Surrounded By Idiots

In the late 1980s and early 1990s the American musical tide was shifting. Hair metal had taken hold of the guitar-based music, to the extent that Metallica, the couterculture gods, began writing three-minute songs based on a single riff. The music got dumb, and that's why grunge was able to succeed. It parodied the dumbness of popular rock the same way punk parodied the slick glamour of 1970s overprocessed, cheesy arena rock (see The Eagles, who suck, for further information).

But there was still decent music in the pre-grunge and early-grunge eras--mostly underground, where most of the best music has historically been. One of the bands who caught my attention was Wrathchild America, who gave us the song "Surrounded by Idiots."

On days like today, when it seems like I need a hammer and a chisel to get ideas into students' heads, I hear that song in the background, like whatever voices compelled David Berkowitz to kill people. I'm not compelled to kill--just to use explosive language to force people to learn.

So here's Wrathchild America, and their video for "Surrounded by Idiots":




Enjoy.