I Love the Way It Feels to Be a Hater of Music Today

If I see Benson Boone do a backflip one more time, I will lose it. The only mystical and magical thing about new music today is how much I hate it—or at least, how much I hate the Grammys.

The award for “Best New Artist” should be called “Which industry plant’s audio trended the most on a 12-year-old’s TikTok this year?” Hype House members Number 1 and 2 really carry that category! At least Olivia Dean won (rightfully deserved—she’s so classy and talented) but geez

LOUISE was the bar low with some of the other nominees. And before anyone asks me “could you do any better?”

I would like to say I probably could because I was in advanced chorus in elementary and middle school and to me that’s more qualifying than just being a TikTok influencer. Anyways, right now I’m at the airport and they just played “Messy” by Lola Young, and I’m very tempted to throw my suitcase across the room because my ears do not need to deal with that much pain at 7 in the morning. HOW DID THAT SONG WIN A GRAMMY?

I’m not saying that all new music is bad. Lorde dropped a killer album, Virgin (2025), this year. And at least Rolling Stone put Geese’s Getting Killed (2025) in their Top 5 Albums of the Year. Other than that, the music scene feels like a dry, dry desert. I know, I know, music is subjective, but I think there are some releases this year that are objectively, well, awful. LESTER BANGS DIDN’T DIE FOR THIS!

Maybe all the hatred in my heart is because I mostly listen to dead people—David Bowie, Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis—all gone. And yet, I always come back to these people because music sucks now! And, don’t even get me started on how expensive concert tickets are. God forbid a girl wants to go to a live show and not go into debt. Kurt would be so disappointed in the MAJOR global crisis harming millions that is Ticketmaster. The industry is valuing money more and more while valuing talent less and less. We have officially lost the plot. WHERE IS REAL MUSIC AND WHERE ARE THE REAL FANS? I will continue to be a hater, and I encourage you all to become haters, too!

So now I unleash all the hate in my heart. My inner Grinch to Christmas. My inner Kendrick to Drake. My inner Kat Stratford to society. Of course I can’t think about dead celebrities I’m obsessed with like Kurt Cobain and not mention another gone-to-soon star in the making, Heath Ledger. So now I present my 10 Things I Hate About You inspired poem, “10 Things I Hate About Music Today.”

I hate the way Benson Boone tries to be Freddie Mercury.

If the Queen is dead, then why is Morrissey still here?

I hate the way Alex Warren tries to be ordinary.

And the way some of those nepo babies don’t have ears.

I hate how Gracie butchered “Just Like Heaven.”

I hate how she keeps getting away with this.

Don’t get me started on how Addison Rae can’t perform live.

Music festivals and the Grammys are always a miss...

I hate how TikTok ruins songs.

At least Instagram Reels are funny.

I hate those industry plants who spawn out of nowhere.

These untalented people need to stop taking our money.

I hate how Rock and Roll is dead.

And that new pop music is made for retail stores.

I especially hate the hits stations on the radio.

I cannot listen to those same 10 songs anymore!

I hate the way everything is mass produced and streamed.

And the fact that Frank Ocean still hasn’t dropped.

But mostly I hate that there’s still so much good music out there

Because music is the universal language that connects us all; its power can’t be stopped.

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Scarlett Smithen is a freshman in the SFS from New Jersey who is nearly deaf from all the music she blasts in her AirPods. She can always name 3 songs from a band t-shirt but NEVER ask her to name a Cocteau Twins lyric.