Suckers!

For almost 20 years, the Supersuckers have been playing their brand of full-throttle punkabilly, praising everything associated with sex, Satan, booze and drugs with a rancorous glee that borders on psychopathic. Over the course of a dozen releases, Eddie Spaghetti, Rontrose Heathman and Dan "Thunder" Bolton have made up for a lack of variety with a glorious rebuttal of all things politically correct. Songs such as "She's My Bitch" and "Born With a Tail" are fairly representative of the Supersuckers' sacrilegious and hilariously stupid approach.

Even their name is a middle-finger salute to critics and anyone else who may disparage them. The guys in the Supersuckers would probably be the first ones to tell you that they suck and that they are super at it. Just about every other band who has decided to be as self-referentially canny has quickly succumbed to, well, sucking.

Has anyone ever heard of Suckerpunch? Well, they did have a self-titled major-label release in 1996, but their brand of snooze-inducing pop/punk, although not too different from that of many fishing the same waters today, fell decidedly in the sucking category.

Stretch Silvester and Ben Macklin operate under the name Sucker DJ's, and while they are fairly successful plate spinners in London, it is commonly known that most white DJs, especially European ones, just plain suck. Really, how many turntable operators of any race haven't been accused at one time or another of sucking?

Michigan's Suckerpush consist of five fairly interesting-looking guys who claim to have a style that "contains hints of pop, alternative rock and progressive with an influence of funk." Hell, even the description sucks. Although songs such as "Road Rage" and "The Punk Song" aren't as clichéd and trivial as the titles might imply, they are painfully reminiscent of Dallas' own Fever in the Funkhouse, a '90s band that really sucked.

Now Germany's own Cellophane Suckers released Hell Yeah in 2000 and it features material like "Fast Fuck" and "Shitty Blind Hair" that wouldn't sound out of place on any Supersuckers' album. However, since these Germanic plastic eaters simply emulate and regurgitate the same garage rock formula from the Bobby Fuller Four to the Seeds to the Cramps, the final verdict must be that they, sadly, suck.

Sucking Diesel is a British metal act and has a female singer named Cherry Bomb. They state that their goal is "global chart domination." They suck more than most.

The sucking continues: There is Sister Suck, Suck Pretty, DJ Die-Suck, the Sonic Suckers and, not to be outdone, the Suck Me Plasma All Stars who actually are a bunch of techno dance geeks from Germany (it appears that there is a definitely European bent to sucking) who record, under various guises, on the Suck Me Plasma label.

Will the sucking never cease? Only the Supersuckers offer a temporary respite.