"Why I Write Such Good Songs" by KleenexGirlWonder, off of 2002's After Mathematics. I wish LindsayHilaryorAshlee would cover it.

Other People's Lives for Miami. I wonder if there's any song Davies has done in the last thirty years that I'd really like.

Four Four is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs and this post about the recent critical fawning over Mariah is one of the best I've seen anywhere in a long time. Between stuff like that, stuff like this and stuff like THIS (seriously, omg), you have no reason not to be reading it.

Beyond finding the music almost entirely devoid of enjoyability, part of the reason "Sugar, We're Going Down" leaves me cold is how much the lyrical stance differs from my own concept of adolescence. When it came to girls, I was a painfully shy romantic with a tendency to place 'em on pedestals - Sebadoh and Weezer were my totems. This current emo brigade seems a lot more sexed but a lot less sweet. It's not entirely a bad thing (it's not like I want kids to grow up like I did and maybe if 90s music was a little less reticent about discussing non-idealistic co-ed interaction I might have tried more), but awkward poetry about using and being used by jezebels is a kind of post-feminist sour grapes that I can't get behind. If dudes are going to cop to pragmatic hurt-me-hurt-you assholery, they shouldn't be writing in cursive.

I never replaced the discman that fell in the bus toilet a few months ago, and the only reason I'm tempted now is the disconnect I feel from the pop chart. Without scanning stations while out & about or walking to work and back, my relationship with the pop song feels more isolated and theoretical. I miss experiencing them as outdoor ambience - even a great song like "Check On It" or "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" has really only been experienced through my computer. Aside from those two, there are only two songs on this week's top 50 (that weren't in my 2005 top 50) that I'm really crazy about, both being by the All-American Rejects, who do better on the pop chart than the rock - just like Poison. I'm not yet ready to say this disinterest is the chart's fault, not until I've given more of the other songs their due attention.

There are, however, a few that I know are complete shit:

Daniel Powter, "Bad Day" (could only be dignified if he sighed "Maxwell House" at the end)

Natasha Bedingfield, "Unwritten" (who do I have to blow for Robyn to get this kind of promotion?)

T-Pain, "I'm N Luv (Wit A Stripper)" (alternate album title: Da Doosh Wit Da Vokoda)

Bon Jovi, "Who Says You Can't Go Home" (haven't heard it, but I've never slammed my dick in a door either)

Fall Out Boy, "Sugar, We're Going Down" (I refuse to believe there's ever been a time in my life where I could have stomached this)

You're sitting in windows playing your games

Trying to beat what you've seen around

Trying to be everything you've dreamed

You haven't got nothing - just nowhere to go.

Back soon.

Proof there is no God: Scott Weiland sez Axl has an "unoriginal, uncreative little mind" and does not get hit by lightning.

The Greatest for the Baltimore City Paper.

Anthony Miccio (Avril Lavigne) interviews Dick Valentine (himself) in Anthony Is Right: The Movie

Senor Smoke for the Seattle Weekly. Not only is it longer than a blurb, but I actually interviewed an artist for the first time since I talked to Janet Weiss for WKPS in 2000. In both cases, I had to destroy the cassette afterward, lest I was inspired to count the number of times I said "yeah!" or "oh, totally..." during their responses.

If Fever To Tell was like having a new girlfriend, "Gold Lion" is 'Um, ok. Don't get mad or anything, but...your dreams are kind of boring.'

Attention, crap lovers! Three remixes of Trace Adkins' "Honkytonk Badonkadonk" are available for your listening pleasure (well, perusal) on AOLmusic: the "Euro-Honk mix," "Dance mix" and "Travolta mix." The weird thing is that there's nothing particularly Saturday Night Fever about the last one. It has an organ on it!

Along with Amy Rigby, another album from 2005 I've recently gotten into is Against Me!'s Searching For A Former Clarity. Singer's way loud in the mix, bellowing maudlin non-rhymes ("You know Justin? Well, Justin's dead. And Yahoo won't let his family have access to his e-mail account!") like a hoarse Danzig over a sound that's equal parts punk and Pixies (the track called "Unprotected Sex With Multiple Partners" sounds like Franz Ferdinand!). The music gives the haggard vocal some populist weight and the voice gives the common, if well-crafted, music some personality. My least favorite song is the one that mocks Condoleeza Rice. They just signed to Sire, so hopefully they'll make Fuse a better place to flip past soon.