Just when you think you're tired of talking about Fred Durst, he puts out an album by this guy, one that apes Interpol (not Joy Division, Interpol) in the most brazen, ridiculous manner. An album credited to She Wants Revenge, who are currently opening for Electric Six.

Please watch the video for "Sister." Paul Banks must be creeped the fuck out.


Never stop, Fred. Never stop.

I wonder how many people who were at Ford Field last night could sing you part of "Rough Justice." If the band really had balls, they would have done "One Hit To The Body" with Jagger flanked by a couple dozen cheerleaders.

IMDb's plot outline to Basic Instinct 2:

Novelist Catherine Tramell (Stone) is once again in trouble with the law, and Scotland Yard appoints psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Glass (Morrissey) to evaluate her. Though, like Detective Nick Curran before him, Glass is entranced by Tramell and lured into a seductive game.

"Have you ever fucked on cocaine? It's nice."
"I have never had no one ever."

What Are You On? for Miami. The first album of 2006 I declare to be awesome.

These are comments I submitted to the pazz'n'jop poll this year, typos and all:

I live in PHILLY now, which means I get to frequently associate with other Pazz'n'Joppers for the first time since Carey Price moved from State College to NY in '03. I thought I'd hear less indie now that I'm estranged from college radio, but between my housemate's promo stash and you-send-it bearing pals I feel like I've heard more than enough.

Evidently all that stood in the way of Metallica evading actual criticism for their 'challenging' album was their Y chromosomes. If you people don't stop kissing their ass and give them the audience to actually WIN OVER, Sleater-Kinney's going to drop a Metal Machine Music and its gonna be the hardest four-star review of your professional life.

I tried to listen to that Stones album (liked that line about Mick drunk on the couch and becoming a grouch but 'I Walk The Streets Of Love' cancelled that interest fast) but fuck if I care if they can still arena rock unembarassingly (and, btw, they can't). It's not my white male generational baggage on the line.

I'm embarassed that two of the albums on my list weren't even commercially available in 2005. While I think the obsession with macro-social relevance in pop music is an overreach inspired by folks who need to redeem their medium fetish, I've got enough of that noble-ass value system ingrained in my system that the obscurity of the music that mattered most to me does irritate. That doesn't mean I'm going to pretend that Robyn and Electric Six didn't make albums that were stronger, nuttier, funnier and smarter than everybody else's. Hell, maybe I'll vote for them again in 2006.

The way p'n'j comments tend to frame world issues in the solipsistic context of music obsessives is just tough for me to get enthusiastic about (reading, or writing them). People doing their part by overrating Kanye, if not a gaggle of pimps from the tri-state area. Sometimes I'm actually more comfortable with music as background or mere escapism, rather than a symbolic stand-in for political action. At my most self-loathing moments, it all just seems like a gregarious distraction, with the faux-benign fireworks from Green Day to MIA made more offensive by their pretensions.

Our Hero Kanye's biggest hit warned against greedy bitches. Not that it wasn't a classic pop single: infectious, loaded with detail, funny, etc. It was the grandest example of a very popular trend this year: musically engaging, lyrically considered ho-baiting. It's possible I'm overemphasizing a ubiquitous constant, but it really did feel that the muse was strong this year for that side of the gender war. Anybody got ideas as to why?

Music I got really excited about this year: apocalyptic but inclusive disco-metal, open-hearted but well-edited memoirs of adolescence, sex beats from witty cads, jittery drone strums, women who probably know every word to 'I Will Survive,' the most bombastic track on an indie orchestra album, Lil Jon cutesypoo, any new wave single that broke a billboard chart and every batshit word that came out of R. Kelly's mouth.

--

Here's my ballot. I'm the only person to vote for "Goin' Crazy" and "Toma." Shame on you all.

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.

Solid Gold Hits for the Voice.

I would like to take a moment and mourn my copy of Turn On The Bright Lights, which may still be in that greyhound bus toilet along with my discman. Don't put big things in hoodie pockets, people! Not when you're 6'4" and have to reach a low lever! I'm actually glad that TOBTL was the disc that was lost - there's no album I've listened to more over the last three years, so there's no hesitancy about reacquiring it. It's not my favorite album of the decade, not by a long shot, but I'm sure hooked on that "luxurious cynicism" (bless you, xgau). Not to mention the drone strums.

Christmas is going to come a day late for me (unless double pay at work counts as a gift), but not for you: I've got another crazy-ass slow jam for your perusal, this one up in the Tofu Hut. It's not every year you're given circumstantial evidence that Too Short wishes he was a woman, so be of good cheer.

Have yourself a very sexy Christmas...with H-Town.

Some reviews I've written recently:
R. Kelly, Lindsay Lohan, Franz Ferdinand and a handful of singles.

Some honorable mentions, 2005 albums-wise:
A-Frames, Black Forest
And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Worlds Apart
Annie, Anniemal
David Banner, Certified
Bright Eyes, Digital Ash In A Digital Urn
Fischerspooner, Odyssey
Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have It So Much Better
Mike Jones, Who Is Mike Jones?
Ben Lee, Awake Is The New Sleep
Lindsay Lohan, A Little More Personal (Raw)
Loquat, It's Yours To Keep
Supersystem, Always Never Again
Armand Van Helden, Nympho
Martha Wainwright, Martha Wainwright
White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan

An album that may have belonged in that top 20 more than Mr. Cent:
Isolee, WeAreMonster

Album from the past that made the biggest impression on me this year:
Television, Adventure

MIA Will Change Your War

What gets MIA's home-made version of Missy Elliott's life-affirming dance-floor-scattering sex-funk gibberish over is the conceit that it's a vision of the tribalized world where, say, Islamic fundamentalists hear one of her jams on the radio and decide to forget all this jihadist hoo-ha and get booty loose.

Charles Aaron, Spin