You could be in your car. Or walking past someone else’s car. Or just in your room minding your own business. It doesn’t matter where you are. But sometimes, when you least expect it, all of mother culture’s fury collides in a wave of malicious fate, and you suddenly find yourself exposed to someone else’s horrific, unforgivable taste in music. Sorry, man. It happens to everyone. There’s nothing you can do about it.

Except what I’m doing, which is blogging about it. Here are the top 10 most detested genres of music, as per the average, reasonable person (i.e., me). You might not personally hate all of them – but realize that most people do. So do the world a favor and stop liking them now.

10. Redneck Rock. What? I’m talking about that goatee-sporting, tricep-flexing, urban cowboy grunge that seems to dominate mainstream rock airwaves. These are the bands who sort of sound like metal, but they drape themselves in an arrogant, pseudo-patriotic aggro vibe that endears them to guys who drive raised pickups and their drunken, bar-fighting girlfriends. This is when they’re not writing whiny ballads about how messed up their childhoods were. All of it actually sounds like one band (who might be called Three Doors of CreetherNickelMudd) who shoots all of their videos on the same crumbling hilltop and buys all of their clothes from the same Dickeys outlet. They’re around because radio DJs have to play them or else, and some people are tricked into liking them because they hear them on the radio all day. But in reality, everyone else hates them passionately.

9. Techno. Dave Chappelle’s famous commercial satire depicting a rave girl groovin’ down in the passenger seat of a speeding car highlights the general public’s disdain for this mindless music genre, and so does the fact that no one really hears techno through mainstream channels. Maybe it’s because overhearing techno is akin to having your head clubbed by sand-filled pillow cases, or because listening to more than two songs in a row is like being in a sonic hamster wheel. If you can hear the same drawn-out intro, hyperactive buildup, watery bridge and pounding reentry over and over again, you are definitely on something. So, since most people are not tripping balls at any given point during the day, techno music lands square in the “hated genres” bin, where I’m sure it will just wake up the next morning and keep on pumping away.

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Overheard the Brit band Raygun filming a video shoot near my work building in Hollywood, and wandered down to watch.

Got this pic of The Adj rocking out in front of the big fan:

The Adj, axe and green screen

Hey, it was on an iPhone. They don’t zoom.

I thought the Palladium floor was going to break through during the brief minutes between the end of the Shins’ set and the encore. The crowd was screaming, stomping and chanting like wild animals, and I can only imagine the band was backstage feeling kind of frightened.

The Shins, a band I think everyone should see live before they die, Had just walked offstage after a fun, tight set at the Hollywood Palladium Sunday night, and the crowd immediately went from a mellow, jovial pack of smiling faces to a shrieking, frothing pile of freaks. I guess they didn’t want their serenity to end.

Going on after openers Delta Spirit (who is definitely worthy of their own review, just not over this lunch break), The Shins took the stage amid another uproar, accompanied by a couple of new band members. They started with “Australia” and a few other songs from their latest, Wincing the Night Away. Not to spend too much time on words (there’s a video here, too), they swept through a smooth, clean set of third, second and first-album favorites including the now-becoming-obligatory “New Slang,” “Phantom Limb” and the trippy-in-a-good-way “Sea Legs.” Aside from the album songs, the band also let everyone in on some of their newest material, including “Double Bubble” and the punchy “The Rifle’s Spiral,” which featured some sweet guitar hammering.
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Twitter users who follow Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor might have noticed a nice bonus to being part of the Tweet generation Wednesday. The Industrial rock icon is passing out tickets and backstage passes to NIN fans who follow his Twitter feed.

Reznor announced the giveaway Wednesday morning over Twitter, then tweeted a link just before noon. Users who clicked through were taken to the band’s NIN|JA tour page, where a short form was open for a brief window of time. The first five fans who completed the form took away the NIN|JA ticket haul.

Twitter users tremor76, freezya, shockwavesmedia, ungeheier and chadrullman each received two free tickets and backstage passes to any show featuring NIN and their touring acts, Jane’s Addiction and Street Sweeper Social Club, during their upcoming tour. The tour kicks off May 8 in West Palm Beach, FL and ends June 12 in Charlotte, NC.

A repeat of the contest was announced for Thursday, so any NIN fans who are Twitter-savvy had best get on board and keep an eye out if they want to take advantage. The only requirement is for entrants to provide an ID number, presumably to identify them once they receive their ticket (though this is a guess based on how they handle presale tickets…).

Visit Reznor’s Twitter page here, and the NIN|JA tour page here.