Lock Up Your Daughters, Crazy Town Are Back

According to a 30-second announcement trailer uploaded to YouTube at the beginning of the week, early-’00s LA rap-rockers Crazy Town — you know, the guys that brought you the epically creepy karaoke hit, ‘Butterfly’ — are apparently returning with a new album, titled The Brimstone Sluggers.

Judging from the view count on the video to date (16,679 and not exactly climbing), you probably hadn’t even realised that this was happening. Still, it needs to be said: The Brimstone Sluggers is not going to be an album you nor anyone you know will ever want to buy, stream, download or otherwise obtain, despite any curiosity or enthusiasm you may currently be feeling. I don’t enjoy being a jerk, but I’d like to — as gently as possible — spell out the reasons as to why this comeback is such a terrible idea.

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1. That 30-second snippet of music in the trailer sounds really, really bad

When you’re trying to generate anticipation for something you’ve created, especially after an almost decade-long hiatus, the preview that you offer the world should ideally be appealing enough to encourage hype for the full product. You know, a delicious morsel. The trailer for The Brimstone Sluggers is not delicious.

The pedestrian electronic backing track and pseudo-female-orgasm sample in the first 10 seconds are a huge warning sign to the world that This Is Not Worth Your Time, and that’s before frontman Shifty Shellshock even begins rapping. I would compare his vocals here to those dudes from LMFAO, but I actually have a soft-spot for their particular brand of smartly-dumb fun. ‘Fred Durst with a terrible cold’ also springs to mind, but I’d much rather listen to the entirety of Limp Bizkit’s latest single ‘Ready To Go‘ than subject myself to any more of this.

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2. Shifty Shellshock

Crazy Town’s lead singer/rapper/lyricist Seth Binzer aka SHIFTY SHELLSHOCK is a terrible singer/rapper/lyricist. If your only experience listening to him is through Crazy Town’s first (read: only) hit single ‘Butterfly’, you may not have realised that he’s not particularly good at anything he’s supposed to be doing. Luckily, there’s plenty of other evidence: two whole Crazy Town albums, and even a solo career (!). Take a listen to this single from his 2004 album Happy Love Sick, appropriately titled ‘Take Away The Pain’:

We’re sorry we made you do that.

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3. Uh, Shifty Shellshock

Crazy Town’s lead singer/rapper/lyricist Seth Binzer aka SHIFTY SHELLSHOCK is also a terrible human being. Any fans of the US TV series’ Celebrity Rehab and Sober House will be well-acquainted with his drug-fuelled past and his very public attempts to get clean. I’m not here to vilify a recovering addict, but Shifty has two young children, and as recently as August last year, he was arrested for physically abusing his ex-girlfriend and also slipped into a (possibly drug-related) coma. This is not a man who should be receiving your rap-rock fan money and attention; this is a man who should be receiving help.

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4. The chances of another ‘Butterfly’ are pretty slim

Any nostalgic (or otherwise) appeal that ‘Butterfly’ might have to you should not be attributed to Crazy Town. While the beat to the song is undeniably catchy, it’s really just a sample of ‘Pretty Little Ditty‘ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. For a better idea of what Crazy Town’s music actually sounds like, listen to ‘Drowning’, the first single from their second album, 2001’s Darkhorse (an album title also later used by Nickelback. COINCIDENCE?).

Now that’s the REAL Crazy Town! (Again, we’re sorry.)

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In summary, The Brimstone Sluggers is an album that should not exist. It certainly shouldn’t be a success. Perhaps drawing your attention to its existence was a mistake on my part, but it’s certainly not as big a mistake as you would be making by buying or listening to it. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it’s proof of humanity’s own ignorance and arrogance, and the fact that the remaining members of Crazy Town could look at the musical landscape of 2013 and think “Yes, our time is now” upsets me deeply.

Sorry, did I say I would try to be as gentle as possible?

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Alexander Tulett presents Close To The Edge on FBi 94.5, plays bass for alt-pop band Maux Faux and DJs hip hop under the name Moranis. You can also find him on Twitter.