Scaruffi Quotes That Have Made Me Laugh Out Loud (Quite Literally)

Scaruffi's sarcastic and cynical approach to some artists, albums & places is just pure comedy considering how devoid of humour his usual writing is, and makes for some great reading.

No offence intended if you like said bands.

If you find any good ones, please suggest.

(On Madonna's Hard Candy Album)

Hard Candy (2008), yet another terrible album, used an impressive cast of producers (Nate "Danja" Hills, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams) to craft predictable and trivial dance numbers such as Four Minutes. About to turn 50, Madonna is turning into one ugly dumb middle-age woman who is still desperate for sex, perhaps because her private life was such a failure.

(On Madonna's American Life Album)

American Life (Warner, 2003) manages to be even worse (more trivial, incoherent, incohesive, amateurish) than its predecessor, an almost impossible feat. The bouncy techno of Nobody Knows Me and Hollywood is pure wishful thinking, and Madonna's adult persona, the one displayed in an endless sequence of lullaby-ballads (Intervention, Love Profusion, X-Static Process), as well as in the pathetic gospel of Nothing Fails, is a garbage can of cliches.

(On Britney Spears, spanning her entire profile)

If you like the Beatles, then Louisian-born teen-idol Britney Spears is a milestone in popular music. If you think the Beatles were the biggest rip-off of all times, then... they were the second biggest. The biggest is Britney Spears, a trivial singer and a trivial dancer dancer who has mastered the art of copying the trends, although a product on which the music industry has lavished millions of dollars to create an overnight sensation. And an overnight sensation she became when (barely 18) she debuted with Baby One More Time, a catchy refrain propelled by martial hip-hop beats (courtesy of Max Martin, the same man behind the music of the Backstreet Boys). The album Baby One More Time (Jive, 1999) will sell ten million copies in just one year. The production work was certainly state-of-the-art, but what "sold" was her image of malicious (quasi-nymphomaniac) teenager and her throaty "oh baaaby".
She became the youngest artist ever to top the charts for both singles and albums. Teenagers around the world went nuts, the same way their grandfathers had done when the Beatles first uttered "yeah yeah yeah". The media scrutinized her private life and websites overflew with sexy photos of Britney's tits and Britney's thighs.

Not having left much to uncover, Spears returned with an equally terrible collection, Oops (Jive, 2000), that includes the new hit, the equally catchy, romantic and danceable Oops I Did It Again. But the fans remained faithful: this one sold "only" eight million copies in one year.

Britney (2001) and In the Zone (2003) mainly capitalized on her sexy persona (the "grown up" version of Britney the poster girl). Spears was slowly evolving towards a Madonna-lookalike and soundalike.

Her behavior too changed dramatically: after promising to remain a virgin until she got married, she married at 22 and then divorced a few days later. Then she got married for real, gave birth to two children, and divorced again after just three years. Her escapades became much more popular than her music, whether posing half-naked for a weekly magazine or being photographed with no underwear. For millions of middle-class families, she became the poster girl of everything that was wrong with the middle-class kids of her generation.

In 2007 she returned to live shows after a three-year hiatus, and she launched a new hit, Gimme More, but she caused a furor when she appeared (overweight, out of shape and unprepared) in a tight bikini at an MTV show.

(On The Backstreet Boys' three most recent albums.)

The quintet's Millennium (Jive, 1999) sold 12 million copies in one year (I Want It That Way , Larger Than Life, I'll Never Break Your Heart). That's about all there is to say about their music. They share with the Beatles the mass hysteria of their fans and the complete lack of originality in their music.

It would be hard to make a more predictable album than Black & Blue (Jive, 2000) and its first single Shape Of My Heart. The childish celebration of Everyone is the closest they get to producing some music.

Never Gone (2005) was one of the least imaginative albums of tedious ballads ever assembled.

(On The Spice Girls)

The British female quintet Spice Girls were the most famous musical act in their country throughout the second half of the 1990s, starting with the hit Wannabe (1996) and selling more than 20 million copies of the awful albums Spice (1996) and Spiceworld (1997). The Spice Girls were as silly as the Beatles, and as popular in the British tabloids, but never learned how to write a decent melody.

(On The Pyramids)

Generally speaking, the pyramids rank among the most overrated attractions in the world, mainly because the Greks included them in the "seven wonders of the world". The truth is that it is not terribly difficult to build a pyramid if you can use the free labor of thousands of slaves. Ultimately, it is just a pile of rocks.

(On Things That Annoyed Mr. Scaruffi In The USA)

# Waiters are hysterical about cleaning your table even before you finished eating
# Lots of homeless beggars, more than in any other Western country.
# Obesity
# People do not wash their hands before eating and often suck their fingers when finished eating (when you use the utensils at an all-you-can-eat buffet, those utensils have been used by countless people who did not wash their hands), a puzzling behavior by people who are obsessed with deodorants and showers and flossing

(On Afghanistan)

Kabul is still an awful place to live in (Rumsfeld's family should be relocated to Kabul, so he would stop claiming that life in Kabul improves by the day).

(On Celine Dion)

Celine Dion is successful precisely because her voice is so meaningless, possibly the least inventive and emotional of her generation.

(On The Backstreet Boys' album Never Gone)

Never Gone (2005) was one of the least imaginative albums of tedious ballads ever assembled.

(On Paula Abdul)

Dance-pop diva Paula Abdul, originally a choreographer for Michael and Janet Jackson, became first famous for her videos and singles, such as Straight Up (1988), from Forever Your Girl (1988), Opposites Attract, The Way That You Love Me (1989), but then also for being unable to sing or dance, as live shows and follow-up albums Spellbound (1991) and Head Over Heels (1995) proved Nonetheless, she (and Madonna) proved the importance of choreography for the star of the 1990s, a lesson that the generation of Britney Spears will learn well

(On Some of Travis' Albums)

The Man Who (Independiente, 1999), a best selling album in the UK, has little to commend itself. The sound is copied from late Pink Floyd and Radiohead. The catchy Why Does It Always Rain On Me is creative as anything their friend Britney Spears has done. The rest is split between trivial refrains and sleep-inducing ballads (Luv).

The Invisible Band (Independiente, 2001) is one long yawn. The potential hits are packed at the beginning (Sing, Dear Diary, Side) and they are not exactly Beethoven's Ninth. The rest is even less entertaining.

12 Memories (Epic, 2003) has even fewer potential hits (Re-Offender, the touching Something Else), but, in a rare feat of lack of imagination, it manages to ape the Beatles at their most morose (Peace the Fuck Out, Walking Down the Hill, Quicksand) and U2's tedious political sermons (Peace The Fuck Out, The Beautiful Occupation).

(On Artificial Intelligence (the film))

Artificial Intelligence (2001) is an embarassing hodgepodge of Hollywoodian stereotypes, terribly slow and lengthy, pointless and devoid of any message, although salvaged by mesmerizing visual effects.

(On Some of Stereophonics' Albums)

Language Sex Violence Other? (V2, 2005) is an insult to the intelligence of the public. Pull The Pin (2007) is an insult to their own intelligence because it is more of the same.

(On The Manic Street Preachers)

Lifeblood (Epic, 2004) continues the string of awful releases by Manic Street Preachers. This time the uninspired trio delves into old-fashioned easy-listening music, which only occasionally redeems itself from total boredom (The Love Of Richard Nixon, To Repel Ghosts, Solitude Sometimes Is).

Send Away The Tigers (2007) had even fewer interesting moments.

(On Amon Tobin's Defocus)

The apparently unassuming Defocus is actually a new kind of symphony. Tobin warps the distinctive tone of an instrument to produce a new kind of instrument, and then weaves a few of them (a bee-like violin, a distorted bass, UFO-sounding flutes) into an organic flow of sound. It is, in fact, one of the most significant innovations since Beethoven added a choir to a symphony.

(On The Rolling Stones)

While the Beatles had tea with the Queen, the Stones were pissing in public.