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This Guy Makes the Worst Music of All Time

Fusing musical theater with comedy rap metal, Kill Karl is the final boss of “co-worker music,” a genre worse than your job makes you feel.

By Adam Christopher Smith

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Welcome to LOST WEEKEND, VICE’s new Monday briefing.

The last few weeks have brought proof that some songs are so reprehensible, so irredeemably awful, that the only way to accurately describe them is by inventing a genre named after the most annoying people you’ve ever met.Since going viral, Kill Karl’s comedy rap-metal—itself an aggressively cursed descriptor—has been variously described as “line cook music,” “mom’s new alcoholic boyfriend music,” and “music for polyamorous people who work at Domino’s.” But by far the most common label given to his tracks—including “I’m a Metalhead, Bitch” and “Give Me a Fucking Cheese Burger”—is “coworker music.” Those who’ve never peered forlornly across a fast-food kitchen or call-center phone pit while questioning their life choices might not understand this immediately. Those who have, can likely imagine only too vividly Kill Karl’s face, superimposed on the colleague smirking back at them.

I regret to inform you that I’ve found the worst Kill Karl song yet pic.twitter.com/bAOQ3l6vhM— Sami Gold (@souljagoyteller) August 7, 2026

I regret to inform you that I’ve found the worst Kill Karl song yet pic.twitter.com/bAOQ3l6vhM

Browse the comments on a post about Kill Karl and the same references come up again and again: Insane Clown Posse, Mindless Self Indulgence, Attila, Tenacious D, “Weird Al” Yankovic, System of a Down—one particularly droll tweet imagines Serj Tankian looking at a Kill Karl video “like Oppenheimer looked at Hiroshima.” These artists work across different genres, scenes, and sounds, yet they all have something in common that makes them the favorite bands of “the people keeping this country moving.”

holy shit I actually just heard a coworker listening to this shit unironically I lowkey thought coworker music was just a bit but it’s real I can’t believe this pic.twitter.com/4viQUVz7Y3— demonic tooter (@yourwinterlight) July 31, 2026

holy shit I actually just heard a coworker listening to this shit unironically I lowkey thought coworker music was just a bit but it’s real I can’t believe this pic.twitter.com/4viQUVz7Y3

After spotting the original post above, which has now received 14.5 million views, I sent an email to the man behind Kill Karl, musician and producer Jake Kodweis. He was too busy to talk until late last week—maybe because, as he’d later tell me, he’s just signed a record deal with a subsidiary of Universal Music. Remarkably, we are now into our second week of Kill Karl discourse, which he’s capitalizing on with his newly released single “Should Have Been a Motherfucking Email”. (Sorry to break this to you, but he’s also got a new album on the way.)

@killkarlofficial 🔥NEW SINGLE OUT NOW!!! ♬ SHOULD HAVE BEEN A MOTHERFUCKING EMAIL – KILL KARL

🔥NEW SINGLE OUT NOW!!!

Jake lives in Upstate New York. He used to be in a band called (yes) Gonculator who were signed by an independent label when he was 19 (and, it appears, once performed on the same bill as Rufus Wainwright…), and later got into producing and engineering. Around 18 months ago, he launched his Kill Karl project on an........

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