Stuck Mojo frontman Robby J. Fonts has a site called The RANTidote, a political and entertainment industry commentary site. The latest installment from Fonts' page, Your Life Doen't Suck, Your Attitude Does has been posted. Following is an excerpt:

Robby J.: "Rock ‘n’ roll used to be about empowerment and having a good time. It made people feel alive and free. It was uplifting and feel good. Then somewhere down the line, rock music took a tortured turn that’s been bitter-sweet. We got incredible music out of the changes, but we’ve also lost plenty of brilliant souls because of it too.

Music began to take a dramatically depressing turn by the 90’s. I’d say it really kicked off with the grunge scene which had a dark atmospheric sound to it and lyrics of regretful personal reflection.

By the mid to late 90’s into the 2000’s with the nu-metal scene gaining traction,  bands became increasingly dramatic about expressing their personal pain and demons. A “life sucks, it’s pointless and isn’t worth living” attitude became the norm in the heavy music scene during those times.

The nihilistic trend of hopelessness continued to be prevalent in the modern era. Metalcore, deathcore, death metal, and progressive bands continued to hold dark personal themes as the staple for their music.

This trend isn’t exclusive to metal alone. Pop and hip-hop music fallen into the trend of writing dreary lyrics too. It’s being written by artists who seemingly “have it all”, yet are still living terribly depressing lives. From Justin Bieber to Mike Posner. Charli XCX to Rihanna. These people make poppy music yet still sound so down in the dumps.

They don’t have stable romantic relationships, engage in rampant drug abuse and spend their money on trivial material items. These are some of the topics that are expressed in modern pop songs and it appears to be reflective of the pop star lifestyle as well. These people are openly empty.

My message to all upcoming artists out there is this…you kids are young. You have your whole lives ahead of you. Just because your girlfriend or boyfriend of two weeks recently broke up with you doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. It happens and that’s life. You’ll get over it.

Negativity begets negativity. If you surround yourself with negative people, if you are focusing on negative thoughts, if you are writing negative lyrics and if you are singing those lyrics on a frequent basis, it will eventually catch up to you.

That’s why it isn’t uncommon to hear about metal musicians from the past three decades or so struggling with their personal demons in front of the public’s eye. They’re lives are open books for all to see and it’s sad. It’s seeing somebody you admire suffer, while you can’t do anything about it.

Listen, it’s great to express yourself and whatever it is you went through. Nobody can ever fully understand how someone may feel or understand exactly what they went through, but you have to write the next chapter of your life.

You can’t keep on re-visiting what happened to you years ago. It’ll consume you. At some point, you gotta move on and away from the things that haunt you.

I believe that bands need to get back to being empowering. We need heavier music that is also uplifting. We need bands to be writing more about themes of redemption, overcoming the odds, surviving, no longer being the victim and life being worth living."

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