This week we dive back into Angie’s wheelhouse, “80’s songs that a lot of people hate.” We’re revisiting Toto’s Africa: a song about a man who sees “death and suffering” in Africa on TV and then compares the continent to a woman he wants to have sex with.

We have a song with about 5 layers of keyboards pretending to be marimbas, drums dressed up like hand drums but being played with sticks, burning a book titled “Africa,” standing on a book titled “Africa,” and brutally tortured lyrics like, “I know that I must do what's right, as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti”

Music We Like: Chavez’s Cockfighters EP, the new At The Drive In, Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War, The Native Howl, and Soft Kill’s “Choke”

This week we cover a music video so terrible, we had to do it twice. It’s Mest’s “Cadillac,” an early 2000’s pastiche of pop punk, hip hop, and cali beach vibes that is so unbearable, even those of us who didn't listen to the band are embarrassed. 

Guest Nick Guenzler shares a wealth of entertaining stories including the time he ghosted a high school girlfriend for 4 months, catching the singer showing off to Warped Tour bands by doing donuts in his Mest™ brand Cadillac, and a very tumultuous Mest reunion.

Also: the singer’s white power background and other ways in which “knowing right from wrong is what [he] lacks,” a member of the Mest family makes an appearance in the comment section, and a track from my old band with Nick, Shut Eye.

Music We Like: Stove - Is The Meat That Fell Out, Yuck - Self Titled, and Them Crooked Vultures - Self-Titled

Listen to Shut Eye's newest EP at shuteyeband.bandcamp.com

This week we cover “Truly Madly Deeply,” a song my guests and I always knew better than to like and which seems to have caused us to lose our minds.

We mostly skip over the 5 minute video, which contains nothing except turtlenecks, “duster ideas,” and yellow skin, and instead focus on these utterly generic lyrics, which are fantastically trite and may conceal an ulterior motive.

Also: Our guest JP’s sexual history with this track, an extremely disturbing Jude Law movie for which this song is the “love theme,” and some advice on from the comment section on the optimal time to sing this song to your lover. 

Music We Like: Jackal Onasis - Big Deal Party, Grandaddy’s new single “Evermore,” and Tribe Called Quest - We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service

This week we cover Limp Bizkit’s hyper-aggressive “Break Stuff,” a song and video that literally broke apart my guest’s parents’ marriage. He shares this story, other parental connections to the show, and we remember how badass all these cuss words are when you’re 13.

Also: a possible explanation for Fred Durst’s pitch-perfect portrayal of teenage anger, the worst genius.com annotations we’ve ever had on the show, the coolest number to have facing outward on your dice stud earring, and a listener email involving a disturbing sleepover with a KoЯn doll and an even more disturbing Lit-era wardrobe.

You can now support That Awful Sound at patreon.com/thatawfulsound and paypal.me/thatawfulsound, and remember to check out Emma's work at instagram.com/emmamaatman