Re: Cache, if you want us to accept your plotholes as being artily enigmatic, have a more gripping truth to your movie than 'repressed guilt will turn you into an asshole.' Though judging by the reviews, I have no right to use the first person plural.

Tyson!

A lot of my favorite singles from 2005 came from '04 albums, so it's fitting that the title track from the All-American Rejects' Move Along is the first 2006 single that I've connected with. I initially shelved the album, feeling that, for all its earnest gloss, it lacked the imaginative arrangements that made their debut such a delight - a logical if uninspiring outcome for a studio duo that grew into a live-oriented four-piece. Months later, with "Your Little Secret" suddenly cracking the pop top ten and Fuse pushing lesser wares at me whenever I graze past, I can now appreciate the hooks present and the bottom-end oomph that's replaced the Spectorisms. Tyson Ritter's as much of a bawling automaton as his peers, but you have to bother to understand what he's going on about (he's getting more than he did before they went gold, but there's still pain in the rain). Excepting a few bash-free ballads, their punk-pop is chewy enough to distract. Anybody who sees the video first will disagree, though.

Oof. Individually deleting every post from 2003 (in honor of the upcoming third anniversary of this site) was one humbling experience. Finding them through keyword searches was even more embarassing. I've said "shit" way too often on here. Sorry, mom.

From an e-mail from my sister (who I think is a better writer than me, even if I'm more Right): Your blog posts are smaller and more infrequent so are you doing some bigger stuff on your own?

I've been doing more freelance work and such'n'such recently, but the main reason for my relatively infrequent blogging is that after the Best Of 2005 onslaught I've been on "consume" mode, getting older albums from Limewire and friends (Jefferson, you are a GOD. When your server is down - like right now - I want to cry. Hook me up with that FTP shizz so I can return the favor!). But one of the things I've been doing is starting up manthony twenty. You may have noticed me referencing my OCD ideal of only owning twenty albums from a year in their entirety. This site will share what those twenty albums are. There may eventually be lists of other songs from each year that I adore, and maybe some descriptions, but for now you can see what albums I think are the most terrif.

This will obviously be a malleable list - a constant work in progress - changing whenever the mood strikes. I've included a comments box, as a sop to those who've asked for its return here (no chance in hell, my site my rules and MY INANITY ONLY. Plus I find e-mail correspondence way more enjoyable). Feel free to publicly announce "wtf?" at my inclusions and bring up albums that deserve acknowledgement.

If you haven't gotten down with youtube.com yet, START NOW. Again, "consume" mode is on.

Hefty Fine for Baltimore.

Sometimes I miss my old radio show, but then I remember how many songs I like have swearing in them.

I've been on a downloading spree these days, and that post I made about the Strokes inspired me to revisit the singles of Bush. Turns out "Comedown" was awesome! Play it right before the Hold Steady's "Killing Parties." They had some great guitar parts on other songs too - I guess I was just a hater back in the day. Even Candlebox's "Far Behind" sounded good when I caught it on VH1 Classic, and I hated that when it came out. I guess now that I like fakey pop-metal, fakey-grunge has gained some esteem. I'd also blame media saturation, but no one was forcing me to watch TV all the time.

It's probably just a sign of Billboard's download craziness, but in the last two weeks, TWO rock songs (NOT ballads!) cracked the Hot 100's Top Ten - "Dance, Dance" by Fall Out Boy and the All-American Rejects' "Dirty Little Secret." Is pop-punk making a comeback?

By the way, can a decent singer please rip off one of the Arcade Fire's more danceable grandiose backdrops? It's a money sound, I'm sure! I hope Good Charlotte does it. I bet they could get into the whole "children at a funeral" thing. Maybe Hillary can join the band on accordion or glockenspiel and they can re-record their song "Wake Up." Or maybe The Arcade Fire's!

Kool & The Gang scream "Jawohl!" in "Celebration," right? I swear that they do.

My mixes used to fit an alphabetical format: AC/DC, Basehead, Ciara, Distillers... but these days it's been more random. Here's an example I imagineered for the Seattle Weekly. If this crit biz adds up to little else, I can at least say I've been paid to describe a mix CD of my own making. My new pick-up line.

Hidden within the ouvre of Gavin Rossdale are the song titles from the new Strokes album. Can you find them all?

"Alien," "Altered States," "Ambulances," "Ask Me Anything," "Body," "Bomb," "Bonedriven," "Boom Box," "Bud," "Bullet Proof Skin," "Chemicals Between Us," "Cold Contagious," "Come On Over," "Comedown," "Communicator," "Dead Meat," "Disease Of The Dancing Cats," "Distant Voices," "Electricityscape," "English Fire," "Evening Sun," "Everything Zen," "Fear Of Sleep," "15 Minutes," "Float," "40 Miles From The Sun," "Fugitive," "Glycerine," "Greedy Fly," "Headful Of Ghosts," "Heart In A Cage," "Heat Of Your Love," "History," "Hurricane," "Inflatable," "Information Age," "Insect Kin," "Ize Of The World," "Jesus Online," "Juicebox," "Killing Lies," "Land Of The Living," "Letting The Cables Sleep," "Little Things," "Machinehead," "Mindcharger," "Monkey," "Mountains," "Mouth," "My Engine Is With You," "On The Other Side," "Out Of This World," "People That We Love," "Personal Holloway," "Prizefighter," "Razorblade," "Reasons," "Red Light," "Save The Robots," "Secrets And Lies," "Seventh Wave," "Solutions," "Spacetravel," "Straight No Chaser," "Superman," "Swallowed," "Swim," "Synapse," "Tendency To Start Fires," "Testosterone," "Vision Of Division," "Warm Machine," "Wasteland," "When Animals Attack," "X-Girlfriend," "You Only Live Once."

Despite owning it on DVD for months, I never noticed the best thing about Cinderella's "Nobody's Fool" video until just now. Right after Tom Keifer (according to the DVD commentary, Tom was really embarassed by the black shawl the director made him wear) moans the opening stanza - "I count the falling tears/ they fall before my eyes" - his girlfriend looks at the clock.

One Way Ticket To Hell...And Back for Baltimore.


rapcore/alternative style

Awful band name alert! Thousand Foot Krutch. I knew there was a reason I was looking at the Mainstream Rock Singles Chart.