Unpopular Opinion: David Bowie Is Just Ok

One of the girls I dated for a while in high school was a huge fan of David Bowie.

Critics and fans often describe him as a "genius" and consider him one of the best and most prolific musicians of all time. 

I never really felt that way at all. I never bought any of his albums. His music was all right I guess, but it never moved me. I mean the Ziggy Stardust alterego was interesting I guess. 

But I've never been a huge fan of pop music except for some of the alternative stuff in the 80s and 90s. 

So as for David Bowie, he's just ok. 

Unpopular Opinion: The Lyrics of Bon Jovi Suck

I was listening to the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame SiriusXM channel the other day, and a Bon Jovi song came on. 

I immediately turned the channel. 

Bon Jovi's lyrics are terrible. 

It's like the dude picked a bunch of cliches and patched them together. It's just bad writing. 

Take, for example, the lyrics of one of the band's biggest hits, "You Give Love a Bad Name."

Here is a list of tired cliches from that song:

• shot through the heart
• you're to blame
• you give [insert noun here] a bad name
• put me through hell
• loaded gun
• nowhere to run
• damage is done
• play my part
• play my game
• blood red
• school boy's dream

I could go on and on, but I'd rather not analyze more bad lyrics. 

Listeners should demand better songwriting. 

Unpopular Opinion: I'm Tired of the Mannings

What do the Mannings and Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" have in common? 

Oversaturation. 

I'm a big fan of Pearl Jam, but back when music videos were a staple of a young person's life, the constant airing of the music video of "Jeremy" ruined the song for me. 

It's a great song. However, Mtv at the time had that video in heavy rotation. It seemed like it played once an hour. 

It was relentless. 

To this day, it's not a song I enjoy much from one of my favorite bands. 

As much as it's clear the both Mannings were hall-of-fame quarterbacks in the NFL and had strong college-football careers [a little overhyped in my opinion, but I'm an Alabama alumnus], I cannot take the constant onslaught of their long faces looking at me from the TV screens. 

Whether it's the various damn commercials in which they're shilling for this and that or whether it's their Monday Night Football watch-along show, I've had enough. 

Oversaturation. 

I thought once their careers were over that they'd get less air time. 

I obviously guessed horribly wrong. 

I've seen enough of them for my lifetime. 

Unpopular Opinion: Why Should I Assume You're Lying?

There are a couple of verbal viruses mucking about in our spoken lexicon. And I'm tired of them. 

The first verbal virus, and this is one that I hear often among young people, is the statement before one says something true. The person often says, "I'm not going to lie." 

Here's an example: "I'm not going to lie. I thought we were going do better today." 

The other virus that I'm tired of hearing is the phrase, "To be honest." 

An example: "To be honest, I didn't think much about him as a candidate until I started researching him." 

The problem with both of these viruses is the speaker, by uttering such words, is assuming that people think they are liars. 

Why do you want people to assume you're a liar? 

Cut the verbal refuse that doesn't nothing to add to the conversation. 

Unpopular Opinion: Bunting Is an Offensive Force

One rarely sees a bunt in the major leagues, but you're more likely to see bunts happen in high school and college. 

I saw some figure a while back that the on-base-percentage in college baseball with bunts to third base is something like .700. 

I can't find that percentage now, but I did find a tweet by Tyler Rost, the Director of Player Development at Duke, that provides this percentage: "The batting average across D1 baseball on all drag bunts is .533 (Trumedia). There are a LOT of hits down the third base line." 

My son's JV baseball team this season had a game in which they bunted successfully three times in a row and had a big inning because of those bunts. 

There's an old saying that "Chicks dig the long ball." 

However, the bunt is an underused weapon in the game of baseball. 

Unpopular Opinion: No Doubt Was Not a Good Band

I'm trying out a new feature for this blog. I'm calling it the "unpopular opinion" feature. 

I love the music of the 90s. I had a lot of fun in the 90s. I graduated high school in 1989 and was in a college environment throughout the decade. And the decade featured some great music when Mtv was still playing videos and "alternative" rock and grunge were king. 

No Doubt, however, never jived with me. I like bands with female lead singers, but I don't think Gwen Stefani is that great. 

To me, No Doubt was just a white bread rip-off of Fishbone. Stefani even admitted that she took her fashion cues from Angelo Moore. And they did the ska-rock thing to a certain extent. 

When one of their songs comes on any of the SiriusXM stations I listen to, I'm very likely to turn the channel. Their songs do nothing for me. 

No Doubt was not a good band.