Web Video / Diamond Axe Studios Music

Diamond Axe Studios Music is a video review show hosted by Sean Fay Wolfe which started in 2017. As the name suggests, he reviews music (mostly of the Pop kind), often mixing comedic lines and actual criticisms or praises in his thoughts.

Sean has six main series:

• Top 10 Worst/Best Hit Songs of..., where he covers the turds and diamonds of the biggest songs of a random year, respectively. He also does them annually for the end of the then-current year.
• Billboard Top 20 Hit Songs-Ranked WORST to BEST, a quarterly series where he does Exactly What It Says on the Tin from Billboard's weekly Hot 100 chart. At the end of each video, he also covers three songs that were also charting that week that he finds deserving of more attention. For the Winter and Spring 2021 rankings, Sean instead gave his thoughts on the Top 40 from the weekly Rolling Stone charts. Starting with the Winter 2023 ranking, this series is done as a collaboration with TheDoubleAgent.
• Grab Bag Reviews, a series where he covers ten random songs ranked by the most votes from his Patreon subscribers.
• Pop, Flop & Roll, a series where he covers movies starring famous popstars (except for Madonna, because... you know). Only one episode has been produced so far, that being for The Bodyguard.
• Do You Recognize This #1 Hit?, a series where he interviewed various people around his local area to see if they actually recognize the #1 song from Billboard's weekly charts. The series was discontinued in August 2022.
• Hits of History, where he ranks every song that ended up on a certain spot on Billboard Year-End lists throughout the years based on fan votes from his community tab polls.

As a side note, Sean is also a published author, having written the Elementia Chronicles series of Minecraft fan books.

His videos can be found here.

Man, these tropes sure do exist, don't they?

• 10-Minute Retirement: In the Top 10 Worst Songs of 2017, hearing "Sorry Not Sorry" causes Sean to go deaf leading to him seemingly ending the channel, complete with a clip of him walking away with the text "RIP Diamond Axe Studios Music 2017-2017". He later gets his hearing back through a Deal with the Devil.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Sean's thoughts on two jokes from Lil Dicky's "Earth" (Ariana Grande portraying a black and white zebra and Adam Levine portraying a group of vultures which all have the same voice) is this.
• Analogy Backfire: From the "Imma Be" section of "Every #1 Hit of the 2010s: Ranked Worst to Best" list:
  will.i.am: I'mma be ya bank, I'll be loaning out semen
  Sean: Yeah, girl, just to be clear, I'm actually just loaning my jizz to you. I will be needing it back.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • On the #5 spot for his Worst Songs of 2017 list, Sean makes it seem like he's going to put "Believer" by Imagine Dragons on the list, only to reveal that he actually thought the song was mediocre; he instead gives the spot to another Imagine Dragons song, "Thunder".
  • On the #4 spot for his Worst Songs of 2013 list, Sean makes it seem like he's going to put "That's My Kind of Night" by Luke Bryan on the list, only to reveal that he actually thought the song was decent; he instead gives the spot to another bro-country song, "Boys 'Round Here" by Blake Shelton.
• Brick Joke: In "Every #1 Hit of the 2000s: Ranked Worst to Best", when discussing "This is Why I'm Hot", Sean notes that Mims appears again later on in the list. This is brought up again when he notes that a remix of Maroon 5's "Makes Me Wonder" exists that features Mims.
• Call-Back:
  • During the Worst Hit Songs of 2001, Sean declares that he's qutting making videos to train to become a priest and perform an exorcism after hearing "Sexy Sex Obsessive", leading to Ethan to point out that he sold his soul to the devil in the Worst Hit Songs of 2017.
  • In "Every #1 Hit of the 2000s: Ranked Worst to Best", Sean theorizes that "3" is actually about Britney Spears having sex with Fergie, with the "3 P"'s referring to "Britney's pussy and Fergie's two penises", calling back to "Every #1 Hit of the 2010s: Ranked Worst to Best".
• The Cameo:
  • The Fall 2019 Ranking has two: The Mode Reviews appears in the "Someone You Loved" segment, berating and blaming Sean for the song's success stateside, due to one minor joke he made in the previous seasonal ranking, and Fionn of The Social Tune makes an appearance later on when Sean congratulates him on making it on the Hot 100 with an Ariana Grande collaboration, confusing him for Social House.
  • Using the website Cameo, Sean has had various artists themselves appear via a Cameo message:
    • As listed below, the "Worst Hit Songs of 2019" list features cameos from Drake Bell, Fabo of D4L fame, Afroman and Grandmaster Melle Mel as part of a parody of Lil Dicky's "Earth".
    • The "100 Biggest Hit Songs of 2019: Ranked Worst to Best" has Sean ask Mo Bamba (the person) his thoughts on the song named after him, and gets Kyle Hebert (the announcer of Dragon Ball Z) to provide the outro to Part 1.
    • The debut episode of Grab Bag Reviews features a cameo from DragonForce guitarist Herman Li discussing the #6 pick, "Through the Fire and Flames".
    • "Every #1 Hit of the 2010s: Ranked Worst to Best" has two: Sean Paul appears in the "Cheap Thrills" segment to answer Sean's question on how he was picked to be the guest for that very song, and OMI in the "Cheerleader" segment to explain the song's success and what he has been up to since that song released.
    • Sean's countdown of Number Ones of the 2000s included cameos from Plain White T's frontman Tom Higgenson and Mýa, discussing the success of "Hey There Delilah" and "Lady Marmalade", respectively.
    • Wanz appears in the "Thrift Shop" segment on the "Best Hit Songs of 2013" list to answer Sean's question on what was it like how a song with his vocals on the hook blew up as it did.
    • The "Worst Hit Songs of 2020" list features in the "FUCK 2020!" segment the above four from the previous year's worst list, in addition to Sir Mix-A-Lot, Egoraptor, Dan Avidan, Rebecca Black, Slim Jxmmi of Rae Sremmurd fame, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Soulja Boy, Tone Lōc, Chris Kirkpatrick, Jinxx of Black Veil Brides fame, Ghostface Killah, Insane Clown Posse, 24kGoldn, Richard Marx, Alice Cooper, Grandmaster Caz, Smokey Robinson, Ice-T, Ne-Yo, Meat Loaf and Snoop Dogg.
    • The "100 Biggest Hit Songs of 2020: Ranked Worst to Best" features both Carly Pearce and Lee Brice in the "I Hope You're Happy Now" segment, with Sean asking Pearce how the song was conceived and Brice how it was like to jump on a song like this that had already been written.
    • The "Astronaut in the Ocean" parody segment in the "Worst Hit Songs of 2021" list features Vanilla Ice, Barack Obama, David Pakman, Xi Jinping, President of China (as Winnie the Pooh), Gilbert Gottfried, Right Said Fred, Princess Azula, and Chuck Norris.
• Crossover:
  • The Top 10 Worst/Best Hit Songs of 2014 with Cicabeot1, as well as Worst and Best lists for 2001 with The Double Agent and Worst and Best lists for 1966 with Lyzette G.
  • The 2021 Independence Day special, "British #1 Hit Songs that Americans have Never Heard Of" with The Mode Reviews.
  • Additionally, he collaborated with Mr. 96 as part of the latter's 2000s CHILDHOOD POP series to review 50 Cent and Olivia's "Candy Shop".
• Deal with the Devil: Sean sells his soul to the Devil to get his hearing back in the Worst Hit Songs of 2017.
  • Later brought up by The Double Agent during the Worst of 2001 list after Sean attempts to leave and become a priest.
• Do Wrong, Right: The reason "Lady Godiva" made it onto the Worst Hit Songs of 1966, not only because it attempts to degrade women with sexist jokes, but also because it's so needlessly confusing that it fails even at being degrading.
• Drugs Are Bad: Afroman in his cameo in Part 1 of Sean's "Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2019" list.
  Afroman: I'm against drugs. Drugs are bad. You should not do them, under any circumstance. In the eternal words of the great Nancy Reagan, just say no.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Earlier Top 10 rankings (mostly) didn't have bizarre transition music or the recap from 10 to 2 with Europe's "The Final Countdown" (or at least some variation of it) playing in the background^note The 2007 and 2016 worst lists do contain transition music, those being BoJack Horseman's "Generic 2007 Pop Song" and Twenty One Pilots' "Stressed Out", respectively, and with the transition to #1, it plays the end of both songs. The current format would start being effective from the "Worst Hit Songs of 1992" list.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: The Winter and Spring 2021 chart videos focused on the Top 40 Rolling Stone charts instead of the Billboard Top 20. The songs were ordered on their position on the charts instead of his personal worst to best.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: The infamous "And IIIIIIIIII" bridge of "Someone You Loved" managed to shatter the video.
• Heel: Sean feels he has taken on this role for his opinion that "Blinding Lights" is only good as opposed to excellent or exceptional, with the song thus far being considered by him the 8th-best song of each season it has appeared in. He has since made reference to this placement numerous times along with his fanbase.
• Hilarious in Hindsightinvoked: The video "TODD IN THE SHADOWS: Every Wrong Prediction (2009-2019)" features numerous failed predictions from Todd in the Shadows.
• Holiday Episode: "British #1 Hit Songs that Americans have Never Heard Of", for Independence Day 2021.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Mentioned in the "Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2001" list in regards to Ja Rule, who, over seven years after releasing his previous studio album, released the sequel to his most successful album Pain is Love in 2012, which charted on the Billboard 200 at #197 with only 3,200 copies sold in its first week.
• Hypocritical Humor: In "Every #1 Hit of the 2000s: Ranked Worst to Best", Sean criticizes Mims and Juelz Santana for ripping off people way more successful, recognizable and talented than them unaltered while sitting in front of a piano in the shadows.
• I'm Having Soul Painsinvoked: Sean adapts this concept into the idea of a Wounded Dog Song, a song that, despite its raw messiness, comes through as a "tortured scream" that shows a great amount of vulnerability from an artist. Modern examples he points to include "Before You Go", "Call Out My Name", and above each of them, "Robbery".
• Joke and Receive: In "British #1 Hit Songs Americans have Never Heard Of", Mode asks Sean if he wants will.i.am to wish him a happy birthday. Sean then accepts this offer. Cue "It's My Birthday".
  Sean: I WAS JOKING!
• Kill It with Fire:
  • The "100 Biggest Hit Songs of 2019" ranking has Sean wondering what threat could Marshmello pose before cutting to a clip of the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man with Marshmello's head superimposed on him. This leads to him buying several bags of marshmellows and setting them on fire.
  • The beginning of the "Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2020" has Sean using a flamethrower to burn a 2020 sign.
  • The "100 Biggest Hit Songs of 2020" ranking has him declaring "Marshmello sucks!" before burning another pile of marshmellows. He later burns them again after saying "Jason Aldean sucks!" ^note  Sean was originally going to film a segment of him throwing darts at a board with Aldean's face before realizing it could get his channel suspended
  • The Spring 2021 ranking has Sean burning a pile of Minions and Baby Shark plushies, a basketball, an "innocent desert succulent", a fan pointed at him, a Monopoly board set (which he dubbed "Capitalism") and a LEGO fire house.
• Massively Multiplayer Crossover: For his "Worst Hit Songs" lists from 2018 onwards; part 1 always ends with guest appearances from fellow music reviewers on YouTube, and occasionally other famous people:
  • 2018 ends with a spoof of Lil Dicky and Chris Brown's "Freaky Friday" where Sean enters the bodies of other music reviewers.
  • 2019 is another Lil Dicky spoof, this time of "Earth", which also includes appearances from Drake Bell, Fabo of D4L fame, Afroman, and Grandmaster Melle Mel.
  • 2020 has far too many people to list saying something along the lines of "fuck 2020."
  • 2021 features a Word Salad Lyrics spoof of "Astronaut in the Ocean" by Masked Wolf entitled "Cucumber Melon Lotion". Sean would then release this as an official single for TeamSeas, though providing all the vocals himself.
  • 2022 has several music reviewers detailing a specific thing going on in the world when "Heat Waves" first started charting on the Hot 100.
• Mondegreen Gag: In the "Imma Be" section of "Every #1 Hit of the 2010s: Ranked Worst to Best" list, Sean mishears Fergie's "I'mma be spreading my wings" line as "I'mma be spreading my wangs".
  Sean: Also, apparently Fergie has at least two penises.
• Motor Mouth: Both Sean and Dianne when giving "Say Something" by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera honorable mentions in both 2014 lists.
• N-Word Privileges: The "White People Filter" in the Worst of 2014 collaboration video with Cicabeot1, which is used for two consecutive entries, allows any usage of the word from either Sean or Dianne to be censored and replaced with "TIGGER".
• Narminvoked: In the "Every #1 Hit of the 2010s: Ranked Worst to Best" list, Sean says that "Imma Be" features unintentionally hilarious lyrics.
• Nostalgia Filter: The description of part 1 of his Worst Songs of 2007 list mocks this mentality by being an intentionally badly-written comment.
  "omjee te musc of the 2000s was su mich batter then the crappy crap w hav 2day!!!1!!"

  A Stupid Person Who is Wrong
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: In his 2018 year-end ranking, when reviewing "SAD!" by XXXTENTACION, Sean points out that he honestly believes "The Muffin Song" by asdfmovie and The Gregory Brothers to be not only a much better song relating to depression and suicidal thoughts released in 2018, but much better than three quarters of the Year-End list.
• Potty Dance: The "Toosie Slide" dance is described as this.
  Sean: Can someone please explain to me what's supposed to be engaging or interesting about squirming around like a toddler that has to pee?
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Sean gives a lengthy one in the Summer 2020 Ranking towards Nicki Minaj and her fanbase
  Sean: Nicki Minaj wants as many eyes as possible on her at all times. She'll do whatever she can to get them and she's made it abundantly evident by her behavior over the past few years and getting high numbers is all that matters to her. Her album debuts at #2 behind one of the biggest albums of the decade? She throws a massive temper tantrum about it and whines that the system is rigged against her. Other female rappers start gaining attention after she'd been the only woman in the game for an entire decade? She does everything in her power to delegitimize them, tear them down and call them "clout-chasers" whose success should be hers, only working with them if when she realizes the tide was turning against her and it was the only way for her career to survive. She never got a #1 hit ever after a full decade of presence of the charts? Well then, she better try any desperate, bottom-feeding tactic who make as much noise as possible by any means possible, even if it evens working with well-known predators and convicted child pornographers multiple times. Oh, and this is slightly off-topic but I have to say, Nicki, that it really ain't a great look for you to say that you love your fans, encourage them in everything they do and taking pride in sending them to attack people. Especially considering that they've been known to, oh, for instance, say homophobia is cool cause gay people deserve it, call people who say anything against her racist, sexist f***s who deserve to die, threaten to doxx people and say that they're coming for you and your entire family and after you say in an unrelated post that you're dealing with extreme anxiety, they say that they're thrilled to see you suffering, that you deserve every bad thing that comes your way, that your life is meaningless and pathetic and that it would, be in fact, be best if you just killed yourself because you dared to speak out against the Queen.
  • Sean also makes one in his Worst Hit Songs of 2020 list on the same subject matter, as the Nicki Minaj remix of Doja Cat's "Say So" tops the list, when he describes the song as the poster child for why reviewing pop music stopped being fun for him, as well as many others, in 2020.
  Sean: When I think of people discussing pop music and the Billboard charts now, I no longer think of a bunch of cool people with a mutual interest in the optics and mechanics behind the nuanced data and numbers that make the industry tick; instead, the main thing I now think of is petty drama, obnoxious shitheads trying to overwhelm and cancel anyone with a dissenting opinion, and obsessed hyper-fans who are willing to harass, bully, and threaten anyone who stands in the way of their chosen idols getting to the top of the charts. These hyper-fans, or "stans," as they've become known, don't view the Billboard charts as a simple metric used to record trends in popular music over time; they see them as a leaderboard where the lower your numbers are, the less worthy you are as an artist and as a person, and there is no level they're not willing to sink to to get those numbers as high as possible and to shut down any criticism against the artist in question. I personally have had myself and my family threatened by these people several times over the course of the year, and the same has happened to several of my friends and acquaintances, with some of them even being doxxed. The stans have always been an obnoxious vocal minority of those interested in the Billboard charts, and they still are, but in 2020, with the general public having less mental energy to devote to music because of the pandemic, they saw their opportunity and used it to completely overwhelm the discourse around the Billboard charts, and now they basically control the tides of the conversation. When I think of the worst aspects of popular music this year, I don't think of off-key vocals or hacky forced metaphors or ear-piercing production gimmicks or anything like that. No, the worst aspects of pop music in 2020 were deplorable human beings being rewarded with success and influence, exhausting discourse around artists being unapologetically problematic, and stan wars online hijacking the pop charts for their dick-measuring contests thinking that high numbers are directly indicative of a song's quality while ruthlessly harassing thousands of people to force the artists they've chosen to worship down people's throats. 2020 was the year that getting high numbers at any cost became definitively more important than the music itself, and at the crossroads of all these different flavors of hatred, misery, and tedium was "Say So."
  • Sean's #2 pick for his "Top 10 Worst Songs of 2013" list is "U.O.E.N.O." His segment for the song only lasts a little over a minute, and consists of him calling out Rick Ross for his infamous line in the song where he brags about date-raping a woman, and how Ross's subsequent apologies for the line were clearly just him trying to regain the sponsorships he lost in response to the backlash.
  • In his Winter 2023 Ranking with TheDoubleAgent, the "Under the Influence" segment starts with Sean giving one of these to the general music-buying public for allowing a sleeper Chris Brown hit to become a thing, especially after Brown's decade and a half-long history of Domestic Abuse.
  Sean: Chris Brown is the R. Kelly of Generation Z. Like, not only did we keep him around after we found out what he did, we kept him around for a long time after we found out what he did, and now, here we are. A Sleeper Hit from Chris Brown's 2019 album Indigo, the one with "No Guidance" on it. Someone on TikTok looked at this dead four-year-old album from the most famous domestic abuser alive, listened to the track that sounds like a cloud of skunk weed in a high school bathroom, and decided to make it a meme because of the line "your body language speaks to me", which is not even the actual line, and it took off. We as a collective actively decided to add more Chris Brown to the public sphere, and it was totally organic. The label didn't push it, of course Brown didn't force it into being a thing. We gave the man who's been harassing, threatening and assaulting women for the past 14 years straight a giant viral smash hit, purely because it was what we wanted to do.
• Running Gag:
  • "Blinding Lights" showing up at #8 in his seasonal rankings, to the point that in his Fall 2020 and Year-End Rankings, it was still listed as #8 despite technically being at #5 and #34, respectively. Comes full circle in the 2021 Year-End Ranking, where it indeed lands at #8.
  • Songs/acts that are considered invoked So Okay, It's Average tend to be accompanied by the phrase "Man, this X sure does exist, doesn't it?"
  • The Worst of 2021 list has him mentioning multiple times that "This was a bad year for country music." This even bleeds into the Best list, as he introduces "Sand in My Boots" by Morgan Wallen with that very line, and it comes full circle with his top pick, "Starting Over" by Chris Stapleton, garnering the line "You know what? Country music this year had its moments."
  • Whenever Justin Bieber is mentioned, expect this image◊ to show up.
  • Putting a contentious song in every tier at once, which he's done to "Mo Bamba", "W.A.P.", and "It's Gonna Be Me".^note In all three cases, the numbering gives away that the song is in the Decent tier.
• The Scream: The Spring 2020 Ranking starts with Sean screaming while news headlines of major events (most notably those surrounding the COVID-19 Pandemic) are shown.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: During part 2 of his "Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2018", upon finding out that four of his least favorite hits of 2017, namely "Mi Gente", "Thunder", "Sorry Not Sorry", and "1-800-273-8255"^note which is his least favorite song of all time are going to make the 2018 year end list, Sean immediately storms off.
• Squee: Sean gets excited in the opening to the Summer 2022 Top 20 Ranking when discussing how much livelier the charts are compared to last spring.
  "Remember the last video in this series when I was going on and on about how 2022 seemed to be a year where there were basically no big hit songs that anyone actually cared about, leaving the Top 20 with a bunch of overplayed radio fodder that left next-to-no impact and gave me nothing interesting to say? Well, as I write this, Kate Bush is sharing the Top 10 with Filthy Frank."
  (Beat)
  "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
• Stealth Pun:
  • The thumbnail for Part 1 of his "Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2019" list is the plastic bag scene from Billie Eilish's "bad guy" video, with 6ix9ine and Chris Brown's heads pasted over the heads of the men from the original video. Or, in other words, Billie's trapping the "bad guys" in pop music.
  • The transition music for his "Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 1975" is "The Sound", from a band named after a certain year...
• Stunned Silence:
  • 6ix9ine's verse in "Swervin'" by A Boogie wit da Hoodie leaves Sean speechless, mostly due to the Mood Whiplash.
  • "Cry Baby" by Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby has Sean being utterly horrified by it.
• Take That!:
  • From the "Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2015" list, when briefly mentioning Ne-Yo's "She Knows", which, like his #3 pick, "Only", was produced by Dr. Luke: "Indeed, Dr. Luke. She does know, and now so does everybody else. OH SNAP!"
  • From the "Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2013" list:
    • During the "#thatPOWER" segment, Sean states that complaining about the lyrics and attitude of a will.i.am song is the lamest thing anyone has done "since Ben Shapiro reclaimed his virginity".
    • During the "Feel This Moment" entry:
    Sean: I'm thrilled that this song's main cultural association is now Christina Aguilera shilling a song that isn't even hers in an advertisement for a soulless knock-off of DDR artlessly baked into the middle of one of the worst films of all time. I mean, if the shoe fits.
    • And during the "Harlem Shake" entry, after mentioning that he watched every "Worst Songs of 2013" video for research to see if anyone put the "Harlem Shake" on their lists proper, he aims one at A Dose of Buckley for not including it on his:
    Sean: Guess he didn't find the Harlem Shake to be as worthless as "Praying" by Kesha!
  • From the "Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 2013", taking aim at J. K. Rowling:
    Sean: There is something to be said about going out on top instead of sticking around long after anyone wants you and tarnishing your legacy with every word out of your mouth, ahem, ahem...
  • Sean describing him burning a globe with a flamethrower as a "real-time demonstration of what NFTs are doing to the planet".
  • From the "Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2021", when discussing DaBaby's "Ball If I Want To":
    Sean: I'm pretty sure that this is the last sound a person hears before God condemns them to hell for being homophobic.
• Top Ten List: The "Top 10 Worst/Best Hit Songs of [year]" videos.
• Values Dissonanceinvoked: In the Worst Songs of 1975 list, he discussed how back in the '70s were generally seen as innocent, carefree times with little thought being put into potentially Unfortunate Implicationsinvoked and how before the likes of MTV, superstar musicians were just known to the mainstream as people who made music instead of outright celebrities; this, in his opinion, likely explains why his #3 pick, "Morning Side of the Mountain", a Silly Love Song sung by two siblings, was met with no controversy back then.
• Values Resonanceinvoked: Discussed when reviewing "Amnesia" by Chumbawamba
  Sean: "Amnesia" is a song about how politicians can get away with saying basically whatever they want because the general public is stupid and has no long-term memory while the media is too incompetent and/or bought off to hold them accountable. A poignant message back in 1998, might as well be the new national anthem 22 years later.
• We Didn't Start the Billy Joel Parodies: The opening of part 1 of Worst Songs of 2020 includes an entire version of "We Didn't Start the Fire" sung by Sean himself, with the lyrics rewritten to be about the major events from the titular year. This is played while a 2020 sign he lit with a flamethrower is burning in the background.
• Word Salad Lyrics: His main complaint about "Astronaut in the Ocean" is that the lyrics sound like each line was written by a different person without knowledge of the other lines, as exemplified by his parody "Cucumber Melon Lotion", which was written in exactly this fashion.