"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.

Two albums for the price of one...
...one DJ, that is! Oh!

Check out the video for DMC & Sarah MacLachlan's rap-rock remake of "Cat's In The Cradle," titled "Just Like Me," on DMC's site.

For those who obeyed my sadistic command, two questions:

1. Near the end, are DMC and MacLachlan standing in front of a giant blow-up photo of Johnny Cash?

2. If yes, why the fuck are they standing in front of a giant blow-up photo of Johnny Cash? At first I thought it was Ian Curtis. But that's crazy.

I'm a late convert to the whole Amy Rigby thing, but I am converted. I didn't think she'd be as fun as she is, cuz only Robert Christgau goes on about her. And since I've only heard Little Fugitive, I've got a decade's worth of music to explore. Giddiness over backlog, something I survived on back in the late 90s, is a rarer and rarer commodity for me these days, thanks to a fondness for new music and disinterest in sifting through mediocrities for forgotten highlights - whatever part of me bought every Fall album through 2000 is quite dead. But Rigby's supposedly been a consistent source of quality material, all of which I'm excited to hear (knock on wood it's not just another case of the stuck "A" key).

Note the new link on the right.

Penn State College Logo Putter Cover

This sleek, durable putter cover is the perfect fit for any thin-headed putters. Embroidered with the team logo, this long lasting material is in school colors.

We have a winner! Paul Thompson of State College, PA. Hometown represent!

November, 2001:

11/3 - God Bless America by Various Artists - the first pre-country-jingoism
chart reflection of post-9/11, this one features Ms. Celine Dion--who is most
assuredly still a French Canadian in birth only--singing the hot fuck outta
"God Bless America." Noteworthy not only for its cheap cash-in on the
groundswell of patriotism, but for its not-so-cheap status as the first charity
album to hit #1 on Billboard since We Are The World.

11/10 - The Great Depression by DMX - Darkman X's fourth, this was the one that
finally found the media willing to cast aspersions on his hardly-latent
homophobia. Ironically, there are fewer instances of the word "faggot" in its
lyrics than most of his other records combined. Of note elsewhere is the song
"Who We Be," an iambic laundry list that'd make any Cash Money Millionaire
proud/litigious.

11/17 - Invincible by Michael Jackson - Jacko's last hurrah 'til his Chinese
Democracy, and despite a good first week, perhaps the Hudson Hawk of the Hot
200. I don't feel I have to tell you that this was its only appearance at the
top of the chart, although I am compelled to say your boy Robby Christgau gave
her an A-. Fellow defendant Kells does a track, too; "Cry."

11/24 - Britney by Britney Spears - Whoa, did you know Dido co-wrote "I'm Not a
Girl (et. al)?" Two Neptunes tracks, "Bombastic Love," and a Joan Jett tune (I
bet you know which one!). Why wasn't this her Glitter?

Why so noteworthy? Wellsir, none of these albums ever hit the top of the charts
again; a strange feat given the inclusion of two of the best-selling artists of
the past 40 years. An unflincingly crass version of our second-national
anthem-in-command by the 12th child of a fucking Canuck was the best 9/11 could
cough up 'til Alan Jackson's Drive a full two months later. And DMX, for some
reason, rears his ugly head betwixt his three more logical foes. I mean, yeah,
Il Divo is weird, but in a world where "My Humps" is king, that's a minor
aberration next to the balls-out failure of "U Rock My World." Don't you think?

Another good month: March 2002, which starts with the aforementioned Drive, then
the J. Lo remix album, then Alanis' Under Rug Swept, then the O Brother
soundtrack (which'd been out nearly two years at that point) for two weeks.

WE ARE PENN STATE!

As soon as he sends his address, Paul will be receiving 7 CDs of modern hip-hop/r&b majesty.

Question: In Billboard Top 200 history, has there ever been a weirder batch of #1s than in February 2006?

February 4: First album in over 11 years from Jamie Foxx, Academy-award winning actor turned smooth r&b crooner, who first rose to fame by playing Wanda, a homely sex freak, on In Living Color. Single features Ludcaris.

February 11: The sophomore release from Il Divo, an "opera-pop" quartet made up of attractive male vocalists from America, Spain, Switzerland and France. The group was created by Simon Cowell and sings everything from classical standards to "Hero."

February 18: Barry Manilow, The Greatest Songs Of The Fifties

February 25: The soundtrack to a film adaptation of Curious George - a collection of lullabies, campfire songs and other collegiate hippie bullshit, performed by Jack Johnson.

If you can think of a month with four goofier #1s, e-mail me your address and win The Golden Pen Of R. Kelly, a 6 CD-R retrospective including cameos, songs written for other artists, album tracks and assorted ephemera. Find a month with FIVE and I'll throw in Featuring Ludacris, a CD-R of some of the rapper's greatest guest verses.

Whatever You Say I Am, That's What I'm Not for Miami.

"They're songs for everyone - from the shy romantic whose hopeless with the opposite sex, to the guy who'd still take you home, even though he "can't see through your fake tan" ('Still Take You Home')." - New Musical Express

Yup, that's everyone.

In Miranda's world, they're called "misunderstood" touches.

Hyperromantic tales of underage sexuality and indie quirk are bad enough (the false ending has the psychotic leads tearfully placing a framed photo of a bird in a tree, the real one is even cornier), but including a subplot about a cold-hearted gallery owner who learns to appreciate the writer/director/star's conceptual art after accepting her inner pederast is really pushing it. Me And You And Everyone We Know reaffirmed that I need to trust my instincts re: the popular American arthouse film and avoid this shit like the plague.

Speaking of shit and "pushing it," there are even more precious scenes of children discussing sex and scatology in the DVD's Special Features.

This week's Billboard Top Ten features four adult contemporary albums, three 'mature R&B' albums, two OPERA albums and Eminem's Greatest Hits. The top dog is Barry Manilow.

She Wants Revenge debuts at no. 38.