In the last issue of the Mercury, I wrote five forgettable, inflammatory sentences about a lowest common denominator pop punk band by the name of Bowling For Soup. By Monday morning, I had received roughly 500 lengthy exercises in impossible grammar and misquotations from email addresses like ChineseBeaver89@aol.com, LoLLyPoPGRrL21@aol.com and CuTexBuTxPsYkKo@cs.com--all of whom, as you might imagine, took issue with my passing declaration that BFS was "the worst band in the history of pop music." It seems that the folks at Bowling For Soup's street team (www.bfsarmy.com) had sent a mass email to its dedicated mailing list, nudging the disaffected to forward their thoughts on the matter to yours truly.
Most common among the qualms expressed seemed to be that the band was "PUNK ROCK NOT POP. POP IS LIKE I DONT KNOW BRITTANY SPEARS CRAP" (thank you for this clarification, E. Soza). A good number of people also addressed the technical impossibility of a person's ability to rightly deem a band "the worst band in the history of pop music" without actually hearing every band that has ever existed--semantically elevating BFS to their rightful throne aside "the Eagles" and "Queen"--and offering a compelling list of performers that Bowling For Soup are not as bad as (Britney Spears, Modest Mouse, Right Said Fred, The Hives, Outkast, Nelly, opera, hiphop, and religious music as a whole, John Mayer, Franz Ferdinand, and most convincingly, Maroon 5).
To satiate the oft-ignored Bowling For Soup fans among my readership, I offer you the remaining space of my column to plead your case:
"You obviously have no taste in music. I bet your one of those pathetic freaks who sits in his room all day jacking off to gay porn while listening to that monophinic techno/dance crap!!! BFS have talent, they play their music, brilliantly, not make it on a shitty windows 3.1 PC. Your stupider than I thought!!!"--Jake Powell-Hughes
"bowling for soup worst band every, god ur arsshole bowling for soup are fucking awsome, u either dont have a mental mind or you are totally retarded, and a complete fucking loser, and worst band ever is only in ur opinion so dont try and get other people to think that u retard"--Jason Platt
"Dude, just KILL YOURSELF AND DO THE WORLD A FAVOR."--Mike Sundberg
"Please read the following logical reasons on why BFS is not only NOT the worst band, but also a pretty good one: BFS fans will be glad to let you know they've not only recorded the theme song for The Real Gilligan's Island, but also have been featured in Scooby Doo 2, Crossroads, The New Guy, Getting There (w/ Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen), Jimmy Neutron, Freaky Friday, 100 Girls, and Dickie Roberts."--Kevin
"BFS ROCKS!!! YOU WOULDNT KNOW GOOD MUSIC IF MOTZART SPIT IN YOUR FACE!!!"--Allison
"Last week my best friend past away, and her favorite band was Bowling For Soup, and she loved them, and I don't want her favorite band to be put down that way. She was only 15 years old."--Jhonnie Farris
Our sincerest condolences.
