters, a villain who showed up only once in a 1984 Special, and was crafted to be the anti-Batman, his origins being a dark mirror of everything Bruce Wayne went through. It’s one of my favorite single comics, and though there’s miles to go before I see, it’s not too early to hope for some “Wrath”-inspired storyline for the next Batman film. For more info, check out: The Wrath. Thanks as always for your time!