FEATURE: The Seven Deadly Sins Of Music

In the 6^th Century, Pope Gregory the Great essentially codified a list of Seven Deadly Sins. These sins are guaranteed to send a mortal soul to Hell in a hurry. So, which musicians have their ticket stub ripped for the great gig in the underworld? Let’s find out.

Lust: Prince - Remember the saying “sex, drugs and rock & roll”? Well, this would mean that just about every musician is going to Hell. But the worst offender is Prince. After all, he is the man who popularized the phrase “23 positions in a one night stand.” He played a mildly phallic looking guitar on stage at the Super Bowl. He’s posed naked on his own album covers. This artist clearly has sex on the brain more often than not, and has probably thought of a way to actually have sex on the brain.

Gluttony: Fat Joe – Yes, this man is a glutton. He’s larger than life. Literally. His one hit “Lean Back” spawned an array of jokes that usually went along the lines of “Fat Joe is so fat, if he actually leaned back, he’d fall over.” But don’t worry. He’ll be joining Big Pun, Biggie Smalls and NOFX’s lead hooligan Fat Mike down there.

Greed: Radiohead – Radiohead is going to hell. They are a fantastic bunch of musicians, although I doubt anyone can name a soul in that band after Thom Yorke. Anyway, the group’s release of In Rainbows on a solid disc seals the group’s fate. At first they had the novel idea to release an album online independently for whatever the people wanted to pay for it just to keep the money away from record labels. Then they realized that maybe they’d make more money by a conventional release. So they did, on XL Recordings.

Sloth: Michael Stipe of R.E.M. – Anyone who writes a song with every other line being “Yeah yeah yeah yeah” is a lazy, lazy man. Anyone who writes the lyric “Leaving was never my proud” is far too lazy to use proper grammar. Anyhow, he’ll join the entire Crash Test Dummies down there because not only did they record a chorus consisting only of “mmm mmm mmm mmm,” but they also named the song that.

Wrath: Scott Weiland - First he leaves Stone Temple Pilots to join up with the now Rose-less Guns N’ Roses to become Velvet Revolver. Then he has an acrimonious break-up with Velvet Revolver, which involved him using high-school styled insults toward Slash, and rejoins Stone Temple Pilots. Sounds petulant, but when Weiland gets angry, bands die.

Envy: Eric Clapton – Forget his musical talent for a bit. He stole George Harrison’s wife. Enough said.

Pride: Axl Rose – It’s been how long that Chinese Democracy has been in production now? Apparently 13 years and over $13 million isn’t enough time to make the perfect record. How much pride does one man have that he simply can’t release an album without constant retweaking and arguing over the disc? At this rate, we’ll actually see democracy in China before the album comes out. But don’t worry – this album is scheduled for release some time in 2008, which is sort of like saying St. Bonaventure University will reform Clare College. In other words, don’t grow old waiting for that to happen.

- Garrett Lyons