Have you ever been at your favorite musician’s show, and the poser standing next to you in a tour shirt with the tag still connected, turns to you and says, "These guys are rad, but I wish they’d just play [insert only hit song’s name]."

Your first compulsion is to just deck the dude because you’re two whiskeys deep all you’re trying to do is enjoy yourself but what’s really at the center of your violent rage is that this little pipsqueak only knows the hits. He’s not really a fan of the band. He could care less about their history, bonus tracks, outtakes, and b-sides. In short, he’s a total faker.

In the spirit of this hypothetical situation, we've come up with a list of the ten musical acts and artists people say they "love" but don’t really like -- mainly because they’re totally unoriginal morons who wouldn’t have an idea what good music is if it hit them in the nose. We're not saying we love these bands either, but we can still call out the fakes.

  • loading...

    Grateful Dead

    Look, if you didn’t grow up in the 1960s in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district; or are at least 50 years old and make, say, $100,000/year and have 2.5 children, you shouldn’t be listening to the Grateful Dead anyway. What we really can’t stand are these people that own ‘American Beauty’ (the Dead album, not the DVD) or one of the Dead’s greatest hits records -- but don’t know what Dick’s Picks, ‘China Cat Sunflower,’ or ‘a miracle’ are. Please don’t ever tell anybody that you’re a "Dead Head", either. Usually, that’s just an excuse for poor personal hygiene, not taking showers, and living in trees.

  • loading...

    Bob Marley

    Everyone -- and we mean everyone -- has probably either owned (or known someone who’s owned) a copy of Bob Marley’s ‘Legend’ at some point in their life. Ours was a cassette tape. But unlike most of the dimwitted douche-nozzles out there that say they’re fans of "Bob" (as if they’re on a first-name basis with the late Jamaican superstar), we actually dug deep into his collection of early albums; listened to his huge amount of live albums (both bootlegged and released); and didn’t pretend like we were fans, because we learned the chords for ‘No Woman, No Cry’ on our guitar. We still remember this dreadlocked guy on the New York City subway out to Queens several years ago, who’d play a god-awful cover of that tune, then get showered in money by college-aged zygotes. Rule of thumb: If Bob didn’t sing it or play it, it’s more than likely going to be terrible.

  • loading...

    The Beatles

    The Beatles are one of those rock-and-roll gateway drugs that most kids -- if they get introduced to them early enough -- usually end up using as their paradigm for what rock should sound like for the rest of their lives (or in their garage when they start their first band). Then there are these stoner college kids, who use ‘Revolver’ and ‘Rubber Soul’ as reasons to drop acid and pretend to play music. They don’t really love the Beatles; they just really love to lose their brain cells at an alarming rate per minute. Don’t be fooled by these wasters; they don’t really like the Beatles. In fact, if you ask them what Ringo Starr’s real name is and they stare back blankly, we suggest punching them between the eyes. They won’t be hallucinating those stars. (It’s Richard Starkey by the way, you tool.)

  • loading...

    Bruce Springsteen

    Now, we know there’s this whole "New Jersey pride" thing going on with The Boss, but just because you’re from Joysy doesn’t mean you know what the hell you’re talking about when it comes to Springsteen. Living in the Garden State doesn’t make you some by-default fan. In fact, we’re going to go out on a limb and say you probably only know ‘Born in the U.S.A.,’ ‘Dancing in the Dark,’ and maybe ‘Hungry Heart.’ You probably own a ragged T-shirt that your older sister gave you in 1985 and a poster you bought at a rummage sale. And if you think that ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ is about being an American and kicking butt, we can almost guarantee you’re probably (a) an idiot and (b) not a Democrat.

  • loading...

    The Rolling Stones

    The Rolling Stones are an easy band to fake. Hell, if you have ever listened to a classic rock or oldies radio station for more than 20 minutes, you’ll hear no less than ten Stones songs. And because they’re still out there, touring, and well, not dead yet, it’s pretty easy to go to their concerts if you have a couple extra Ben Franklins at your disposal. There’s nothing worse than seeing some hipster walking around, wearing his hair like late-Stones guitarist Brian Jones, and you know he doesn’t have an effing clue that Jones was the creative force behind the original lineup -- not Mick Jagger. Corner said hipster and ask him if he’s ever heard the ‘Mars bar’ story that involves Marianne Faithful, and if he hasn’t, hold him down and shave his head while chanting, "Hey, you, get offa mah cloud."

  • loading...

    Dave Matthews Band

    Don’t even get us started about fake Dave Matthews Band fans. (Oh, well, you just did, so here we go.) When we were growing up in upstate New York (not Westchester County -- the real upstate New York), we saw DMB, like, five times over five summers. And as it became clearer and clearer that his ‘fans’ -- who refer to him as ‘Dave’ (a la the Bob Marley douches) -- knew less and less about his music and were just there to smoke dope and underage drink, we just threw up our hands and said, ‘To hell with it.’ There’s absolutely nothing worse than a little kid who knows ‘Crash’ and Dave’s cover of ‘All Along the Watchtower’ and screams for them all concert long. No, there is actually something worse: a 40-year-old woman doing the same thing.

  • loading...

    Rush

    The fact that that crappy, ageless music magazine that will go unnamed finally decided to help induct Rush into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year is a total travesty. We’re still pissed off about it taking this long. And of course, right around the time this all went down, all of these teenagers, music bloggers, and middle-aged men came out of the woodwork, took to Twitter and Facebook, and were like, "Dude, this took way too long" which is total bull because we guarantee these pussywillows haven’t spent more than 20 minutes listening to the greatness that is Rush -- Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart. If you don’t know that ‘Geddy Lee’ and ‘Alex Lifeson’ are stage names and that Peart writes most of the lyrics (and that you pronounce his last name PEERt), you should be forced to move to the coldest part of Canada and never return. You’re not worthy of American citizenship.

  • loading...

    Radiohead

    If you "love" Radiohead because of their songs like ‘Creep,’ ‘Fake Plastic Trees,’ and ‘Karma Police,’ you don’t really love Radiohead. Wait, did you just see that thing whiz past your head? Well, we just threw a gigantic (hypothetical) radio at it. Radiohead is one of those bands that if you stopped listening to them after ‘The Bends’ or ‘OK Computer,’ don’t even bother saying you’re a fan. What you are is an unoriginal bastard that needs to hide behind the shroud of originality to think that you’re worthy of seeing the light of day. We have news for you: You and everyone else that thinks Hall & Oates is good music, need to just call it a day and get a lobotomy.

  • loading...

    The Ramones

    If you think Phil Ramone was in the Ramones, go to hell.

  • loading...

    The Misfits

    The Misfits are probably one of the most merchandized bands these days, and by that we mean, that we’ve seen pretty much every geek, slut, blood, wasteoid, dweebie, and penishead wearing that tell-tale black T-shirt with the white Crimson Ghost logo on it. And of course, that leads us to question whether said-clothing-snob knows the band. Well, guess what? He doesn’t. Those shirts were mass-produced so that former Misfits bassist Jerry Only -- who now rocks male-patterned baldness and a prosthetic devilock -- can put his kids through college (he also tours around Europe in an abhorrent, bastardized version of the band). If you’re a real Misfits fan, you own everything they’ve ever put out, look at vintage Misfits 7” porn on eBay once a week, and know that the "classic" lineup is the one that recorded 1983’s ‘Earth A.D.’ (which was released after the band disbanded; to Only’s credit, he was part of that lineup). Wear the shirts all you want -- but don’t even pretend to be a fan, or we’ll collect your head and put it on our wall.

More From GuySpeed