The Nickelodean animated series SpongeBob SquarePants debuted in 1999, meaning that any five- or six-year-old kids that started watching it then are now twenty years old, of college age. Holy fuck, I feel old!

So while my initial reaction to xSPONGECOREx, a band that writes SpongeBob-inspired metal songs with tons of superfluous breakdowns, was “Who the fuck cares?” the answer, it turns out, is a whole lot of people: all of today’s high school kids and some college underclassmen probably consider SpongeBob a staple of their childhood and look back at it with feelings of nostalgia and yearning, the way we feel about Sesame Street, The Muppets, ThunderCats, He-Man, etc. Holy fuck, I feel REALLY old!

Actually, I lied: my real initial reaction to seeing xSPONGECOREx in my email inbox was, “Oh, cool, someone’s done metal covers of ‘Plowed’ and ‘Sixteen Candles?’ Sweet!” Now I’m really dating myself.

xSPONGECOREx’s debut song, “Right Where I Want You,” is actually quite well done, at least as far as I can tell. I don’t really get the chocolate reference — I much prefer this song about chocolate — but you probably do, and I certainly love chocolate, so hey, why the hell not: let’s all get in the pit together.