wolfmother - wolfmother

It's funny how much you can be affected by a single subversive opinion.

You think you're set in your ways, convinced something is right and true, then bam--someone comes along and destroys it with one opposing thought.

In my experience, that's always the sign of an opinion that wasn't too well thought-out to begin with, so I almost always welcome those moments, especially when it comes to music.

For years, I thought I was set on my opinion of Wolfmother. They were okay. They were clearly just rehashing old Sabbath riffs and ripping off Zeppelin's style, but hey, they were pretty good at it. "Colossal" and "Woman" were good songs, their first album was enjoyable, end of story.

Then I was linked to a certain experimental singer's YouTube rant against them, and all that changed.

Just to be clear, I'm no Mike Patton fan. He's talented, I like what he did with Dillinger Escape Plan, but I've found everything else I've heard to be...exhausting. Not my cup of tea, but he's admittedly earned his army of followers in his own special way.

The video is simple enough. Patton is being interviewed at Lollapalooza while Wolfmother is playing in the background, and he suddenly breaks off into a tangent about how much they suck.

This simplicity is what I found most compelling about the whole incident. This wasn't an orchestrated diss or a traded blow in yet another meaningless rock 'n' roll feud (though it's been argued that Myles from Wolfmother started it with his comment in another interview--I don't buy it). Patton heard them playing and reacted instantly, not even bothering to elaborate on his hatred beyond a "You suck," believing that anyone with ears would agree with him. It was an outright dismissal, something that's grown increasingly rare among musicians in the Internet era, especially outside of hip-hop. Artists are rarely blunt about each others' work--which explains why this particular event went viral so quickly.

Watching it made me realize that I had never reexamined my old high school impressions of Wolfmother's first album. So I gave it another listen. And, as it turns out, Wolfmother sucks.

Not only do they ripoff Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, you can add Blue Cheer, Cream, Yes, and a whole lot of other bands to that list with them. They steal from blues rock and early prog just as much as they do heavy metal. "Colossal" and "Woman" still have great riffs, but the rest of the album is increasingly underwhelming. It's a mediocre rehash of a lot of great music, but it's the kind of great music that just gets old after a while.

Everybody loves classic rock when they're 16, but all that guitar hero worship and those bombastic claims of "[insert early to mid-70s bad] IS THE GREATEST BAND EVER" just can't be sustained. When you're in high school, that shit is still fresh, and you wonder why EVERYONE isn't making "good music" anymore, like Wolfmother still is. Then you grow up and realize all those bands were just brutally stealing from authentic blues artists to begin with, and most of them are total assholes.

So really, Wolfmother is just a bad version of dated, stolen art. And I somehow have Mike Patton to thank for me coming to that conclusion.