Although I prefer to listen to mainstream Top 40 or country music, I can tolerate just about anything. Most of the time, if I am not into it, I can just block it out. However, there is one genre that I really can’t stand.

I would gladly listen to oldies, classic rock, rap, blues, or Weird Al Yankovic before I ever subjected my ears to an hour of early 2000s hits.

To be fair, I lived through the early 2000s and was conscious of the music. Incredibly, I actually liked some of it at the time. But these days, whenever the gym or grocery store happens to be playing it, I just want to run and hide.

I mean isn’t it just awful? The mix of Puddle of Mudd, Nelly, Jimmy Eat World, Pink, Uncle Kracker, Matchbox 20, and P-Diddy drives me insane.

I don’t really even know how to describe it. I guess the garage rock sound of the bands and the boring/irritating beats of the solo artists before the explosion of DJ collaborations just turns me off. I don’t want to call the music depressing but it definitely isn’t inspiring. I think perhaps that is why I hate early 2000s music…it just doesn’t make me feel anything.

When I listen to music from 2000, 2001, 2002, etc., I feel unmoved. It just comes across as so manufactured. I had a great high school experience (started in August 2001 and graduated in 2005) but even the great memories made during that time can’t justify to me that the music of the era didn’t suck.

For me, I designate the Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow duet disaster known as “Picture” as the worst song ever made. The cheesy, annoying, and unlistenable song was recorded in 2001 and released in 2002. Although it is probably unfair to do so, I always envision that lousy track holding the banner for all the other crap that was made in the early 2000s. Unfortunately for me, it seems to always find its way on every playlist from that era. Each time I hear it, I hate the music from those years even more.

It is true, I do like a few songs from the turn of the millennium but the word “few” is quite literal. Am I off base here? Please let me know. Don’t Blink.