When we asked our friend Andrew to write ivyTunes for us, he agreed on one condition: that after picking the best (those were Filligar, Vampire Weekend and The Main Drag, sort of), he'd get to do one final hatepost. It takes a lot of guts to submit your heartfelt music for public evaluation; naturally, we need to betray those hopes and dreams without further delay.
Hello. Did you miss me? No? The feeling is mutual.
In days of yore, ivyTunes was a fixture 'round these parts. "Bands" and "artists" from all across the Ivy League would eagerly send me their best music, and I would avoid listening to it for as long as humanly possible.
Yesterday, however, I received an email informing me that my "mailbox [was] over its size limit." Guess what was taking up all my server space, other than receipts for penis enlargement? That's right! Your MP3s. I decided to give them all one last listen before scrapping them forever. What follows is a list of the bands that most made me regret this decision.
Armageddon Monks: Cornell's Armageddon Monks believe in one thing above all else: how much they rock. Their MySpace page lists "Rock" as their primary genre, and describes Aamir Bashir's vocals as "modern rock." It goes on to claim that the band is "all about rock n roll" and that they "put on hard-rocking shows" for "fans of rock music, pure and simple." All in all, it says, Armageddon Monks manage to produce "enough rock to beat scissors AND paper." I'm not sure I agree. Sure, they shred on axes shaped like big V's and rely on agitated fonts that look as if each letter has weathered a post-apocalyptic maelstrom. And Bashir sings like someone who has become constipated after eating too many steroid quesadillas. But the laws of ro sham bo are inviolable, sirs, and if they were to change, it wouldn't be for the likes of you.
Prospect 11: My theory about middle-of-the-road "modern rock" acts who choose to combine a meaningless word and a meaningless number when naming themselves is that, most of the time, the number tells you how good they are compared to other bands with similarly formatted names. Now, I know that Prospect 11 named themselves after a drinking game in which participants aim to chug a beer in each of Princeton's 11 stately eating clubs -- so the meaningless thing might be, like, a little harsh -- but I think my theory holds true for them as well. If my calculations are correct, Prospect 11 is 171 worse than Blink-182, 30 worse than Sum-41 and nine worse than Matchbox 20. Oh wait, nevermind. They're also worse than Stroke 9 and Eve 6. Sorry. English major. [Ed.: Bonus! Prospect 11 is the band these guys are in.]
Travis Nelson: I'm sure that Travis Nelson is a nice person. I'm sure that his dog is very fond of him. Which is why I feel like criticizing "Label," a plaintive lament about a relationship gone wrong, is a bit unfair. On the other hand, Travis saw fit to submit his song to ivyTunes in the hope that I would share his heartbreak with the world, and criminals like him must be stopped. So if you're a dude with an acoustic guitar and a dream, please take note: arhythmically singing "When I went to bed / I thought of your smile / And all of those times I spent with you / And I began to realize that the only time I'd see you now / Is if I look through my mind's eye" in a wheezy, tone-deaf voice over middle-school strumming makes the rest of us wish that your ex had broken something a little less metaphorical than your heart.
Anton Glamb: People allegedly enjoy Anton Glamb's "music." How can you spot them? They're the folks who also enjoy growing mustaches and dressing up like aerobics instructors.
Thus concludes my rampage. I will say, for the record, that I'm not really an evil person. I just play one on the blogs. And I suppose that after ripping on all of you, it's only fair to offer up my band, Normandy, for you to rip apart as you see fit. Feel free to listen to our EP at www.myspace.com/normandy and rake us over the coals in the comments; or, if your hatred is particularly unbridled, come to our show and berate us in person this Saturday at Union Docs in -- how typical -- Williamsburg.
Sincerely,
Andrew
Read more: 
In case you don't know, Bishop Allen is a Brooklyn-based indie band beloved by the MP3 blogosphere for its polite, quirky pop and gimmicky plan to release one EP per month for all of 2006. (They're two short with 11 days to go. Cram, guys, cram!) To be honest, Bishop Allen's stuff doesn't bother me -- it's well-crafted and charmingly off-kilter, if completely inoffensive and somewhat samey-sounding (listen 
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