Blasts from the Past

Why are the negative reviews always the ones that turn out the best?

STAIND
The Singles: 1996-2006
(Flip/Atlantic)

There’s a thin line between moody introspection and narcissistic self-pity, and for such a burly, scary-looking guy, Staind’s frontman Aaron Lewis is quite a whiny douchebag. From a lyrical perspective, he makes Morrissey look like David Lee Roth. But I guess if I owed my career to Fred Durst, I’d be depressed, too.

It’s not that Staind are the worst band ever; when they rock out, they’re a passable metal act. But the group’s turgid, monochromatic balladry – that is, the bulk of this compilation -- is music for bedwetters.

Closing the disc with covers of tunes by three vastly superior bands (Pink Floyd, Alice in Chains, Tool) was a huge mistake on two levels. First, it spotlights how much of Staind’s sound was swiped from Tool and Alice in Chains. Second, it underscores the mediocrity of Staind’s own material.
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SHERYL CROW
The Very Best of Sheryl Crow
(A&M)

For a former Wacko Jacko backing vocalist, Sheryl Crow has done pretty well for herself. Her signature blend of roots rock, folk, pop and country made her a star and allowed her to rack up hit after MOR hit in a decade-long career, plus she’s kept various former members of cult acts like David + David and Wire Train rolling in fat royalty checks and otherwise gainfully employed. Musically, Crow’s material has enough grit to allow soccer moms to feel like they’re rocking out when they buy her discs, while her compositional skills assure a solid level of quality and craft goes into every track. The consummate pro, in other words, and The Very Best of Sheryl Crow is a fine encapsulation of her career thus far. All the big hits are here, but unfortunately, so is her execrable duet with Kid Rock (“Picture”), a country tune that’s an unintentional parody of country music, but I guess that’s why God put skip buttons on CD players.
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This is something I did that previewed a then-upcoming event. I thought it was pretty funny. Took me less than five minutes.

I always thought the Transformers were a cheap-ass Shogun Warriors rip-off, but the joke’s on Raydeen, Gaiking and Dangard Ace, because next year, a live-action Transformers movie hits the big screen. But riddle me this: Did you know that the song "You've Got the Touch," as performed by Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights, is originally from the animated 1984 Transformers movie?

Regardless, if you live and die for all things Transformers, you won’t want to miss – I shit you not – BotCon. The convention allows fans to talk shop with designers, take drawing classes, preview new figures, and most importantly, buy, sell and trade the toys around which their lives are based.

The fun runs Sep. 30-Oct 1 at the Lexington Convention Center: Bluegrass Ballroom (430 W Vine St, Lexington, Ky. – ask mom to drive you). Tickets are $9 for adults, $5 for kids (under 4: free).

Listmania

Year-end "Best Of!" You knew this was coming. Eventually.

The first five albums listed below are what I submitted to LEO.

The stuff after is what I submitted to the Idolator “Jackin’ Pop” poll. Thankfully, I didn’t have to write capsule descriptions for this poll.

I always miss a few CDs – I am but one man with a mere 24 hours in each day, just like you mortals -- and this year was no exception: Had I heard the Knife’s “We Share Our Mother's Health” before last week, it would’ve made my “Best Singles” list for certain. And so on.

Thus:

BELLE & SEBASTIAN The Life Pursuit (Matador): A brilliantly consistent disc from a brilliantly consistent band, Pursuit added traces of glam (“White Collar Boy”), boogie rock (“The Blues Are Still Blue”) and psychedelic soul (“Song for Sunshine”) to their already impressive palette. They’re great live, too.

WOLFMOTHER (Interscope): This Aussie power trio takes damn near everything that was cool about ‘70s hard rock – power chords, heavy organ fills, white afros -- and regurgitates it for the here and now.

ARCTIC MONKEYS Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (Domino): Young, loud and snotty. Hooks aplenty. Debut of the year. Et cetera.

GOLDFRAPP Supernature (Mute) Justin Timberlake said he was bringing sexy back this year. Too bad that Allison Goldfrapp beat him to the punch: she’s 10 times sexier than that pantywaist, as “Lovely 2 C U” and “Number 1” demonstrate. Plus she could kill him with her bare hands. She wins.

TOOL 10,000 Days (Volcano): Critics who don’t really listen to much metal will genuflect over Mastodon’s Blood Mountain this year, but Tool’s record is a much more varied, coherent and ultimately, much more satisfying listen. Deal with it.

Then:

Local H, ’99-’00 Demos (G&P)

Raconteurs Broken Boy Soldiers (V2)

Your Black Star Sound from the Ground (Wonkavision)

Cold War Kids Robbers & Cowards (Downtown)

Scott Walker The Drift (4AD)

Singles:

“Crazy” Gnarls Barkley

“Steady, As She Goes” Raconteurs

“Shoot the Runner” Kasabian

“Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken” Camera Obscura

“Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt” We Are Scientists

“So Far We Are” French Kicks

“Wolf Like Me” TV on the Radio

“Redneck” Lamb of God

“The First Vietnamese War” Black Angels

“Throw It All Away” Zero 7

Reissues:

Pulp This Is Hardcore (Island)

Cheap Trick Dream Police (Epic Legacy)

The Clash The Singles Box (Epic Legacy)

T. Rex Tanx (Rhino)

Depeche Mode Violator (Mute)

Peace, Love and Understanding

I contributed to an article called “Genres We'd Like to See Dead” in the current issue of LEO. The other writer and I dissed several musical styles, and we got pretty scathing. My chosen targets were hair metal, AAA and jam bands.

I knew I was playing with fire when I took on this assignment, and sure enough, once the issue hit the streets, the comments started trickling in. I expected to offend aficionados of all three genres, but apparently your average fan of AAA radio and/or pop metal has either a) a sense of humor or b) better things to do than type hysterical e-mails and send them to LEO.

To wit:

You must be sorry misearble men to have such a hateful distorted view on musicians. Here you are trying to publish the "2006 Music Issue", which should be recognizing and appreciating musicians not trashing them.

Its one thing to have an opinion about certain genres and artists, but to place such stereotypical judgement on people is ignorance in its finest form. I believe intelligent arguments are made using wit and knowledge not profanity and pompous vocabulary.

T.E., its pretty dispicable that you say you can't name certain Hip Hop albums because "your children need their father", well I quite frankly feel sorry for your children. If my father was firing off GD, Asshole, and the F-bomb in public articles, and referring to people as nitwits and telling them they have shitty taste in music, I would be pretty ashamed to be your daughter. What a great role model you must be.

So...what white horse did you two ride in on? What is it that you guys do or know so well, because obviously it's not writing or music. Most people I know that are masters of their craft have an implicit respect for it, and don't abuse it to be crude and unkind to fellow artists. But I shouldn't refer to you two as even in the same class as "artists," because you have not created anything but HATE.

I noticed that your editor said he hoped that this article would "create some laughs." Well, I hate to tell you, but it wasn't very funny. I don't see the humor in tearing people down just to make yourself feel better. You must be pretty insecure in yourselves.

To all the editors and publishers that let this article go to print, you should be ashamed to claim it as LEO material. Don't forget that many kids and teenagers read your paper every week.

And not to mention that your paper is owned by a politician running for State Congress. Boy...he must be so proud.

Valerie K.

(All spelling errors included in original e-mail, naturally.)

Short answer: Dig the sand out of your vagina, Val, you’ll be a lot happier.

Long answer: If you’re going to criticize an article or book or whatever, make sure you spell everything correctly. Trust me, I learned that lesson the hard way.

Also, get your facts straight: LEO is not owned by a politician running for Congressman; LEO’s former owner is a politician running for Congress. There is a difference.

Furthermore, Valerie blames the other writer for using profanity, when as faithful readers of this blog should know, the potty mouth was all me, baby.

At least once a year, some unsuspecting asshole with his or her panties in a knot sends me an e-mail wondering “what gives me the right” to be critical of the music about which I write.

Two things give me that right: The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and the fact that LEO (among other outlets) hires me to, well, write what I think about music, be it CDs that I like or horrible crappy musical styles that I don’t. It’s that simple, and if somebody doesn’t like what I have to say, then they are more than welcome to submit samples to the local papers and see if they land an assignment.

Barring that, they can start a blog about all the mean music critics who think the Grateful Dead and their ilk both suck and blow.

God bless America!

Let Him Who Hath Understanding Reckon the Number of the Beast

Here's an amusing little trifle I put together for LEO:

Check your calendar. This coming Tuesday is June 6, 2006, a.k.a. 6-6-06, Beelzebub’s Social Security number. In the spirit of this fortuitous instance, we have compiled a 666 playlist, the top 18 tunes for this day. Why 18? Because 18 is three sixes, as one memorable skit from The Ben Stiller Show said. The devil, as they say, has the best tunes.

18) Deicide, Legion: Bass player Glen Benton has an inverted crucifix branded into his forehead — this dude isn’t half-assing. Best cut? “Satan Spawn, the Caco-Daemon,” of course, although “Behead the Prophet (No Lord Shall Live)” comes close.
17) AC/DC, “Highway to Hell”: Makes the road to eternal damnation sound like a non-stop party.
16) Electric Hellfire Club, “Unholy Roller”: Because chanting “S-A-T-A-N, he’s our man” to the tune of the Bay City Rollers’ “Saturday Night” is G-E-N-I-U-S.
15) Venom, Black Metal: If you hate thrash, death and, yes, black metal, blame these guys. A classic.
14) Today is the Day, In the Eyes of God: Who is the Black Angel? On this disc, it’s noise terrorists TITD. Sample cuts: “Going to Hell,” “The Russian Child Porn Ballet.” Delightful.
13) Mayhem, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas: These freaks took things too far, what with burning down historic churches in Norway, the suicide of former singer Dead and the murder of guitarist Euronymous by bass player Count Grishnackh. So they HAD to be included.
12) Meat Puppets, “Lake of Fire”: As evocative a description of hell as anything out of Dante’s Inferno — but catchier.
11) Marilyn Manson, Antichrist Superstar: The ultimate statement from America’s sweetheart.
10) Goatwhore, The Eclipse of Ages Into Black: New Orleans supergroup (of sorts) unites to craft dark, swampy black metal under a dark god, into a darker sun.
9) Tool, “Die Eier von Satan”: The devil (and Tool) has a sense of humor. This recipe for hash cookies sounds diabolical because it’s in German. Und keine Eier!
8) Led Zeppelin, “Stairway to Heaven”: But only if you play it backwards.
7) Morbid Angel, “Chapel of Ghouls”: “Your god is dead,” bellows David Vincent, and it’s all downhill from there. Not for the faint-hearted.
6) Iron Maiden, “The Number of the Beast”: This song is actually about a guy trying to break up a Satanic coven. He fails, naturally, but his heart was in the right place.
5) Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil”: Featuring a snazzy bassline (played by Keef), lyrics inspired by the novel The Master and Margarita and, of course, the woo-woos. Pleased to meet you.
4) Robert Johnson, “Me and the Devil Blues”: Legend has it that Johnson sold his soul to Satan so he could play guitar better. Now THAT’S devotion to the instrument.
3) Black Sabbath: Though the Sabs have recorded much better albums than their debut, Black Sabbath is probably the most Satanic. Fun fact: It was released on a Friday the 13th.
2) Aphrodite’s Child, 666: An epic prog-rock concept album about nothing less than the Apocalypse itself, written by future “Chariots of Fire” soundtrack composer Vangelis.
1) Slayer, Reign in Blood. Well, duh.