A lot of crazy shit happened in music in 2008, I think we can all agree. Much of it was good- hell, it could even be called great, but there were some unforgivably bad stumbles along the way. As usual, utter bullshit music saturated the mainstream last year, with sonic nightmares like Britney Spears selling hand over fist thanks to unprecedented promotional campaigns and, it seems, a total abandonment of album purchases by people with taste and musical sensibility.

Meanwhile, a select few have managed yet again to fool people with the same song and dance, while barely selling enough to touch the charts, much less earn a respectable position. They’re bullshit hype riders, most of them suck badly, and they deserve to be called out. With any luck, our collective disdain can outshine the billboards, bus benches, tabloids and trendy haircuts, and we can forget these losers once and for all.

Was Chinese Democracy worth the wait? When we got our hands on a bunch of damn-near finished songs in June, we said it was. And we had always suspected it was going to be, for years leading up to that moment, as rumors and rough demos trickled out of whatever mansion / studio / nudie bar Axl Rose was holed up in.

After all this time, all fans east of psychotic had the common sense to at least suspect that the big secret had been built up too much, that if and when the moment of truth finally came, it would likely be an anticlimax. Of course, the most amazing thing about this album is that it’s in our hands.

So I’m browsing around on a certain online music storefront that is going to get a new asshole on here one of these days, and this photo slides into view:

You know how sometimes you can take one look at a band of douchebags and know beyond a shadow of any doubt that their music blows? Well, not like I needed any additional written confirmation in this case, but I sure as shit got it. The caption read:

Hinder wipe the tears from their eyes and turn it up to 11 on new single “Use Me,” a racy, raucous rocker that doesn’t hold back.