COREY TAYLOR's You Are Making Me Hate You

Have you ever sat through one of those hell and damnation sermons? It can be uncomfortable, depending on what your private life is like. I mean, if the preacher is talking about the evils of pornography, you are pretty much not going to look at him in the face if you are an addict. In a way, reading You Are Making Me Hate You by Corey Taylor like that sometimes.

You Are Making Me Hate You is a rant against modern mentalities the author counts as idiotic. For example, he rails against the drinking and lazy western culture that is encouraged by the rise of Reality TV. He says,

“…you don’t even have to have a job these days to be so stressed and tested you need to go out and blow your mind on bootleg gingers and high shines. I could understand this shit more if it were just nine-to-fivers embalming themselves….from my standpoint many of those who butcher the conventions of public decency are young, lazy layabouts. They do fuck all in the a.m. but sleep. The p.m. is reserved for finding out what they’ll be up to while they’re missing late-night television. If you don’t spend as much time as I do strolling the streets of various metropolitan byways inadvertently engaged in anthropological research, just switch on your TV sets – if you can stomach it. Every network on the dial or dish has a variety of programs all showing the glamour and glut of so-called reality shows, the worst idea in the history of programming since Geraldo went digging for Al Capone’s recyclables.”

The author does not spare the so-called “popular music” of the 21st century. He calls it “garbage” as he believes there is little talent out there, despite the multitude of talent shows, music channels and websites that exist to promote them. He writes:

“I wake up in the morning, turn on the TV, and instantly got stung by a million mediocre bees in the form of crappy writing, weak synth pop, gargling vocals, and nasal so-called rock ‘n’ roll. It all sounds the same: every song has the familiar quirky keyboard/acoustic “riff”, a moaning attempt at a verse by college dropouts, and a falsetto melody disguised as a hook that serves as the big “chorus”.

He reserves his ire for Glee (the show) saying,

“The irony is that many of the children who watch that show don’t have a fucking clue that the cast is ruining songs that were written maybe ten to twenty years before they were born….listening to the “teenage” performers destroy theses classics is like watching Wolverine trying to detail an Aston Martin DB7with his claws out.”

The author does not spare the fashion industry, airports, drivers, and movies (romantic comedies) of folly. He devotes each chapter to these and more.

You Are Making Me Hate You is a veiled social commentary about the idiosyncrasies of this modern era. It pokes angry fun at stuff we do as a society that doesn’t make sense. The author reminds of Mr. T and his one-liners on fools. And like Mr. T, he also believes the proliferation of these wacky behaviour isn’t necessarily good for us as humans and hinders our progress.

You Are Making Me Hate You is a little difficult to read because it is bit drone-y and whiny in its tone. But that can be forgiven as that’s part of its purpose (I think). The writing is unclear is some places and the sentence structures make it seem as if the book is written or recorded directly from a speech recognition tool. In short, it feels like the author was speaking rather than writing. Some say that can be a good thing. However, this isn’t. The sentences are clunky, awkward, and didn’t really make for an easy reading.

You Are Making Me Hate You will elicit chuckles from many quarters and that is okay. It is not a bad book by any means, but it could have been great if great care had been taken in the crafting of its message.

You Are Making Me Hate You is written by Corey Taylor and published by Da Capo Press (July 7, 2015).

Many thanks to Da Capo Press for review copy. All images are © to their respective owners.

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