Say Anything - Hate Everyone

There's a drive within all bands to make the charts. The perfect strategy for this used to be: writing a great song, creating a unique identity, and giving something fresh and new to whatever genre you called yourselves.

Obviously numerous hip-hop artists have proved this theory wrong, but generally it holds. The best artists will hit the charts with the draw of legitimate music, focusing on quality instead of ridiculous flash appeal. Yet there's no hard and fast rule nowadays, and these over-produced, shallow songs (which will never be remembered in 10 years by the way) still climb their ways to the top with ease.

Enter Say Anything, a band raunchy enough to catch everyone's attention years ago with well-written songs like "Alive With the Glory of Love," "Woe," and "Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too". And catchy enough to keep us holding on with the ambitious album In Defense of the Genre. Now Say Anything has a self-titled album coming, and their new single "Hate Everyone" just got released on iTunes. And, to validate that little exposition earlier, I'm getting scared that Say Anything is on the border of becoming one of these shallow, over-produced groups.

That's not to say this song will do them wrong, on the contrary they'll probably be more popular than ever. Because this song is dirty, extremely catchy, and retains lead singer Max Bemis's speaking-while-singing expertise so well. You can tell he loves singing the song, and every single line is quirky and distinctly Say Anything. In fact, the more I listen to it the more I know I'm gonna eventually be singing it everywhere I go. And I'll probably even recommend it to a lot of people, because I respect this band too much to just write them off. It just...doesn't really change anything for me, like a good song should. I should feel progression and maturity, when really all I'm hearing is a writer who's finally getting a chance at stardom.

Obviously their album will elaborate and maybe prove me wrong. I hate extrapolating so much negativity from one song, especially when ...Is A Real Boy is one of my favorite records of all time, and even their single "Baby Girl, I'm a Blur" was one of (in my opinion) the weaker songs on their latest album and the rest of it was fantastic. But I'm pretty sure "Hate Everyone" will come and go. Hopefully it won't take Say Anything with it.