Pretty Goes with Pretty

I Drew a Line and You Crossed It

Maybe I blame Feist. Her first album, 2004’s Let It Die, featured a couple of tracks that tested my tolerance levels: “One Evening” and “Leisure Suite” They were cheesy, quote-unquote sexy wink wink—“One Evening” especially. Feist even seemed to acknowledge this in her video for that song, in which she and her partner do a silly synchronized dance that underlines how dumb the whole thing is.

 

I recall an interview between Leslie Feist and Nic Harcourt on KCRW a few years ago in which she herself admitted that Let It Die was assembled piecemeal and was released with no expectation that it would catch on; had she been more premeditated about it, she said, she might not have put certain songs on it. I chose to assume she meant the songs I disliked. These were, after all, straight up soft rock songs. Maybe it sounds silly to say that about some Feist songs and not others—her music is, all around, pretty soft. But many of them are gentle without being corny, sexy without being “sexy,” heartwarming without being manipulative. These two songs, on the other hand, crossed over to something cheeky and ironic. Still, these were, to me, aberrations on an otherwise fantastic album.

Her next album, The Reminder, also possessed a few soft rockisms but more organically integrated. The irony was mostly absent but there was still a smoothness to it, in songs like “Brandy Alexander” and “Limit to Your Love.” I didn’t care. I liked it. Claims from other quarters were that Feist was part of a new wave in indie music that was… boring. Bland. I wrote a post at the time defending my enjoyment of the record, even if it was “Adult Alternative.” Defending my enjoyment against whom? Mostly me, if I'm being honest. Feist made me cognizant of an internal struggle over my own taste. I thought I detected a shift in my tastes toward something with less of an edge and I wasn’t really sure what that meant. The young punk in me was raging against the aging softy I was becoming. At any rate by the time Sky Blue Sky was the definition of "Dad Rock" and Fleet Foxes were winning hearts (and rousing consternation) with their latter-day CSNYisms, I was happily on board and I didn’t care who called it boring. So I'd gone soft.

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Meanwhile something else was happening in indie rock that I wasn’t fully paying attention to. That winky nod to soft rock I’d detected in “One Evening” had become a thing. More specifically 80s soft rock, or more generally just shit music from the 80s. Critical consensus regarding Hall & Oates, they of the atrocious “Man-Eater” and “Kiss On My List,” was being reconsidered. So too was Phil Collins. I couldn’t take it seriously, and I still can’t. I’m convinced that every nod to the wonders of Hall & Oates includes a wink and sly smile—like, “They’re great (not really).”

Other than being occasionally mystified by this trend, I’d mostly steered clear of it until I saw the movie (500) Days of Summer, which I mostly liked except for the one scene that was soundtracked by Hall & Oates. Aside from a random dance sequence feeling out of place in the otherwise not-absurd film, it rubbed me the wrong way because I knew that I was part of this film’s target demographic. Maybe on the older end, sure. Here were two characters who hailed more or less from the same subcultural milieu as I did—they had jobs in the arts, they bonded over the Smiths, they sang Pixies songs at karaoke—and when Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character gets laid he bursts into… Hall & Oates. Fuck me. Whatever, it’s meant to be funny, that’s all.

 

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Parallel to this was the emergence of “Yacht Rock,” a youtube phenomenon made by and for bearded hipsters. Clearly a joke, each of its dozen episodes found their punch lines in bad wigs and references to Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Toto, Christopher Cross, etc. It actually wasn’t that funny but a lot of people seemed to disagree based on how many times Yacht Rock showed up in my RSS feed. But whatever, it’s sketch comedy and who cares if I think it’s funny or not.

 

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Then last year Grizzly Bear, a band who on record has zero sense of humor (intentionally, at least—often their songs remind me of the scary part of Splash Mountain), released a version of their song “While You Wait for the Others,” with the actual Michael McDonald on lead vocals. It was something of a bastard child of the genuine (not really) rehabilitation of Hall & Oates and Phil Collins and the obvious parody of Yacht Rock.

The thing that was weird about it was that the song was played totally straight. Like most Grizzly Bear songs it is dramatic and creepy and somewhat clinical. With McDonald on lead vocals, it was still all of those things. The punch line really came in the concept; the execution was straight, so you’d be forgiven if, midway into the track, you just sort of got into it the way you do with Grizzly Bear songs (assuming you like Grizzly Bear songs in the first place). Whatever. I just sort of took as an attempt at a joke by a band that had never made a joke before.

• Grizzly Bear featuring Michael McDonald: While You Wait for the Others

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I was able to avoid all of these jokes because their whole basis for humor fell outside my sphere of interest. I was alive in the 80s and I remember these bands being massive hits. Barring a few exceptions (the Footloose soundtrack and Genesis’ Invisible Touch), I hated all these acts back then, so this whole “remember those shitty bands?” joke wasn’t that funny to me. Any joke that involves me remembering Bruce Hornsby or Christopher Cross or Air Supply is a joke I don’t need to hear. The punch line, fyi, is that it sucks.

Meanwhile I was perfectly happy listening to my bland, boring, no-edged indie bands like Midlake and Iron & Wine and Neko Case and Fleet Foxes. It’s not the softness that bothers me so much as the soft reference points. 

Note, however, that nothing I’ve mentioned thus far involves a saxophone.

 
(Note: the reason this clip is funny is because it sucks.)

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Skip to 2010: Gayngs were joking too. They made an awful record which references white soul and R&B of the 80s. They wear matching white suits when they perform. They covered (and butchered) George Michael’s “One More Try.” When I went off on their album last year none other than Justin Vernon tweeted at me, informing me that the band in fact took their whole endeavor quite seriously. And, if you compare Gayngs' astute level of musicianship to, say, the half-assed nature of the Yacht Rock videos, he has a point. Though he also admitted it was supposed to be funny (as if it weren’t apparent). “So what?” he seemed to be asked me. (Maybe you're saying that too. Can't I take a joke?) I responded that if the band knows that, on some level, the songs are funny, then they must also grasp that they're funny for the same reason "Yacht Rock" is funny—the punchline is that it sucks.

I feel more or less the same way about Ariel Pink’s recent album, Before Today. Conceptually, the record seems to evolve over a kind of timeline, the early songs sounding like mid/late-60s garage and psychedelia, the middle songs veering toward 70s gaudiness, the end morphing into 80s cheese. Like the Gayngs record, I was attracted to Before Today because of one outstanding track which turned out, I realized later, to be an utterly faithful cover. (For Gayngs it was Godley & Creme’s “Cry”; for Ariel Pink it was "Bright Lit Blue Sky," by the Rockin’ Ramrods and later the Rising Storm.) Realizing both albums had just one gem, and that the gem required only some good ears and the musical talent to ape their source perfectly, only underlined how much I disliked the rest of their material—i.e., when they're not in tribute band mode, their ideas are bunk. I can grant that Ariel Pink is up to something more original, perhaps more ambitious (and has apparently been mining this territory for years), but it doesn’t make the music more listenable.

• Ariel Pink: Can't Hear My Eyes

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In college my friend Dan used to say “sweeeet” a lot. He sounded like a douche when he said it, but he knew he sounded like a douche. He was mocking douches who said “sweeeet” all the time. But he did it so much—he admitted this to me—that he had gotten to the point of legitimately saying “sweeeet” in response to something cool. It had stopped being a joke and instead just became part of his lexicon.

This to me is the feeling I get while listening to Destroyer’s new album, Kaputt. The album is rife with smooth saxophone. All the air quotes that might surround all the other songs I’ve talked about here have evaporated. The music of Destroyer sounds genuine, earnest. And—going back to the same internal battle I had over Feist—that disturbs me. To me it feels like a sea change has happened within indie rock in which the “sweeeet” joke has just become part of the lexicon. At one point, back when Feist was fumbling through her choreographed "One Evening" routine and later singing about her Brandy Alexander, I felt a tide turning against that younger me who stridently hated anything appoaching lite rock. I still like Feist, and still side with myself in that inner dialogue... but Kaputt, and in fact a whole trend in indie rock, has crossed a line.

• Destroyer: Kaputt

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I missed all the hullabaloo around James Blake last year. Now he's got his debut album hitting stores today. I've heard just two songs from this album, so I don't claim to have the last word on the dude. But God, those songs. One is called "The Wilhelm Scream," and is it just me or does it sound like Aaron Neville singing over the music for "In the Air Tonight"? The other song, no shit, is a Feist cover. Full circle!

 

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There’s a line in one of the Destroyer songs where Dan Bejar sings “I sent a message to the press: it said ‘don’t be ashamed or disgusted with yourselves.’” I’ve seen the line quoted in a number of reviews of Kaputt, all of which cite how daring Bejar is to engage such a crap genre and how meta he is for acknowledging it. Oh, and by the way, as far as I can tell I am the only person on the internet who thinks Kaputt is an awful record. I’ve only seen raves, most of which are calling it not only good but the best album Bejar has ever made. Likewise Before Today was Pitchfork's top album of last year, Gayngs is not universally loathed or shrugged off, James Blake's debut is eagerly anticipated. I don't think I've ever felt more out of step with indie music. It disturbs me because, in the case of Bejar and Blake at least, the punch line is that there is no punch line. It's not a comedy anymore.

 

Turns Out It Was a Joke All Along

I just wasn't in on it. Gayngs, I mean. The joke band called Gayngs. As of Monday night I'd never heard of them, but perusing the Quietus' top 30 albums of the year so far, where Gayngs' Relayted places second—second!—I played the video for "Cry" and was actually moved by the song. I thought, this might be a band I really need to investigate. I was getting that sensation of having heard something really special. Here's the song:

• Gayngs: Cry

It's a beautiful song. But it's a joke. They're a joke. I mean, it doesn't really sound like a joke, right? The video, too, seems serious, even if visually it's basically a cross between Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" and Michael Jackson's "Black or White." It's still a stark and dark video.

Here is the blurb that accompanied the Quietus ranking:

Relayted is an epic procession that hoves in and hoves out like a heavenly weatherfront, morphing from one track to another, never falling silent, never touching down, never deviating from around the 69 bpm mark.

Based on that description and the sound of that song, I was compelled to download the album right away.

Maybe you're picking up on my ultimate disappointment, "Cry" aside. It's true: Relayted is a shit album. I mean, it's a frustrating bag of shit.

It's the saxophone. Mostly, it's the saxophone. We're talking Kenny G levels of saxophone here. Kenny Gayngs? Also it's the occasional soul grunts from one of the singers, and the vocoder in one spot, and the rapping that approximates one of the Bone Thugs N Harmony guys doing a sex jam rap. In other words this is basically a soft rock album, usually a very 80s-ish soft rock album. Like, I guess all those references to "yacht rock" I saw on blogs a year or two back were describing something real? I never clicked the links. But so, people are actually aping the music tailor-made for dentists' offices? Fr'real? If someone comes along and starts citing Bruce Hornsby as an influence I'm going to shank him.

Worst of all though is that Relayted didn't have to be a shit album. Actually a lot of the album is close to being really good. It's got this twenty-first-century slow-core thing happening. It reminds me of Brightblack Morning Light but more melodic and slightly more dynamic. Every track on Relayted oozes at the same slow pace—let's say it actually is 69 bpm, since that probably came from a press release—and many songs flow into one another, so the album feels very much of a piece. It's one big monolith of a song, almost.

But in a gruesome act, Gayngs seem to have willfully murdered their possibly good or great album. The saxophone is like a hunter's knife stabbing away at this noble effort, killing it dead and disfiguring it to boot. Right away the opening song, "The Gaudy Side of Town," announces that Relayted promises to be horrendous. It's the silky sax, a sound so reprehensible that the album could hardly be expected to recover. But there are a few songs that get deep into a mood, much like "Cry," and I think maybe Gayngs could redeem themselves after all. And then the sax comes in, laying the track to the ground, lifeless and grotesque.

But it was a joke all along, see. It's my fault for bearing the pain of hearing this album. I complained about it on twitter and my friend Katie, who apparently knows the people in the band personally, responded, "you know they just got high and messed around and recorded that, right?" No, I didn't know this. Was I supposed to know this?

Later I learned that Bon Iver was in the band. Bon Iver, a songwriter whom I can't stand. That opinion is neither here nor there but I bring him up to point out that, with his presence, yeah, maybe I was supposed to know this. Maybe people have been aware of Gayngs all this time and knew it was a funny band that was doing beardo soft rock. Probably there was a youtube of a live show and probably there was an advance mp3 that wasn't "Cry" and probably some bloggers were hyping how rad the Gayngs concert was and, hey,  Michael McDonald amiright? Eric Carmen! I'm funny for saying the words Eric Carmen! Hey everyone, "Theme from Arthur!"

Finally I fully realized that it's all on me. I'm the sucker. I saw a video of a recent live show—very well produced, documenting a very well-attended show. The video's very existence was a news item on... that website I asked us all not to talk about. So yeah, I'm last to know. Jokes on me. These guys are clearly having a laugh. It's a fluke I like "Cry." I should find some consolation that they didn't earnestly think they were making good decisions. Rather they are slathered in irony. That's consoling, right?

My Listening Hours: The Disappointments

When you pick up twenty-five albums in three months, it's inevitable that some percentage of them will disappoint, if not outright suck. For me, these six albums let me down, and/or have almost completely evaporated from my memory.

Most disappointing were My Morning Jacket and Pas/Cal, both albums I was looking forward to and had high hopes for. MMJ seemed to get slagged for taking too many risks on Evil Urges, but in fact it was all the risky songs—essentially, the first three or four tracks and the album closer—that succeeded for me;  everything in between was boring, trite, and in spots completely insipid. Evil Urges is easily the band's most uneven album to date. As for Pas/Cal, I think I summed it up in my review of the record. In short, they tried way too hard to be interesting, sacrificing nearly all of the enjoyment.

Tied & Tickled Trio's 2007 album Aelita was another record I'd been waiting on for a while. Their previous full-length, 2003's Observing Systems, has proven to have surprising longevity in my rotation. I find the group's seamless blend of electronica and jazz to outdo just about everyone else who I've heard attempt it. So why, after all these years, would they choose to remove all the jazz elements? There are no horns to speak of on Aelita, nor any noticeably acoustic instruments. The joke of the T&TT has always been that they are a septet, not a trio; here, they sound like a solo project. It's a mediocre electronica record.

Beck: I can't say much more than I already have about Modern Guilt. I'll just offer this: I've never counted myself a great fan of his—I like him, but I also don't typically give much of a shit about what he's up to—and I don't even really recall how this album made it into my household. I also don't recall the last time I listened to it. Trying to psyche myself up for his appearance at Hollywood Bowl last week, along with Spoon and MGMT, I put all three bands' albums in a playlist and hit shuffle. Every time something from Modern Guilt came on, I reflexively hit the skip button. (P.S.: his Bowl performance was fairly boring as well.)

Margot & the Nuclear So & So's: based on one outstanding song downloaded years ago, "Skeleton Key," I picked up this album which more often than not doesn't hold up against that track's quality. As I've said before about this record: it's all earnestness, no authenticity.

Finally, Coldplay. To tell the truth I didn't even really care about buying this album, so to call it a disappointment is unfair. Somehow, despite not caring about Coldplay since some time around A Rush of Blood to the Head, I still own all of their records. In Viva la Vida's case, my brilliant wife and I were vacationing in Hawaii, where we'd rented a convertible (for the record: Hawaii is sooo much better with a convertible). But we had no music and our only selection of CDs to choose from came from a slashing-its-music-section Starbucks. Viva la Vida it was. The only real standout is the title track. There are a couple other earworms (notably "Lost!"), but it is otherwise a pretty uninspired album. There were times, driving on the road to Hana, that I found myself wishing I had X+Y instead. So that's saying something.

 

I Want to be Entertained

I didn't see quite all of the VMAs last night... I think I dozed off with about 20 or 30 minutes to go. Anyway, it was okay, considering (old man alert) I didn't know ANY of the songs these people were singing. I am hopelessly and happily out of touch with mainstream tween-oriented music.

I will say this: Pink's performance/spectacle was the highlight. It looked like something not everyone could do--jumping from a balcony, breaking a window on cue, rolling into a coreographed dance routine, and actually singing* while she did it. It was impressive. Compare it to the guy--I already forget, I think it was T.I.--who walked with a girl, then got in a fake car with her, singing along with his backup track. Why was the backup track there? And why so loud in the mix? Especially because he seemed to be hitting all his notes just fine; it said to me: "we, the producers of this show, have no faith in this man's talent."

Pink's display of actual talent as an entertainer reminds me of why I'm so nostalgic for the VMAs in the first place. For a pretty good stretch--roughly from the late 80s to the early 00s, if memory serves--the VMAs actually tried to make their stars look more than human. Maybe it was the simple act of doing the show in a theater, like Radio City, with no access to back stage and--gasp!--less spontaneity. Four or five years ago, everything went downhill when they moved the show to Miami, where it took place in a basketball arena rather than a theater. The result was every single musical act sounding like shit and the vast dark, featureless aura of the arena flattening all of the action--there was no focal point, no wow set piece. Last year's disastrous Las Vegas VMA was even worse, as they separated everything out into multiple rooms of a hotel and had shit running simultaneously. It felt chaotic, unfocused, not very special.

This year was somewhat better than last, though that wasn't hard to achieve. Still, this whole thing of bands playing during the commercial break, playing outside then inside, and no surprises whatsoever--"Lil Wayne and Kid Rock in 50 minutes!," the screen told me during the commercial breaks--it all just adds up to more nothing special. We, the viewers at home, aren't getting the whole show when all we see is Katy Perry doing the first verse of "Like a Virgin" and the last verse "I Kissed a Girl"; what's more, with nearly every performance we at home saw in full, it seemed the audience at the awards didn't get to see, since the groups kept moving between the inside and out. So there were two obstructed-view VMAs happening in parallel.

I wish MTV would stop trying to cater to kids who watch TV, surf the internet, and text their friends simultaneously. Trying to appear as distracted as they are doesn't make the VMAs seem current, never mind worth watching. Maybe it's worth noting that the biggest, most entertaining show in the nation for the last 7 years running--coincidentally, about the same amount of time the VMAs have sucked--is American Idol, a show that is nothing more than a single stage on which people go out and sing in front of an audience. It's not boring; it's inspiring. Compare it to the VMAs, where the stars these wannabe Idols supposedly aspire toward seem to be play-acting more than performing, singing along with their albums and mugging for the cameras rather than trying to connect with the song itself, never mind the audience.

*There may have been a backing track for Pink too. I thought there was at first, but then in the end she had her arms around her two backing singers so I wasn't sure if she was singing with them or a track. At anyrate, her real voice was in the forefront.

My Listening Hours: The Worst of April–June

 

Peter Morén, The Last Tycoon
My review of this album pretty much says it all. The Last Tycoon is not a bad album, but it’s not a good album either. It is a perfectly mediocre album—3/5 stars from beginning to end, no exceptions. And in a way that’s a more offensive crime than a bad album.

Enon, Grass Geysers… Carbon Clouds
I got this album the same day I picked up The Last Tycoon, and I feel more or less the same. Though the music is wildly different—it’s spazzier indie rawk—it’s still pretty straight down the middle in terms of what it’s trying to do. Nothing groundbreaking, nothing essential.

Harry Nilsson, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night
I have so much Harry Nilsson on my iTunes library—thirty-five songs or so—yet I own no proper album. It’s all greatest hits packages and stray mp3s when I come across ’em. As with what I said about Lovin’ Spoonful yesterday, Nilsson is right up there—top of the list, actually—of songwriters I can’t wait to share with my (currently nonexistent) kids. His stuff is just unabashedly happy, even when he’s down. That said, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night was not the first proper album I should’ve picked up. It’s all syrupy standards—Nilsson doing things Sinatra-style, drenched in strings, etc.

Carolyn Hester, s/t
This album is notable for exactly one thing: young Bobby Dylan, new to New York and without a record contract, was invited to play his harmonica on just about every track. That aside (or not), this is a pretty mediocre folk record. Lots of standards (“I’ll Fly Away,” “Dink’s Song”) done in a not particularly interesting, sometimes quite irritating, way.

Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
I hate to be "that guy," but what do people see in Bon Iver? His songwriting skills are average—he makes me wish I was listening to Matt Pond PA instead, which is kind of a strange thing to wish for—and his vocals are just irritatingly bad. He does the same schtick that TV on the Radio does, which is to overlay really grating falsetto harmonies over the vocals. Easily the worst album I've picked up all year. Well, maybe neck and neck with Carolyn Hester, but at least she's got Bob Fucking Dylan on her record.

This Is My Jam! Where Are You Going?

Reading Rachel Donadio's essay in Sunday's New York Times Book Review, "It's Not You, It's Your Books," was good for a laugh. (She followed it up with a post at Paper Cuts, if you'd like to get interactive.) The article is about "literary dealbreakers"—that moment when someone's taste in books makes it apparent that a relationship will not be possible.

This called to mind an experience of mine, only with music. Back when I was in college I was infatuated with someone, despite her loving the Dave Matthews Band. I mean, that alone is a red flag; but it wasn't until we were at a bar one night and she a) put Stevie Ray Motherfucking Vaughn on the jukebox, and b) started air-guitaring for the duration of the seven-minute jam, that I figured out I was a fucking bonehead and needed to start looking elsewhere. It's not just the taste in music—there's just something fundamentally wrong happening there.

And with that I turn it to you: did you ever date (or merely have a crush on) someone, only to have the whole thing ruined when you realized their taste in music was hopeless?

Since I'm sure you're all a bunch of open-minded goodie goodies who would never deign to judge something so insignificant as taste as an indicator of character, I'll ask you the reverse as well: have you ever developed a crush based on someone's musical taste?

Points awarded if either answer centers on a specific album or song.

Do I Want to Go There?

Where are my tastes taking me? Do I want to go there?

I asked myself this question, at least a little facetiously, in a post a couple weeks back. If you've followed this blog at all in the last year, you know many of my listening hours have been spent with the Byrds, which led in turn to more groups from the late-60s/early-70s Laurel Canyon scene. I've slowly been following that trajectory into the 70s with mixed results—Joni is great, Fleetwood Mac has many great moments, America is offensively awful. Despite some misfires, I'm still undeterred in exploring this area of pop music (with the help of the Rising Storm, among others).

The thing is, I know where this ends: The Eagles. The Fucking Eagles. Connecting the dots, the line doesn't get much straighter moving from the Byrds to CSNY to the Eagles. The bands sprang literally from the same landscape, separated only by a few years.

And I know it just ain't gonna happen for me. I've loathed the Henley et al. ever since I was a wee lad watching Henley's ugly old face sullying my MTV. At some point, as I mine this period of pop music, I just know I'm going to come to a point where I say "enough." (Eagles aside, I know that many of my beloved Byrds went on to make some pretty crap records.)

Where are my tastes taking me? Do I want to go there? In the context of Laurel Canyon it's easy to mock that question. It's easy, as Richard did in the comments to that original post, to presume that I'm "worried" about where my tastes are going. (Granted, I've worried in the past.) But the fact is that with any sub-genre in which one gets thoroughly immersed, the answer, sooner or later, is no. No, you don't want to go there.

This simple truth occurred to me when I was having a discussion elsewhere about post-rock bands from the 90s—the many bands that were coming out of or inspired by the Louisville/Chicago axis: Slint, Rodan, Tortoise, June of 44, Rex, Him, the For Carnation, Shipping News, Ativin, A Minor Forest, Ui, Dianogah, To Rococo Rot, Kriedler, et alia ad infinitum. These bands were everywhere for a long time, including my own collection, and now they've largely fallen out of fashion both at large and in my personal estimation. Sure, I still have a soft spot for certain songs here and there (Ani-sette! Anisette!), but in general I cringe at the idea of listening to a band with two bass players or a baritone guitar playing angular riffs with all downstrokes, stark drumming playing in odd time signatures and stop-start beats.

Can't the same be said for any sub-genre? To love the harmonies and easy feelings of the Byrds must mean an inevitable loathing of the Eagles. To have your mind blown by Tortoise's blend of Ennio Morricone, Steven Reich, Can, and Miles Davis is to be inevitably underwhelmed by Ui's moody funk.

Some sub-genres go deeper than others, depending on your taste. One could spend years with "alt" country before noticing a vague sense of boredom with the latest Jay Farrar release; or maybe get one's fill of, I don't know illbient or dubstep, after just a couple albums and artists. There's a distinction to be made between genres and sub-genres (or even sub-sub-genres), of course. One could devote one's lifetime to the larger umbrella of country or electronic music. Despite not being very interested in post-rock, I'm still neck deep in indie rock (including a liking or at least awareness of bands like Battles or TV on the Radio, who are obvious descendents of 90s post-rock). It's the difference, I guess, between the interstate and the access road. You can travel on the latter for a stretch with some success, maybe passing by the gridlock of the genre at large; but eventually you run out of road.

Everyone has ruts: some impression that, well, music sucks. I just can't find anything interesting right now. But of course it's not music that sucks; you've just run out of road and it's time to get back on the interstate. Where are my tastes taking me? Do I want to go there? Yeah, for a while longer.

My Listening Hours: The Worst of July–September

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Okay, maybe "the worst" is a little harsh. And maybe categorizing them under "fucking terrible music" is a little too much. Oh well: these are the albums that really just didn't last more than a handful of spins—long enough to realize I just ain't into them.

White Stripes, Icky Thump
I don’t love or hate the White Stripes. The only other album I own by them is De Stijl, some of which I love while the rest is merely okay. In addition to that, I’ve enjoyed nearly all of their singles without ever feeling the desire to pick up their albums. So it was without much effort on my part that Icky Thump somehow fell into my household. But even from the perspective of someone who’s not a true fan but thinks Jack & Meg are capable of amazing songs, Icky Thump icky sucks. The title track, opening the album, is the closest the duo comes to magic, but it goes on for about a minute too long and becomes monotonous. That’s the problem with the rest of the album in microcosm. For a band that used to be so good at getting to the point, I get the sense that they just don’t have a point this time around.

Mika, Life in Cartoon Motion
Despite unapologetically falling in love with “Grace Kelly” when it came out—in fact I still sing along, in full voice, whenever I hear it—my expectations for this album were low. Doubly disappointing, then, that it still fell shy. This album is dreck. If I’m being generous, I would allow that I’m simply not the audience for this album—but how many pre-pubescent boys discovering their homosexuality did Mika expect to buy this album?

DeVotchka, Una Volta
I first learned of DeVotchka through the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack, so was glad to come across this album and finally get a chance to see what they’re like on record. Hearing it, I can see why someone would think they’d be great for a soundtrack. Much of their songs are great for setting a mood but don’t often function very well as standalone pieces. When they spend time doing mostly instrumental gypsy-like numbers, I get the same feeling as when I listen to Calexico’s mariachi songs: I feel like I’m listening to hipster-approved world music. There’s a whole section for this stuff at Amoeba; why wouldn’t I pick up records there rather than the indie bins? Una Volta also suffers in its production. Lead singer Nick Urata has a commanding voice, but it is covered in reverb and often buried in the mix among the accordion and violin. I could see how a more crisply produced album could make for a better outing. This time around, I’m a little bored.

Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
As with DeVotchka, part of me resists this album because of its authenticity issues. What I like most about this album I could get from listening to Etta James, frankly. That said, there is still some terrific material on here. It’s impeccably produced, and Winehouse has the pipes to impress. As soon as I find myself letting go of my resistant urges—not least because of her awful personality—some lyric drops in and pulls me out of the song. As with Mika, I sense that I am not the intended audience—look no further than “Addicted,” in which Winehouse requests that “your boyfriend not smoke all my weed.” I probably would have laughed if I were a teenager, but weed jokes are just lame to this thirty-year-old curmudgeon’s ears.

Eels, Daisies of the Galaxy
For whatever reason, I was always under the impression that Eels were mopey Brit Pop along the lines of Trembling Blue Stars. Nothing British about them at all—it’s mopey Americana. Someone will have to tell me if I’ve messed up by hearing this album rather than another Eels record, because I find this one to be occasionally entertaining, sometimes annoying, and mostly boring.

omg the music industry is full of like totally slimy little weasels!!!

I don't even know where to begin with this one.

Ms. Digby's simple, homemade music videos of her performing popular songs have been viewed more than 2.3 million times on YouTube. Her acoustic-guitar rendition of the R&B hit "Umbrella" has been featured on MTV's program "The Hills" and is played regularly on radio stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Portland, Ore. Capping the frenzy, a press release last week from Walt Disney Co.'s Hollywood Records label declared: "Breakthrough YouTube Phenomenon Marié Digby Signs With Hollywood Records."

What the release failed to mention is that Hollywood Records signed Ms. Digby in 2005, 18 months before she became a YouTube phenomenon. Hollywood Records helped devise her Internet strategy, consulted with her on the type of songs she chose to post, and distributed a high-quality studio recording of "Umbrella" to iTunes and radio stations.

...

"No one's going to be searching for Marié Digby, because no one knows who she is," Mr. Bunt, the Hollywood Records senior vice president, reasoned. So she posted covers of hits by Nelly Furtado and Maroon 5, among others, so that users searching for those artists' songs would stumble on hers instead. Her version of Rihanna's "Umbrella" proved a nearly instant hit.

...

As Ms. Digby's star rose, other media outlets played along. When Los Angeles adult-contemporary station KYSR-FM, which calls itself "Star 98.7," interviewed Ms. Digby in July, she and the disc jockey discussed her surprising success. "We kind of found her on YouTube," the DJ, known as Valentine, said. Playing the lucky nobody, Ms. Digby said: "I'm usually the listener calling in, you know, just hoping that I'm going to be the one to get that last ticket to the Star Lounge with [pop star] John Mayer!" The station's programming executives now acknowledge they had booked Ms. Digby's appearance through Hollywood Records, and were soon collaborating with the label to sell "Umbrella" as a single on iTunes.

So we've gotten to the point where the major labels' plan of attack is to encourage their artists to appear to be diy and not actually associate themselves with the majors. Is this what Rubin's "word-of-mouth department" would devise?

My Listening Hours: The Rest of April–June

Yesterday were the new purchases that really took up most my listening hours over the last few months. Today, all my other new purchases that just didn't stick or just plain stunk. When I surveyed "the rest" in January–March, the discs that wound up in this stable were disappointing or decent, but none were actually bad. Looking here, only Bjork really gets credit for making a record I simply wasn't in the mood for; the rest all make me wish I'd spent my money in smarter ways. I could've gone to Disneyland!

Sea & Cake, Everybody
I don't even know why I bought the Sea & Cake record (truthfully? because I found a promo on sale for a couple bucks). I haven't picked up a Sea & Cake album since The Fawn, though I do own (and like) both Sam Prekop solo albums. What I heard of the Sea & Cake in the intervening decade between The Fawn and Everybody was all just dandy; I just didn't feel impelled to buy it. For some ludicrous reason, though, I held out hope that maybe they'd try something new. But alas, no.

And why don't they try something new? John McEntire is an inventive guy. Archer Prewitt is a great songwriter and singer. Why is the Sea & Cake so much Sam Prekop's show? Prekop is fine, but he seems intent on destroying the very idea of variety in his music. So why not let Prewitt sing along every once in a while? Why not let McEntire experiment a little? There is so much potential in the individual members of the Sea & Cake that the fact that this sounds so little removed from—and lesser than—The Fawn is bewildering. Everybody is a bland record full of samey songs. It's pleasant, but that's a euphemism for boring.

Bjork, Volta
Meanwhile Bjork made a record that for the first time (to my ears) sounds like she took a step back rather than forward. I'm glad to hear that she's returned to using instruments, but she seems to have regressed to territory somewhere beyond the edgy pop of Post and sweeping gestures of Homogenic. That's not necessarily a bad thing, nor is Volta a bad album. All I can say is that it ultimately didn't grab me. Could be the album's fault, could be mine. Could be that I can't stop chanting "here's my wersion of this / eternal virlvind" and it's driving me crazy. I just don't seem to have been in the mood for Bjork this year, much as I'd like to be. When the album comes on I'm cool with it, but I haven't been making a point to put it on.

America, Hat Trick
And we come now to the three "blind spots" (today I use the term loosely) I regretted picking up this season. First up is probably the most embarrassing of all, America's third album, Hat Trick. I blame Midlake, of course. When I first fell in love with them back at the tail end of December I read an All Music review that compared that harmonies and 70s-ish sound to America. So I listened to snippets of America on Barnes & Noble's machiavellian listening stations that only allow you the smallest segment of a song at a time. What'd I hear? Harmonies and 70s-ish sound—kinda like Midlake! So more or less at random my wife and I chose this one. Again, trusting the bastards at All Music (it's no accident that B&N lets you read All Music reviews while using their listening stations), Hat Trick was described as "more ambitious but commercially unsuccessful." Sounds like the perfect candidate for an indie-hipster resusitation!

No such luck. Man, what a fucking turd. America is like the aural equivalent of those pictures where you can see two people looking at each other or a chalice. Sometimes they sound like direct descendents of the Byrds—which is great!—but if you turn your head slightly, suddenly all you can hear is a forerunner to the BeeGees—which is abominable!

Don McLean, The Best of Don McLean
We were at Amoeba one evening and my brilliant wife brought this one over to me, nostalgic for her young high school days, when she had this as a dubbed cassette and listened to it all the fucking time. Me, I was ambivalent at best, but more likely not into spending actual money a greatest hit plus nine other songs. I can truthfully say that I have never in my life actively listened to "American Pie." I can't count how many times the song has come on the radio and I have reached for the dial to change it, only to be stopped by my sister, my mother, my friends, my wife—"Hey, what are you doing? It's 'American Pie'!"—and then made to listen to anyone within earshot sing along to every goddamned word of this eight-minute folk epic. I don't hate the song--hate is a strong word, but I really really really don't like it, to quote the teenage geniuses on MTV right now, whatever they're called.

And now here I was, not actively participating as cash left my hand, to be replaced by The Best of Don McLean. I was optimistic though. I do like the folkies from that era, after all. Start singing "Cat's in the Cradle" or "Operator (That's Not the Way it Feels)" and I'm right there with you, singing loud and proud. The good news is that Don McLean's got some songs that fit that ilk. "American Pie" notwithstanding, there are probably three or four very nice songs here, plus two utterly inessential covers and a couple misfire originals. But even at his best, as in "Vincent," McLean lacks the laser-precise lyrics of Paul Simon, the dynamics and distinctive voice of Cat Stevens, or the emotive quality of Jim Croce. Croce in fact is probably the closest in sound, voice, and lyrical depth of McLean—and Croce's just better.

Van Morrison, Astral Weeks
So I can blame Midlake and All Music for America, and my wife for Don McLean—who's to blame for Van Morrison? What is with the critical praise for this album? It's a hot mess. It's a formless, stream-of-consciousness whining buzz of garbled idiocy. The pleasure to be found in this record is so far over my head, scientists are building a satalite to take pictures of it.

Cold War Kids, Robbers & Cowards
My brilliant wife actually had an innate distrust of Van Morrison; we both agreed she should have listened to her gut and barred us from making the purchase. I had a similar mistrust of the Cold War Kids. The only song I knew by them was "Hang Me Out to Dry," which invariably put that song "Possum King" by the Toadies in my head—do ya wanna die? Not a good sign. Yesterday I ate my own words regarding mp3 bloggers since they brought me Andrew Bird, but all I need to do is see the words "Cold War Kids" on screen and I remember all over again why blog hype is rarely to be trusted.

To both our credit, neither my brilliant wife nor I actually purchased this album; it just sort of made it's way into our house like a flu virus. We listened to it a little. There were some songs that were okay but I still couldn't shake a certain smarminess from their sound. Something about their brand of blues rock just didn't sound the least bit genuine. Jack White, for instance, can articulate the aesthetic choices he makes behind his sound; these guys, I'm pretty sure, just want to get laid and paid.

Then a couple of weeks ago we went to see the Little Ones play at the Echo here in Los Angeles. They were opening for the Cold War Kids. By then we'd seen their video for "Hang Me Out to Dry" and grasped that these dudes could care less whether Gorilla vs Bear or Avril4Eva.com is the reason for their success—they just wanna be famous. But we thought, optimistically, that that wasn't a de facto bad thing; that bands aspiring to arena rock levels might be worthy a fucking entertaining club gig. Then they came out, looking like a frat-boy bar band and dancing around like they were the Spin Doctors.

And that was the end of the Cold War Kids. They've officially left my sphere of awareness. They are now in the mythical land of mainstream rock, where curious chimera such as  Hinder and Rocco de Lucca roam the wilderness.

A Brief TV on the Radio Review, Preceding a Longer TV on the Radio Review

Posting remains light for now. I was planning on writing a review of the new TV on the Radio album; it's half done, and I may still post it next week. But FYI: Return to Cookie Mountain is fucking terrible. I'm astounded at how bad it is. In fact with each listen I like it less and less and less.

Why has everyone been trumpeting this as the record of the year? Since February I've heard nothing but the greatest things about this album. After the first couple of listens I thought "Okay, the hype is just a little out of proportion here." But the more I listen to it the more I realize that the hype is flat out wrong. This album is ridiculous. It's crap. Don't buy it.

Longer rant TK.

Rockstar: Supernova—All Pussy Edition

My prediction for the winner of Rockstar: Supernova

Am I the only one hopelessly addicted to the abominable car accident that is Rockstar: Supernova? (It's okay: I expect the answer to be yes.) There is so, so much wrong with it—yet I can’t help but tune in every single week.

Just what is so fantastically wrong with this show? Some might point to the most obvious: just about all of the contestants are no-talent hacks. Every woman (except for the current odds-on favorite, Dilana, and my personal favorite, Zayra) has the same burly biker babe voice—as if since they are women they must make up for that fact by sounding like they have three-pound balls rather than actual personality. It’s so “bar band” it’s maddening. I wonder if any of these women have noticed that there are absolutely no popular or iconic female rock stars that have voices so absent of, well, femininity. Even PJ Harvey or Joan Jett, both of whom are totally ass-kicking tough, are tough without mimicking men. Meanwhile, the men on Rockstar are not much better. They too—all of them, every last one of them—lack any originality whatsoever. I’m actually impressed with the CBS producers for their steadfast dedication in finding the most bland singers in the country.

And of course there are other obvious things wrong with this show, and their names are Brooke Burke and Dave Navarro. Not to mention Tommy Lee, who can’t help but act and look like a bored child forced to be somewhere he doesn’t want to be.

But these are all such easy things to pick on, and they’re not the kind of flaws that make me hate it so much that in fact I love it. The main problem with this show—this show called Rockstar, in which the contestants are supposed to act like rock stars, so they can play in a band with dudes from Metallica, Motley Crüe, and Guns and Fucking Roses—is that this show is full of pussies.

I swear, none of these contestants have a backbone. They get caught on tape whining about their critiques, and when they’re confronted about it, they just clam up and apologize. Likewise the motherfuckers in Supernova bend over backward to point out that they’re just trying to help. They’re not trying to be mean. You know what, Supernova? Fuck you! You guys are from the three baddest-ass bands of the ‘80s and you’re afraid to be mean? You should quit trying to get everyone to come together for a group hug and start injecting yourself with a little attitude. Whatever happened to taking no prisoners, kicking ass, and flipping the bird to authority? God, but I feel like every episode of Rockstar is one big group therapy session. Who is letting these tattooed metalheads get away with all these niceties? What idiot producer at CBS can’t figure out that the whole reason that vanilla showboat American Idol works the way it does is because Simon Cowell is a dick? When the most popular show in America is less afraid to have balls than a show full of dirtheads and hessians, someone needs to get fired. This show should end in a fistfight or riot every single week. Anything less is a failure.

All this nicey-nice happened last year, too, when I was sure INXS was going to throw bouquets of roses at every wannabe they nixed each week. This season’s contestants should take note that last season the only guy that ever rocked the boat and stuck to his guns was the guy that wound up winning. That’s why I’m rooting for Zayra this season, even though I seem to be the only person in the universe that likes her. She is so bizarre, so loony, and she seems to flaunt her inability to sing on key—and hey, there’s little that’s more punk rock than that! But she stands her ground. She practically calls Gilby Clarke an asshole every single week, and I love her for it. She wears blue spandex and dances like a slutty robot Toni Basil, and I love her for it. As long as she stays on the show, Rockstar will remain my #1 guilty pleasure love-to-hate destination each week. As soon as she’s off, the whole sloppy mess of sissy bitches falls off my radar.

Hey, Leave My Brilliant Wife Out of This

File this post under "vain bloggerism."

A few weeks ago I posted about the insipid Angels & Airwaves song "The Adventure." Surprisingly I've gotten a lot of traffic from that post, all from people googling "I can't live, I can't breathe." As the weeks went by the google searches didn't let up, so out of vain curiosity I googled it myself—to find that my post appears in the top ten hits for that phrase (actually, top three). I must admit I get a lot of pleasure out of the idea of some fifteen year-old, fresh from swooning over this epic song on the radio, rushing to the internet to google the lyrics and find out who pierced his or her heart with a thousand darts of sincerity—and finding my post.

In my heart of hearts, I can only hope that my post opens for these people the magical world of Peter Cetera. In reality I'm sure my post is not what they're really looking for, and they probably spend all of a minute looking around here before finding another website that soothes their souls and coos in their ears. Which leads me to a personal milestone: my first hate comment!

What a retard. I'll bet u anything this jerkoff can't play anything that resembles an instrument. Think about what it takes to even make an album, let alone form a band, u shit for brains. And he tries to woo us by interlacing the "my ever brilliantly astute wife"- That doesn't even make sense Spicoli. What a loser, let me guess, she's good lookin too...

And it's the best kind of hate comment, attacking me for not making sense while simultaneously not making sense himself. (If anyone else was wooed by my references to my wife, please speak up!) But for the record, my wife is brilliant, she is always brilliant, and she is certainly astute (hence the category). So, nothing nonsensical there. And since you asked, she is good lookin, too. Please keep the hate comments coming but leave my wife out of it. Thanks!

My Inner Adolescent Yearns to be an Inner Young Adult

This summer has unexpectedly been the summer of my inner adolescent. Between the X-Men and Superman movies and reality metal shows like Supergroup on VH1 and, beginning tonight, Rock Star: Supernova (featuring ex-members of Motley Crüe, Metallica, and Guns n Roses!), pretty much everything that comprised my teenage universe has been neatly repackaged for me. And I’ve been eating it up like a bag of candy—65% enjoyment, 25% guilt, 10% illness.

As regular readers know, I’ve already gone on about X-Men, and I reveled in VH1’s “Metal Month” in May, plus a smattering of Axl Rose and other nerd pursuits here and there. In fact I was tempted to write about the car accident that is Supergroup (and the meta-car accident that is the Supergroup Post-Show—have you seen this? Immediately after the episode airs, the band spends thirty minutes summarizing it for you, in case Sebastian Bach’s desire to go running or Evan Seinfeld’s porny open marriage was too complex for you to understand), but I began to feel that maybe I was reveling in this shit a little too much. That 25% guilt was gaining steam.

With the debut of the second season of CBS’s Rock Star this week (which, to me, looks way more interesting than last year’s, which was a bit of a car accident itself), to extend the candy metaphor, I can’t help but love it but I’m getting really, really nauseous.

Coincidentally, I was chatting with an old high school friend of mine last week and we were reminiscing about the year we finally grew out of metal and, eagerly but clumsily, fell in love with punk and indie rock. Where the new Anthrax album just seemed tired, discovering an oddity like the Jesus Lizard was utter epiphany. Soon enough I was trading in Slayer for Slint. Likewise X-Men grew stale while existentialism grabbed firm hold of me; I  boxed up my comics and devoured Camus instead.

Thirteen or so years later, I’m hovering around thirty and feeding my inner adolescent with all the nostalgia it can gorge itself on. But midway through this summer I feel my inner adolescent growing up, just as it did in the real time of the 1990s. Hopefully pop culture will grow up with me. Next season on Rock Star? Let’s see Duane Denison (Jesus Lizard) on guitar, Doug Scharin (Codeine, Rex) on drums, and Bob Weston (Shellac) on bass. Or better yet, remember the cryptic liner notes on Slint’s Spiderland?

interested female vocalists write
1864 douglas blvd. louisville, ky. 40205

Memo to CBS: you could be responsible for the final and ultimate realization of one of the unfulfilled rock prophesies of our era!

Okay, okay. I know a reformed Slint would not equal millions of viewers... let a boy dream. At the very least I'd like to see these nostalgia shows move into the grunge era. You could get a decent bit of mileage out of mixing up some members of Soundgarden, Faith No More, Smashing Pumpkins and, I don't know, Henry Rollins or Sean Lennon. Whatever. My inner adolescent has grown tired of headbanging and is ready to secede to the Alternative Nation.

But keep the comic book movies coming. I'm still a sucker for those.

I Rate This Amazon Review 5/5

In the dregs of summer television, my wife and I have become—well, not addicted to, but regular viewers of—So You Think You Can Dance. Last week one of the pairs had to dance in the style of '80s Disco. My first thought was that this almost doesn't even make sense; what, dance like Molly Ringwald? Of course my wonderful wife did her usual thing—took what I was thinking, said it out loud, only much more astute, brilliantly so. "If they really want to do a good '80s disco dance routine, they should just do the climax scene from Girls Just Want to Have Fun, step for step." After demonstrating some of these moves (trust me, it'd be on YouTube if I had a camera—for visualization purposes, it was something similar to whatever it is Sarah Jessica Parker is doing on the VHS cover, above), she got nostalgic and wondered if the soundtrack was available. To Amazon!

Lo and behold, Amazon has ONE copy of the soundtrack for sale. On CASSETTE.

Also, for NINETY-NINE DOLLARS AND THIRTY-NINE CENTS.

Seriously, a hundred benjies for a cassette tape? My wife paused—this couldn't possibly be worth it, could it? Unsure, we checked the reviews. All reservations were removed:

This rare and totally awesome soundtrack from the movie is well worth purchasing it has all the good up tempo classics that contributed to the feel-good factor of the movie.

Come On Shout: this song was in the opening sequences/credits of the movie, when Dance Tv started. I rate this song 5/5.

On The Loose: when Janey sneaked out to dance with Jeff at the court. I rate this song 5/5.

I Can Fly: this song was playing when Janey and Jeff are rehearsing, Jeff finally does a sommersalt and dancing is co-ordinated. I rate this 5/5.

Dancing In Heaven: this song was played during the contest finals. I rate this 5/5.

Girls Just Want To Have Fun: played when Janey, Lynne and Maggie distributed bogus invites to Natalies ball, I rate this 5/5 as good as Cyndi Laupers version.

Dancing In The Street: This was playing when people were up on stage trying out for the Dance tv contest,I rate this song 5/5.

Too Cruel: played during Janey and Jeffs first rehearsal session. Rate this song 5/5.

Technique: played during the dance off between Natalie/Ben and Janey/Jeff. rate this song 5/5.

Wake Up The Neighbourhood: Played when the Ball at the Country Club was Gatecrashed. rate this song 5/5.

Could it be that the Girls Just Want to Have Fun soundtrack is the greatest collection of songs ever produced? It was beginning to seem like it. I advised my wife to make the purchase. This could be the next Beatles' Butcher album. Purely from a collector's standpoint, it just seemed silly not to buy the $100 cassette.

I Can't Live, I Can't Breathe, Unless We Do It For the Glory of Love

Have you suffered the new single by Angels & Airwaves yet? This is the new band from Tom DeLonge, the whinier of the two Blink-182 singers.  God, but it's the funniest/most horrendous thing I've heard in a long time. For a laugh, check out the wikipedia page for these guys, in which the band claims:

It sounds like it has the conceptual depth of Pink Floyd, the anthemic architecture of U2 but with Tom from blink writing all the melodies.... The music sounds angelic. Every song gives you the chills and you feel like you want to cry but you're conquering the world at the same time. It sounds like stadium rock done by a band that's meant to be the absolute biggest band in the world.

Yeah, sure, Pink Floyd, okay. But on a recent drive to the beach, the song came on the radio and my ever-brilliantly astute wife made the far more accurate call:

What is this, fucking Peter Cetera?

You can go on and on about Bono and Roger Waters all you want, dudes, but I think you've been listening to "You're the Inspiration" a little too much.

Here's another great quote, from their bio on their website:

We would literally shut the blinds, dim all the lights, put Stanley Kubrick's 2001 on the flat-screen TV and take these Stephen Ambrose World War II books, with these two-page spreads of cities burning and people dying, and we'd paste them all over the wall. So on one end of the room, you'd have the endless hope of space, and on the other end you'd have the worst of humanity, and then in the middle, we'd write a love song.

Later, when asked to describe the last sequence of 2001, DeLonge said "You mean the part where Ralph Macchio tries to do the crane kick but his Japanese nemesis doesn't fall for it? Yeah, that was really gripping. There's a really great song that comes on just after that scene."

[thanks again to the Last Plane to Jakarta forums for pointing me to the press release]

The Singer from Odin is All Talk, but Hilfiger is All Action: This Month in Metal!

I’m sure you know, but May has been “Metal Month” over at VH1 Classics. That means lots of metallic countdowns, a bunch of Behind the Musics, and a new four-part documentary, Heavy, airing this week. I happened to catch the first part of Heavy last night, and while it was mildly more interesting than most talking-head shows on VH1, it didn’t offer anything new.

But—and here’s where I make my devil horn hand gesture—to my sheer delight, the channel has also been airing The Decline of Western Civilization, Part II: The Metal Years. The last time I saw this film was on HBO not long after it originally came out in 1988. In other words, I was in 7th grade and was fully under the spell of Motley Crüe, Poison, and the rest. Within the year I’d begun growing my hair, wearing all black all the time, and faux-moshing in my bedroom to Metallica and Anthrax.

Seeing Decline Part II back then was enthralling, just because my adolescent self was shocked that a movie would be made about the music I liked. And of course it didn’t hurt to see Paul Stanley in bed with three hot babes, and the sexy dance competition later on in the film.

Seventeen years later, the documentary was fascinating in a whole new way. It is so much more compelling than Behind the Music or Heavy could ever be, just because the bands don’t get the benefit of mocking themselves in retrospect. Here, they are taking themselves 100% seriously.

Even more fun than watching C. C. Deville say he can’t make this music unless he’s sober, or watching Ozzy Osbourne fail miserably at making breakfast—but not as fun as watching the guy from W.A.S.P pour vodka over his face while floating in a pool, with his mother looking on and only mildly disapproving—is all the wannabe bands that are so damn sure they’re going to make it. Bands like London, Seduce, and Odin. The guys in Odin are the most laughable, as they sit in a hot tub and the singer, Randy O., declares that he'll commit suicide if his band does not make it.

Of course, after the movie was over, I immediately went to the interweb to see if I could find out whether or not he had the Metal Ballz to follow through with it. Of course, no. But I did find this interview, in which Mr. O. has reassuringly not yet risen above self-mockery. The interview—which you really must read—is of the 20 Questions variety, which Randy answered by email just a few short months ago. His response was apparently beyond editing. Here’s my favorite part:

5.  Rate a vocalist 1-10. 1 being a joke and 10 being the shit!
Sebastian Bach = 10++++++++++++++++++
John Bush = 7
Bret Michaels =0
Robert Plant =10
Don Dokken =3
David Coverdale =7
Jizzy Pearl =0
Vince Neil =5
Jimmi Bleacher =O
W. Axl Rose = I WILL KICK HIS FUCKING ASS ANY WHERE, ANY TIME, AXL, YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME AXL, I GOT A PIECE AN I WOULD LOVE TO GET IN THE RING WITH THIS RIP OFF ARTIST/freak show. 10 HE IS A GREAT FRONT MAN BUT HE FUCKING guy RIPED MY ASS OFF I SEEN HEM AT SO MANY OF THE ODIN SHOWS FRONT AND CENTER AND BACK STAGE AS WELL ... I do want to play with slash. And before I die I hope to get that chance.

6.  What rock star deserves a smack in the mouth and why?

AXL. FOR BEING SUCH A DUMB ASS BREAKING UP THE NEXT STONES, LED ZEPPLIN I CAN KEEP GOING.  I WOULD LOVE TO GIVE AXL A SMACK
IF HE WASINT SUCH AN ASS HOLE he would give a little credit to the O man

The man obviously has very complicated feelings about Axl Rose. Surely he’s written a thank-you letter to Tommy Hilfiger this week, after the fey designer delivered Rose some "November Pain."

Metal Month is not over yet. If you haven’t seen Decline Part II lately, or if you haven’t seen it before at all—even if you weren’t a fan of the music—check your local listings. It will be re-aired a couple more times before the month is over.