Xxplosive

Asterisks, as Kurt Vonnegut suggested, might very well be more visually disturbing than the letters that conjoin as “a-s-s-h-o-l-e.” But our concern today is with what asterisks obscure, the choices they blot out, not what they themselves resemble. At first blush, it seems that Fucked Up’s unprintable name is doing its own excellent music a disservice. The pragmatist wonders: Does a band with this profane a name even hope to be successful?