Why Yacht Rock Is Good

Okay, so with all this recent controversy about whether or not a Yacht Rock Night at King's Wine Bar is musically justified, I felt the time was right to lay down why exactly I like the stuff. Because I do genuinely like a lot of the music, divorced entirely from irony, and I have thought a great deal about why this music is so critically vilified, at least by a certain generation of music fans, and why it is, in fact, absolutely musically justifiable in many ways.

First off, to define terms. Yacht Rock is music from the late 70s characterized primarily by it's "smooth" sound, a combination of white-boy funk and soul and session professionalism. Heard the Doobie Brothers fronted by Michael McDonald doing "What A Fool Believes?" That's Yacht Rock.

Its recent resurgence in popularity comes from the folks behind "Yacht Rock," a Channel 101 web program that ran weekly a few years back but which has never once dipped in popularity since it was canceled. The guys behind the show -- J.D. Ryznar, Hunter Stair, "Hollywood" Steve Huey -- genuinely love this music while realizing also that there's an inherent hilarity to the rich-white-guy scene behind it. First, go watch all 11 episodes, then come back.

I'll wait.

It's entirely possible that after watching those that you might already have developed a new-found appreciation for the music contained within. Those episodes are some of the best/funniest stuff on the web, and those guys definitely give the stuff a humanity and humor that divorces it from your memories of overplay on FM radio and gives it a new context, which may be all you needed. You might have been a closet Yacht Rock fan all along and just didn't know it (that was true for me).

It's entirely possible, too, that after watching those episodes you simply said "but that stuff still sucks, any amount of funny shit doesn't conceal its absolute, objective suckiness." It is to you that I speak, now.

Any discussion of Yacht Rock, like any discussion of any critically reviled music (say, Phil Collins) has to start with why we DON'T like it, because there are so many layers to the revilement -- many of them knee-jerk and false, many of them "true" but only from a certain point of view -- that they have to be knocked down before we can build up anything new. So let's start knocking. And the easiest way to examine why Yacht Rock is so reviled is to take one particular part of the genre and examine it closer. So let's take a look at Michael McDonald.



So why do we hate Michael McDonald?

1. I mean, come on, LOOK AT THE GUY. Okay, really? Because why is he any more physically objectionable than any other prematurely-white-haired bearded guy, of which there are many in this world? In this picture, he's no different physically than, say, Carl Wilson from the Beach Boys or the beardy hipster downstairs listening to "Meriwether Post Pavilion." So let's just take out that particular complaint, because, c'mon, reviling someone based on how they look is pretty stupid, unless we're talking about the lead singer of Train.

2. I can't stand his voice, because it's adenoidal, soulless and awful. Okay, fair enough, that's a matter of taste, and I can't really tell you that your taste is wrong per se, but I will ask if you've ever gotten angry for people using that particular argument about why they don't like this guy here:



Or this guy here:



Because I know I have. Or not angry, but I've thought "but those guys have done so much great songwriting, I can't believe they're being reduced to just a nasal, adenoidal voice." I will also ask what your qualifier for "soulful" is? Because to the naked ear Michael McDonald sounds quite soulful in terms of his inflection and technique. Are you putting something behind the qualification of "soulful" i.e. genuine pain or a perception that there's "something deeper" that he lacks? In which case I'd say that's entirely subjective and based entirely on observation which may indeed be false -- unless you know Mike McDonald, and I bet you don't.

Furthermore, a lot of the things McDonald is vilified for vocally are things that are done by other 70s artists people like -- most of them black soul singers, who are definitely not vilified. I'd argue that a double standard is applied to McDonald's voice based partly on #1 and partly on just the knowledge that he's a white guy singing soul music, which makes him vilifiable, if that makes sense.

3. His music is slick and corporate, and he's a shill for the man. This all boils down to what "corporate" means exactly. By "corporate" do you mean "he's signed to a major label?" Because so were lots of other people including those two guys I showed you above, so I hope you don't mean that. What you probably mean is that his music sounds "jazzy" and extremely well-constructed, and you are trained to think these particular characteristics are anti-rock, which necessarily must be gritty and simplistic rather than slick and overconstructed. But, okay, does that mean that all jazz musicians are also "corporate?" Just certain ones? Is all jazz-inflected rock necessarily "corporate?" Were the Soft Machine corporate? Is being anti-rock a bad thing? Is all rock necessarily supposed to be blues-inflected instead, and if so, where does that leave, say, Pink Floyd, who were not necessarily blues-inflected and frequently very, very slick? Where does that leave someone like, say, Peter Gabriel or Robert Fripp who were also very very slick and anti-rock and who spent a great deal of time polishing their music in the studio but who you probably don't characterize as being "corporate" per se?

Just asking questions here. I'd argue that "corporate" says a lot more about your perception of a person or a scene rather than the actual person themselves, their drives, their musical influences, etc. It says a lot about several constructs you've learned to believe regarding punk rock, other musical styles, and who is "real" and who is "not real," and I'd argue these are just that -- constructs, not at all based on reality but how you've been taught to perceive reality. Again, unless you know Mike McDonald and can tell me you've had talks with him about how he was making purposely soulless music to make cash, which I bet you haven't. It's a rock-crit party-line, nothing more.

4. His songs suck. This is purely subjective. How do his songs suck? They're enormously well-played, frequently clever melodically, do unexpected things harmonically (that falsetto bit in "What A Fool Believes" comes sorta out of nowhere, and it gets up there), frequently have a rather interesting groove (listen to "How Do The Fools Survive" off "Minute By Minute" -- that's almost funk) and always have great, memorable hooks, which is why they're frequently hits. They're smart and don't play to a lowest common denominator despite being sort of universally liked across many demographic groups. And thirty years down the line, they're still getting played and argued about, a lot, moreso than certain lumpen blandments from the 70s and moreso than certain very "hip" artists. There are lots of characteristics of his songs that I'd argue strongly make them "good" or at least assailably bad. Really all this means is "I don't like the kind of music he plays," and fair enough.

5. He's bland. I dunno, I find his music rather exciting at times -- his work with the Doobies, his solo work (at least his early solo work, during the Yacht Rock era) and his guest spots with the Dan. Which of us is right? Who could ever know? How do you define "bland" exactly? See #3. Construct / opinion.

6. He's unip. And I'd argue this is probably the #1 reason for his critical revilement: the Doobie Brothers have never been hip, probably never will be hip. They're not avant garde particularly, they're not cool and they're not really trying to be. They're very talented, knowledgable, musically-talented white guys from LA playing slick, constructed, soulful music to make people happy, exactly the kind of people-pleasin' music that got people up in arms and caused punk to be invented in the first place. The problem is that I think hipsters, in particular, tend to believe that music that's unhip is also necessarily bad music, because they live in a little bubble and are really unable to see outside that bubble and take in the notion that perhaps music they're unfamiliar with (because it's unhip) might be interesting or good. Anyway, "hip" is the biggest and falsest construct of all.

The point is: most people don't really think much about WHY they don't like something. "It's not because it's unhip, it's because it sucks." I hear that a lot, and it annoys, because "sucks" is not a valid criticism. "That song has an awful melody, the arrangement is poorly-constructed, the lyrics are godawful" -- those are criticisms, and possibly valid ones, depending, but "sucks" is not.

So you're saying: "what is there to LIKE about Yacht Rock, if most of the reasons I didn't like it for so long are supposedly "invalid" according to you? Give me something I can actually hold onto, here, or I'm outta here and back to my Arcade Fire LPs."

Let's go group by group:

Steely Dan: As the Yacht Rock guys say, the main reason to like the Dan are their "dark, sarcastic" lyrics. My friend Chris DeCrocker and my friend Brian Mattson both correctly like to say that the Dan are more subversive than the Sex Pistols, and I tend to agree. Because the Sex Pistols marry their dark sarcasm to angry music, which is totally expected. You listen to the Pistols, you completely expect to hear songs about abortions and hating the Queen and shit. The Dan lull you with their brilliantly-constructed, studio-bound smooth jazz-rock and you expect shallow lyrics to go with it -- but what you get, instead, is some of the most abstract, angry lyrics of all time. Have a listen to "Time Out Of Mind," for example -- the music marries a disco beat to a sparse, smooth piano groove that's so spare it's barely there. Perfect for a lyric about love, or the joys of a great martini. Instead, they deliver a bitter, brutal song about heroin use. It's that kind of left turn that makes 'em so interesting. I mean, sure, their arrangements are fantastic, minimalistic and funky, and Donald Fagen's voice is a far better delivery mechanism than it's given credit for, and both Fagen and Becker are geniuses at getting the most out of the least groove-wise, but it's all about the dark sarcasm.

Hall and Oates: Despite being portrayed in Yacht Rock as the nemeses of all things smooth, Hall and Oates are actually some of the smoothest and best of the Yacht Rock crew. I'd argue that their greatest hits -- "Maneater," "I Can't Go For That," "Private Eyes," "One On One," "Sara Smile," "Kiss On My List" and about five others -- are some of the most enduring classics from the early 80s, and will continue to be beloved in the far future. Hall is a winning, likeable singer who neither has to force the soul nor become affected in any way to work perfectly, and Oates is...Oates, with one of the best rock 'staches ever. Their melodies are uniformly fantastic and near-perfect, the lyrics are neither stupid nor cliched and frequently fully clever, and their songs are always awesomely arranged. And as proved by a harpsichord-rock version of "Maneater" I did ten-ish years ago (ahead of the zeitgeist, thanks!), you can take their songs out of context and they still absolutely work as fantastic songs. Plus: much like the Bee Gees, try playing a Hall and Oates song at a party. Seriously, try it sometime. Watch your party INSTANTLY kick into gear.

The Doobies and Mike McDonald: I hit on this earlier, but let me also point out, as the Yacht Rock guys did, that there's some genuine grooves in these guys' music. There's a reason Warren G. sampled "I Keep Forgetting" for "Regulate" -- that song is genuinely funky and relies on a brilliant, rather genius keyboard groove.

Christopher Cross: I'm listening to Radiohead's "House of Cards" as I write this and I'm wondering why their keyboard-wash smoothness is okay, but something genuinely atmospheric, washy and weird and conversely beautiful in ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME WAY like Cross' "Sailing" is not? Also great: his driving, conga-driven "Ride Like The Wind" which propels itself along on a nifty piano engine.

LOGGINS: It's hard to justify Loggins like I can with the Dan and McDonald because I *do* realize, believe me, how schlocky Loggins can get. I mean, there really isn't any justification for "Footloose" unless it really is about dismembering Jimmy Buffett fans like Yacht Rock #11 would have you believe, and "Danger Zone"'s slap bass is really some of the worst stuff ever. And yet...I'm a total sucker for "This Is It"'s slick grooves, and the moment where Loggins comes in with his gritty "Are you gonna wait for a sign" is genuinely nifty and not unpassionate. And "Keep The Fire"'s primal screams (ha) are pretty great too -- if you divorced that song from its cliche-ridden arrangement and schlocky lyrics I think it'd actually be a pretty phenomenal song with a magnificent and rather soaring hook.

Basically: so much of why so much music is reviled has more to do with the mindset of the listener, learned constructs of what is supposed to be good and what isn't, what's okay to like and what isn't, and subjective taste-based complaints that freqently have nothing to do with the music itself. Approach Yacht Rock with an open mind, listen to the songs as SONGS, and listen to the qualities that make some of it some of the best music ever (Dan! Dan!) and you might actually find yourself wearing a captain's hat at the next Yacht Rock night Jake Rudh hosts.

Like, er, me.

In which I argue that Christianity has a serious PR problem.

I, the author of this blog, have a "faith" and a "belief in a higher power."

I've kept that purposely vague. What does that statement tell you about me? Not much -- it perhaps suggests that I see a great number of mysteries and unanswered questions in this vast, wide universe and that knowing I cannot possibly answer some of them, I therefore refuse to accept mankind as the highest order of intelligence in it. I haven't told you *which* higher power, for all you know it's this guy, and why not?



You probably don't have any prejudices about me -- LOTS of people have a vague, agnostic belief in a higher power. You might suspect I'm an AA member, because who the hell else uses the term "higher power?" But that's about it.

Now let me narrow a little bit. I now tell you that I am a "subscriber to a religion."

I'm still not telling you which one. But I bet you begin to develop some prejudices about me. You think, well, this is a guy who needs an "opiate," who probably doesn't like to free-think and prefers to kind of be told what to do, as part of a "mass," if you will. But not having told you which religion, you might think I'm part of one of the interesting religions, ones that have strong ties to, say, an ethnicity or cultural heritage, and so as part of your training to be sensitive, you'll kind of nod politely and acknowledge that deep heritage while at the same time thinking vaguely that I'm a little silly.

Now let me narrow it down a little bit more -- I am a "Christian."

Oh boy. Now what presuppositions have leapt into your head? Well, your first thought is probably that I'm a political and social conservative, right? Possibly a Tea Party member? I bet you go back and replay conversations you had with me to find clues that I'm trying to push my religion onto you, or signs that I displayed homophobic tendencies you didn't notice before but now stand out clear as day. I bet you start to question whether I'm intelligent at all. I mean seriously, who could believe that crap?

How do I know you probably think these things? Because I do it too. And I actually am a Christian, and I still do that. And I like to think I'm a pretty open-minded person generally, but you bet I have preconceived notions about Christians. I'm not proud of it, but I absolutely do, and I know I'm not alone.

Of course, if you actually know me, you know that none of those things are true. I'm about as liberal as you could possibly get. I voted Democrat in precisely every election I've been eligible to vote in, except the one where I voted for one Green Party candidate (and no, it wasn't Nader -- that wasn't my fault, I voted for Gore). I don't push my religion on anybody -- I have great respect for other people's religions and their atheism and agnosticism and prefer to let living my life according to my set of moral beliefs derived from my religion speak for itself. I'm an outspoken proponent of gay marriage ("proponent" means I'm fur it, not agin' it, in case you were wondering). And I'd like to think I'm smart. I'm probably not, but I can fake it pretty well.

But okay, it's this. Let's say you're on a message board or comment thread on the internet for something you like -- let's say it's "Avatar" for the sake of argument, since you've all seen that movie. You really like it, you can't wait to discuss it with people who also love it. But you get there, and it seems like everybody's being extremely negative. All you find is post after post of people ripping the movie to shreds, and talking at great length about how much they hate it and how awful it was and how James Cameron is destroying filmmaking for the rest of eternity. I thought this was a fan board? you think. Where are the fans?

Well, of course, the board membership is 40,000 (or something -- this is a hypothetical board, who the hell would join an Avatar message board anyway? Snork.) but the negative comments come from the same fifteen people over and over again. Why?

BECAUSE THEY'RE LOUD. It's true we have free speech in this country. But while everybody has a voice, from the largest to the smallest of us, the LOUDEST VOICES GET HEARD THE MOST. Not because they have the best argument or because they're the smartest, but simply by virtue that they're the loudest and they NEVER SHUT THE HELL UP.

So what it boils down to: Christianity has a major public relations problem, and that's because the LOUD SHOUTY PEOPLE are turning everybody the hell off of it.

Now, I am not going to talk down the Tea Party readers if, in fact, I have any. Well, okay, a little. I suspect I have one or two, but I know you're not the majority, so to you I will simply say this: I do not agree with you politically, but you absolutely have the right to believe whatever the hell you want to believe. I happen to think your political philosophy is the equivalent of this:



...but I would never say you don't have the right to believe what you believe. So go on and continue to do what you wanna do. I couldn't stop you even if I wanted to.

What I will say is this: CHRISTIANS AREN'T ALL LIKE THAT.

There are other Christians who have strong faith, who believe in the same tenets of that faith but somehow, MAGICALLY AND MIRACULOUSLY, are not led by that belief into things like homophobia (like posting "God Hates Fags" on Facebook), social injustice (like bludgeoning a health care bill to death), money-grubbing (or war profiteering!) or watching Fox News. In other words, we believe that the tenets of our faith (and those of Jesus H. Christ -- the "H" stands for "Horatio," in case you were wondering), encourage us towards things like conservation of resources, helping the less fortunate, making sure that there's general justice and fairness and that nobody gets dragged behind a truck for being a "fag".

Amazing, isn't it? That the same book could be read two such very different ways? And yet, it's true. Not all Christians are right-wing redneck idiots. Not all of them want to eliminate Thomas Jefferson from history books. Not all of them think Adam and Eve had pet dinosaurs. Not all of them stand in front of government buildings holding misspelt signs.

The problem is, there's kinda no way to get that message across.

I feel bad for Christianity as a whole, not that there's any governing body that gets together and represents "Christianity" (that would, of course, be impossible, as God would strike them down with a punishing tornado because some of them believed in having gay folks behind the pulpits! We all know that). There is no way for the churches who ARE, y'know, lefties, to not put too fine a point on it, or who are just maybe reasonable, non-virulent, non-hate-mongering folks who are of whatever political point of view, to get the message across that "Hey, we're not like those folks over there who promote a message of hate while carrying an American flag, a cross and a picture of Glen Beck."

Because they would get shouted down. Not because they're a minority -- I suspect they're probably quite a comfortable majority, though I have no poll numbers to back this up -- but because the other people SHOUT LOUDER. Because they're represented by people like Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh, or the people of the Westboro Baptist Church -- people who use the press to basically SHOUT. They don't have the most intelligent or rational message -- you could rip 'em to shreds with a tiny bit of logic, even if you DID agree with their point of view generally -- they're just the loudest. The left fail when they try the tactics of the right -- they don't make good fearmongers, they can't really use hate or jingoism as weapons -- so they try to make smart arguments or use sarcasm, and that's not as loud a voice as someone yelling about how we're slowly turning into NAZI GERMANY because Obama wants health care for everybody in America and that the founding fathers wanted us to be a Christian Nation and that's the end of it.

So my only point is rather a sad, pathetic one: I know it's tough, but don't let THOSE PEOPLE (points to the right with thumb) make you think that EVERYBODY who calls themselves a Christian is either a) stupid or b) hateful or c) stupid. That's not as potent a message as "HOLY SHIT OUR COUNTRY IS GOING TO HELL" but it's an important one. Believe it or not, the aforemented Mr. Christ had a message of kindness, compassion and love -- it wasn't tucked in amongst a bunch of doggerel about how America is the best country evah, either, it was right out there in big red letters. Believe in Him, and be nice to other people. That was it. Super simple. The other stuff the hate-mongering Christians believe? It's bullshit. Or rather, it's what THEY believe, and I respect their ability to believe it, I just happen to believe myself that it's bullshit.

(Meanwhile, I'm recommending He get in touch with a good PR agency. I think I know one.)

SIDE NOTE: Interestingly, you could rewrite this article and substitute the word "Republican" for the word "Christian" and not change much else (except the bits about Jesus Christ -- maybe you wanna throw another name in there? Lincoln? Teddy Roosevelt?) and it would probably still be true. The only other group that's been as badly effected PR-wise from the rise of the Tea Party conservatives is Republicans. I know quite a few of them who are reasonable, intelligent people who believe in smaller government and such (supposedly the tenets of the Republican party! Believe it or not!) who wish their party didn't ALSO stand for gay-baiting, abortion-stopping, health-care-bill-killing and lots of other things.

Information Overload. Brain in Shut-Down Mode.

I know your attention span is short, so I'll try to keep this brief. Hell, *my* attention span is just as short, so I may have no choice but to keep this brief. By the time I get to the end of this paragraph, I might have lost focus and moved onto other things, like looking at an article about Roger Ebert or reading my Twitter feed or seeing what's happening on Facebook or...

...nope, I'm still here. But it's seriously a wonder, because I've been feeling the SERIOUS crunch of information overload recently. In any given half-hour span, I'm probably connected to three social networks, my iTunes, whatever project I'm working on, a couple of articles I found on Google -- okay, I just seriously blanked out there. I'm not kidding. That's about how long I can focus without moving onto other things. That long. Long enough to compose one and a half paragraphs of this blog.

Which is why I haven't been blogging recently. I'm a member of at least one message board, check two others. I have a Twitter feed, I have a Facebook page with 600-plus people on it (I checked: all but TWO of whom I actually know). I have two emails I have to check on a regular basis, plus a phone that only rings anymore once in a blue moon, because everybody knows I won't answer it anyway. I have iTunes and an iPod that I use constantly to try to focus out the XM radio and the sound of the other people in my office talking and clicking and looking at THEIR Twitter feeds and Facebook pages and whatever else.

And that's AFTER peeling back, people. I don't have a cellphone anymore -- which sounds insane, because why wouldn't I have an iPhone?? It's an iPod and a phone and an internet browser ALL IN ONE and that means I could browse the net when I'm out walking or on my bike or WHATEVER! And I don't have cable television either, because I realized at some point that everything on television is either crap or something I can get in DVD box sets or on iTunes without commercials.

But that's still too much! But even if I eliminate, say, Twitter -- which I tried to do, but I couldn't even, because I was reminded that I have to market my band online and participate in the fifteen-hundred online conversations I'm part of every single day -- or Twitter AND Facebook -- which I'm not sure I *could* do, because now that I'm reconnected to every family member and school chum I've ever had, my absence would be like a slap in the face -- there's still a GIGANTIC BARRAGE OF DISTRACTING INFORMATION COMING AT ME.

Plus, it strikes me evermore that everything is completely transitory. There is no permanence anymore. Everything I do vanishes off into the ether. In my meatworld job as a Creative Director, I'm not designing physical stuff like book jackets or CD covers or whatever, I'm designing crap that sits in an imaginary fantasy world and the minute someone pulls the plug on it, everything vanishes into the ether. I write blog entries and Twitter posts -- and poof, there it goes off into an Info-Realm that no more exists than Wonderland. My music collection sits in a series of fingernail-sized microchips. My friendships exist as a series of bytes and blips and they're no less real than the meatworld one. Everything feels impermanent, plastic, digital, false.

The end result of this is that I spend MORE THAN HALF MY DAY tied to this damn computer taking in a CONSTANT STREAM OF UNENDING INFORMATION and my brain is fucking SICK OF IT. It is seriously rebelling. It is saying "shut this shit the fuck off NOW." But come on -- that's not possible, anymore, not if I wanna live and make money and be creative. I can't stand on the corner and hand out flyers for my band. I can't design with pens and paper. It doesn't work that way. I'm stuck here, and my brain is getting fuller and fuller and fuller and there's no end in sight.

I mean, even my little rebellious dike-plug efforts like tossing out my cell and getting rid of cable -- they can barely stem the flood. The flood is ever-coming. The flood is good. Embrace the flood. Without the flood, you would not exist.

And you know what ends up happening to me? What's happening to Millenials around the world, according to statistics -- a nostalgic yearning for simpler times. It's not so much that I wish it was 1979 anymore -- it's more that I wish it was 1979 in terms of the way my brain dealt with stuff. I wish I had a rotary-dial telephone and a record player with vinyl records and a library full of REAL BOOKS and an encyclopedia and four channels of TV that came via an antenna and my bike and the great outdoors and *that's it*. I mean, if I want information, I've got it -- it's called "a library." But it has one input PER TIME. My eyes, a book. My options are "pick it up" and "put it down." It's binary information collection -- "on" or "off," not "off" or "HOW MANY FUCKING CHANNELS DO YOU WANT AT ONE TIME YOU SEXY LITTLE MONKEY?"

It's not that I wish I was young again. I just wish there was less input. Does that make sense? Are you even still with me?

So the weird-ass thing I've been doing recently is listening to ELO. Why? What does that have to do with the price of tea in china? Well, a couple things. For one thing, it reminds me of "those days." Which for some reason I find very zen. It puts my brain back in 1979 mode and for a few seconds I can pretend it's not full of knowledge about who SNOOKI FUCKING SNICKERS IS. For another, the album covers -- that's the future I wanted, dammit. I wanted neon and bright colors and airbrushing, NOT the apple white-plastic-and-cathode-ray-tube-future we actually got. For yet another, I can pretend I'm listening to it on an 8-track and not on my super-impermanent iPod that risks getting wiped at any second.

So what the hell do we do? HOW DO WE RECLAIM OUR BRAINS FROM THIS BARRAGE OF BULLSHIT WITHOUT SHUTTING OFF THE INTERNET ENTIRELY LIKE NEO-LUDDITE IDIOTS?

I'm totally open to suggestions, here.

Eight Hundred Record Reviews

The Flaming Lips, Embryonic

I could use this review as a vehicle for my rap about how the Flaming Lips are really just Phish for hipsters (nonsensical lyrics meet an overweening sense of whimsy, rabid fan followings, silly costumes on stage, too many drugs, records that fail to capture their live sound) but I won't, considering this record actually decimates that reduction by being a) not very whimsical, b) fucking strange, and c) actually important (unlike the most recent Phish record, which is a gigantic yawn). To get it out of the way: yes, it sounds exactly like Can. I mean, honestly, go find a copy of "Tago Mago" and then play this next to it -- it's so clear that Messrs. Coyne and Co. spent a LOT of time recently listening to the way the solid, robotic, polyrhythmic drumming of Jaki Leibzeit nails down the crazy frippery of the rest of the band, and virtually duplicated it across at least half of this record. But that's not a bad thing, really -- if you're gonna pick a band to rip off, definitely pick one that harnesses wild mercury in a live setting, because it's gonna make you at least try to do that yourself. Sure, there's still a lotta bullshit lyrics about turning into a frog or whatever, the band hasn't lost their occasionally vomit-inducing sense of cute, but unlike their last few, this one actually sounds sorta dangerous and weird, which renders it less Nickelodeon and more Adult Swim, if that makes any sense. In other words: they're still a cartoon, but a far more interesting, darker, weirder one with tits. A-, with the possibility of a long-term upgrade/downgrade.

Echo and the Bunnymen, The Fountain

On which the Bunnymen, after years spent churning out slight, disposable, unmemorable Bunnymen-by-numbers, actually discover that they remember how to write magnificent pop songs, and turn out a record that sounds like nothing so much as Echo and the Bunnymen just after their mid-80s prime, updated with some slightly crispy modern production. The guitars jangle and soar like you want 'em to, Ian McCulloch sings in his one-foot-from-the-grave cigarette rasp, and the hooks drill their way into your fucking skull and stay there. "The Fountain" contains one absolutely, staggeringly perfect song, just like their mid-80s highlights did -- I DEFY YOU, mid-80s-rock-fan, not to fall ass-over-teacup in love with "Everlasting Neverendless." It is scientifically impossible: the hook's too strong, the performance too perfect, the guitar playing too crystalline. The album's full of stuff appraching that, too -- "Shroud of Turin," lead-off single "Think I Need It Too," the title track, all amazing. Best of all, they sound alive, like the young, hungry, in-love-with-themselves punks they were in the early 80s, full of their own talent and the power of epic pop music. Dunno what's revitalized the band after years of sounding tired and worn-out and half-drunk, but here's hoping they don't lose that elusive spark too soon. Solid B.

Tokio Hotel, Humanoid

The weirdest record I picked up recently, if only for the fact that it's something engineered solely to appeal to the kids, and as a nearly-40-year-old record geek I firmly, absolutely do not understand WTF is going on here on so many levels. Tokio Hotel look like creepy fratkid B-boy raperock douchebags EXCEPT the lead singer, who looks like fucking Pete Burns from Dead or Alive. Gothy teenage girls love him, as you'd figure, but he seriously looks like he was built from spare parts from dead mid-80s transvestites. The band play music that sounds like a cross between the Jonas Brothers, Depeche Mode and Metallica (seriously) and everything is whipped around with SLATHERINGS of autotune, the way shit is anymore, but so much that you notice it. Oh yeah, did I mention they're from Germany? They'd almost have to be, they're so batshit inexplicable. And yet, I do not hate it, not at all. I find it far more appealing than 80% of generic, faceless indie rock solely on the basis that at least it is not generic or faceless -- it is fuckhead insane and, like, some of the worst, weirdest, wrongest stuff from the 80s condensed into one fucked-up little package, but it is not generic. Also, it is catchy as shit: lead-off single "Automatic" does some of the same stuff the last Jonas record was trying for, i.e. giant hooks and defiantly wussy, emotive vocals, and it digs deep, for sure, and doesn't sound like anything else on grown-up radio at all, though not a million miles off from some of the Disney camp on mescaline. Frankly, not being twelve years old, I'm not supposed to get it, and that's kinda the way it's supposed to be with this stuff. I have to whip this one a C+ on the basis of my inability to snap to, but I bet I listen to it more than I probably should.

Kid Cudi, Man On The Moon

Rap music has been stagnant stagnant stagnant STAGNANT for the last, what, eight years? When's the last time you can remember hearing a rap single and going "Holy shit, what the fucking fuck was that?" Was it maybe Outkast? I know I've had my ear to the ground with under- and over-ground rap, and haven't heard a single thing in years that's made me prick up my ears and go "okay, now this is different." If anything, rap sounds like it's moving backwards, and while love of vintage R&B is my thing, too, it's nice to hear something like this Kid Cudi record, which does sound like nothing else, so much so that rap hardcores are declaring it "not rap." Scratch that, it doesn't sound like nothing else -- it sounds like if you took Kanye's "808 and Heartbreak" and peeled off the autotune. This guy is singing his flow, which is what's causing hip-hop nerds to blanch (probably because most of 'em can't sing). It's nifty, though -- he's not the best singer, but who gives a shit? Just hearing modulating pitch in a flow is, as you'd figure, smooth. Also, he totally gets what's happening in nerdy white-guy electro rock in the way that Grandmaster Flash was digging New Order, and thus has MGMT and their ilk providing intriguing tracks to back up his interesting delivery. The whole thing is great -- and occasionally approaches fantastic pop music, as on "Soundtrack 2 My Life," or the gorgeous "Up Up & Away." When's the last time you called a rap song "gorgeous?" I mean, fuck yeah. It's not perfect by any means, but at last, a surge forward. A-.

Kiss, Sonic Boom and Ace Frehley, Anomaly

Okay, first off, to get this out of the way: fuck you if you don't like Kiss. Okay? You can take your high and mighty platitudes about how this stuff is just juvenile, second-rate, amped-up cartoon bullshit and tell me what rock and roll is supposed to be, if not exactly that. Right? I mean, sure, we can pretend we'd rather be listening to early-70s Van Morrison records (and some days we would), but if you want a distillation of the music of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley -- simple to a man, cartoon bullshit to a song, juvenile DEFIANTLY -- you can look straight to Kiss, who manage to take that, package it up nice and neat in some awesome gift-wrap, and shove it straight up your fat, Chicago-music-critic ass.

Okay, that out of the way, we are talking about Kiss here, so even within the framework of that, removing "Kiss suck anyway" from the equation, there is an extreme variance in quality across their output. So where does Sonic Boom stack up, Gene and Paul's insistance that this stuff is "as good as Rock and Roll Over" aside (very aside -- they've been saying that about every album since "Creatures of the Night" in 1980)?

Good news: Sonic Boom does not suck. It's nowhere near perfect, it occasionally veers into generic mid-80s territory, the band (while finally sounding like an actual band rather than an aggregate of session jerks) can occasionally regress to the lowest common denominator arrangement-wise -- but it does not suck. Best thing: while Paul Stanley is still writing songs that sound like Def Leppard outtakes (which isn't a bad thing, given the Lep's hook-to-dud ratio), Gene Simmons is 100% revitalized and writing at the top of his game. "Russian Roulette," "Nobody's Perfect," "Hot and Cold" and "I'm An Animal" are all on a par with the Demon's mid-70s trashrock classics, not a hint of grunge or death-metal or rap amongst 'em. If only for that, the album would be guaranteed non-suck status, but even though he's still in cheeseball mode, Paul Stanley whips out a few great singles -- "Modern Day Delilah" should charm all but the most cynical curmudgeon -- and even new guy Tommy Thayer manages a great showpiece, "Lightning Strikes," cannily drawing on his predecessor's love of the electrical.

Speaking of Space Ace, he's got a new record out, too, and how does that fare in the Frehley continuum between his magnificent 1978 solo LP and his mediocre 80s comet output? Well, the good news continues: his album doesn't suck, either. The axeman's in far heavier mode than his bubblemetal compatriots-in-arms, though, and he's not holding back any punches. "Foxy and Free," "Outer Space" and the mega-epic guitarbastard asskicker "Genghis Khan" all hit super-hard the way you want 'em to. He even finds another glam-era single to update -- the Sweet's "Fox On The Run," which he actually manages to better, much like he did in '78 with "New York Groove."

I will concede, even being a rabid fan, that neither album is remotely perfect -- but I'm still giving "Sonic Boom" a solid B, and Ace a B-.

Omnibus Blog Post #3: Wal Mart vs. The Music Industry

Let me begin this one with a brief disclaimer: Wal-Mart is evil. I am fully aware of their loathsome, unconscionable business practices. I know that they destroy small towns, suck the soul and life out of rural America, and have killed the idea of a central downtown business district around which a community grows, thrives, and evolves. They're awful. They're cheap and nasty. And they smell.

I offer this disclaimer because I'm about to use words like "smart" and "sharp" to describe a particular segment of Wal-Mart's business, and I don't want the comments to be filled with exhortations about Wal-Mart's suckiness. I know they suck, I promise: they suck. (That said, if anybody here hasn't shopped there for, like, drapes, or towels, or Three Wolf Moon T-Shirts, let them step forward. Nobody? Uh huh.)

That all having been said: their music division is "smart" and "sharp."

When Kiss announced a couple months ago that their latest album, "Sonic Boom," was going to be released exclusively by Wal-Mart, the Usual Suspects amongst my friends objected. "Oh, that's such a sell-out move," they said. Of course I raised the objection that signing in blood to, say, Warner Brothers or Sony was hardly the heart and soul of indie, but there's something so un-rock-and-roll about putting out your record at Wal-Mart. It's like painting a glorious fresco and hanging it at the 7-11 store down the block.

But consider these facts:

- AC/DC put out their latest record as a Wal-Mart exclusive. Fans crowed -- but somehow, miraculously, the album sold better than any AC/DC record had since, like, 1980. I believe, though I'm too lazy to open a new browser window, that it actually set sales records of some kind. It might have even been one of the best sellers this year. Anyway, it sold, which, for a band like AC/DC, is kind of miraculous.

- Journey put out their last record as a Wal-Mart exclusive. They have a lead singer they found on YouTube. He's from the Philippines. Despite the fact that he probably sings a far cry better than Steve Perry does these days, those are two MAJOR strikes against them where fans of the classic lineup are concerned. Yet, against all odds, it sold. It went platinum. It was in the top 20 for, like, SEVERAL MONTHS. When's the last time a Journey record sold more than copies to the band's dentist?

- Across the parking lot, Prince's Target-only album debuted at #2 on the charts, whilst Paul McCartney's Starbucks-only album debuted top 10.

- And of course, THE EAGLES. I need only say that -- "The Eagles." I mean, it's no miracle that their album sold bucketloads -- they're the fucking Eagles, everybody and their mom like the Eagles. But it, too, was a Wal-Mart exclusive.

See, the odd thing about this whole sales glut Wal-Mart exclusive thing is that, SUPPOSEDLY, the whole "baby-boomer-and-70s-music" thing was over. Dead in the water. I think I started thinking it was dead when ELO put out a record in 2000 that I would call "pretty damn good," and it sold, like, ONE COPY or something. Nobody, including me, bought it. But this is ELO we're talking about! Chart-toppers in the 70s, and led by Jeff Lynne, who produced the Beatles and was a Traveling Wilbury, and nobody bought it. According to the record industry, Nobody Was Buying Records By Or For Old People Anymore. It was all about marketing to The Kids, who were the only ones Still Buying Records.

But somehow, weirdly, Wal-Mart figured out that it wasn't true. The problem wasn't that old people and old people music fans weren't buying records. The problem was that they weren't being marketed to properly. Wal-Mart, if nothing else, understands marketing. They correctly gleaned that the Mainstream Record Industry sucked donkey balls when it came to marketing. The Mainstream Record Industry, you see, knows how to sell one thing: pretty people. It knows how to sell them to one group, too: other pretty people. And that's it. When it comes to marketing a band who have fuzzy grey hair and beards and a new lead singer they found on the internet -- they go blank and start shuffling their feat and sweating.

But Wal-Mart figured out a couple things:

1. People who like bands from the 70s still like those bands, for the most part.

2. People who like those bands either don't know or don't really care that they have new lead singers, or other weird young members that look like the original members' illegitimate children. They simply like those bands, full stop.

3. People who like those bands don't really follow them, like on the internet or in Rolling Stone, but they are still open to buying shit by those bands if they happen across them on, say, an endcap in a Wal-Mart store. Or in a Sunday circular. Or whatever.

4. Those people, first and foremost, shop at Wal-Mart.

Somehow those simple, easy-to-understand truths eluded the brilliant businessmen in the Mainstream Record Industry for ages, and someone at Wal-Mart saw an opportunity to metaphorically close another small town down, and leapt on it. And created a brilliant business model for the record industry which goes like this:

IF YOU CAN FIND YOUR AUDIENCE, YOU CAN SELL TO THEM.

Which is brilliant and simple and elegant, if you think about it. I mean, you're at Wal-Mart buying some paint or whatever, and you happen to notice that Foreigner have a new album out. Shit, you love Foreigner, remember how you made out with Susanne White at the dance in 1979? Okay, it's only 9 bucks and it's on the endcap on the way out of the store, why the hell wouldn't you pick it up? Or to upscale the example for you: you're at Starbucks buying a double soy decaf vanilla latte on your way to work, and there's a rack of CD's and you notice that hey! Paul McCartney from the Beatles has a new record out! And again, it's only 9 bucks, low risk investment, why the hell wouldn't you pick it up?

IT'S RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU, RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE. It's not on the internet. It's not even in an electronics store. It's where you buy your paint. It's the same business model that worked in the 50s and 60s and 70s -- do you remember the record section of your local grocery store? I sure do! -- but somehow was totally neglected during the subsequent decades.

And here's the thing: if you're in a band, why the hell wouldn't you want to sell records? That's the thing that baffles me when people cry "sellout." It's like -- I'm releasing a record. What's my goal? If my goal isn't "to make that record heard by as many people as I possibly can," why don't I just make it a free download or put it on MySpace or just hand out cassettes to my friends? If that is my goal, why wouldn't I go with the people that can sell as many copies as possible directly to my target audience, whoever that may be?

Finally: the one thing I'm leaving hanging over this discussion is that target market. In reading this article, you're making assumptions all over the place about the people that shop at Wal-Mart. You're thinking they're a) rural, b) probably not educated, c) probably lower-middle-class-to-lower-class, and d) unspokenly, you're thinking they're white trash. And, y'know, you're probably right, in the same way you can make assumptions about who shops at Target, or Starbucks, in the same way you can classify large groups of people based on demographic means. But -- who has ever been the audience for rock and roll music? If you think rock music was invented/played by/for educated intellectuals, you need to go back to your Elvis and Jerry Lee records, 'cause it wasn't never no-how. There has always been a rural contingent to rock and roll, and they don't all listen to Daughtry, either. Heck, some of 'em, it turns out, listen to Journey. Anyway: these bands know their audience, and if their audience is blue-collar, I bet they're just fine with that as long as it keeps 'em in Pop-Tarts, yo.

The very interesting thing is that Miley Cyrus -- a young, pretty person! -- is putting out a Wal-Mart exclusive next. I mean, again, who listens to Miley? Young kids of Wal-Mart shoppers, I suppose, but she cuts across wider demographic lines than that, I'd wager, so it will be interesting to see how that fares. Will people from Upper Middle Class Homes whose kids watch Hanna Montana venture out into the outer-ring suburbs to hit the Wal-Mart? Will they download it from walmart.com? Will they just cross their fingers that it comes to iTunes or the local Virgin Mega-Store or whatever?

The thing about this that interests me is that I am a college-educated, middle-class, white-collar guy who just happens to have a streak of Camaro-driving redneck Bud-swilling blue-collar suburb-dweller inside him who is kind of, like, excited that these bands -- hoary old favorites, all (well, 'cept the Eagles, and even them I'll defend a little bit, at least the first three/four albums) -- are actually managing to make a late-period comeback. I mean, it kind of warms the cockles of the heart that Journey are suddenly huge again, 'cause I was pumping my fist to "Seperate Ways" and the "Escape" album back in 7th grade and I'm so not ashamed to admit it. Or that Kiss are probably going to finally achieve a chart hit this time out the ballpark. Or that Foreigner and AC/DC are suddenly MAJOR PLAYERS again. 'Cause they're old. And I'm getting old. And it's swell that we're not putting these people out to pasture just 'cause of their age.

So anyway: retailers sell music now, and that's just something you're going to have to deal with. It's a new age, a new business model, a new paradigm, the record labels are dying, and music's gotta get out there somehow.

Omnibus Blog Post #2: You wanted the best? You got the best!

If you were to ask me which band I loved the most -- like truly loved and was undyingly loyal to all through my entire life, either openly or behind closed doors -- my answer wouldn't be the Beatles or the Beach Boys or the Rolling Stones, all groups I totally love but don't *love*, not in that, ahem, special way. My answer *might* be the Monkees. But if you preceded the question with a couple glasses of Jeremiah Weed and a cigarette, I bet I'd tell you the truth.

The answer, my friends, is Kiss.

You always remember your first, they say, and the two bands I ever loved were Kiss and the Monkees. But while the Monkees were awesome in every possible way, and made me gleefully happy to listen to (and still do), my love of Kiss bordered on obsession. Just like almost every other pre-adolescent boy in America in the 1970s, I had every single one of their albums, including "Double Platinum," even though I already had all the songs elsewhere. I caught 'em on the Paul Lynde Halloween Special and the Mike Douglas Show. At school carnival every year, I got my face painted like whatever member I liked best at the time -- usually Ace Frehley, but sometimes Paul Stanley. I had it, folks, and bad.

Whenever Kiss did anything, it was a major event amongst kids. Like -- when they put out their four solo albums, we all knew our folks would never buy us all four, so everybody got assigned one album to buy and we figured we'd pass 'em around amongst ourselves, like Bart and Milhouse and Martin did with Radioactive Man #1. I got Paul Stanley, which, y'know -- I wanted Ace, and spent most of my time listening to my pal Tom Nynas' copy, spinning "New York Groove" over and over and over again.

Or when they did the "...Meets The Phantom Of The Park" special, I wouldn't let my parents change the channel for an hour BEFORE the show, just in case they decided to air it earlier.

Or when they put out the comic book where the red ink contained some of their VERY OWN BLOOD, and I begged my folks to get it for me but they wouldn't.

Kiss were HUGE, capital H-U-G-E. They were a combination rock band / superheroes, they were demi-gods, cartoon characters writ large. They were absolutely everything to me, and everything I listen to comes from them (well, and the Monkees). They were the proto, the dinosaurs, the first thing, alpha AND omega.

And part of the reason they were so cool to me was that they were the forbidden fruit. My folks, at the time, were heavily involved in the Evangelical movement, and Kiss couldn't have been more against just about everything it stood for. Or at least it seemed like they were -- they were like the cartoon devil, their songs were vague euphemisms for terrible, awful things, and their very name itself was an acronym for Kings (or Knights or something else with a "K" that fit awkwardly) in Satan's Service. So over and over again I heard "Son, KISS are bad news" from my dad. And even for a little kid, forbidden fruit tastes so good.

Sadly, tragically, I eventually was scared out of listening to Kiss. I attended a service by the Peters Brothers, a St. Paul-based ministry who traveled around from church to church with a seminar entitled "Why Knock Rock?" You've heard about this -- they were the ones who espoused the theory of "backmasking," the notion that rock bands were recording demonic messages backwards on their albums. Their seminar was terrifying to my ten-year-old mind -- they convinced me that my very SOUL was IN JEOPARDY, RIGHT NOW, and I'd better go home and smash my DEMONIC ROCK RECORDS and BEG for Christ's forgiveness.

So I did. The last Kiss record I bought was "Dynasty," and then they all went under the hammer. I'm embarassed about it now, because I pride myself on always having been kind of a free-thinker, but man, they made it sound scary. I'm sure I'm not the only 70s kid that worked on. I made puppy-dog eyes at "Unmasked," when it came out, but for a while at least, my Kiss fandom kind of faded away. I eventually came back to rock, a couple years later, but the 80s were in full swing, and I was all about Duran Duran (oddly, another makeup-wearing band). Kiss, the hair metal version, seemed so horribly passe.

But look! Kiss are releasing a new album! And even though the last truly great record they put out probably happened during the early stages of the Reagan presidency (well, except "Unplugged"...er, and hunks of "Revenge," from '92) suddenly everybody who ever liked the band is talking about them again! There's excited, breathless posts on Facebook! The message board I'm a part of has a TWENTY PAGE THREAD devoted to the group! The buzz is palpable. Even cynical, jaded people are pulling out their battered vinyl and rediscovering the joy that is Kiss.

The timing is just right. All of us who used to like the band, or who liked them, fell away, and came back, or who just liked them all the way through, are now old enough to not give a crap about what anybody else thinks about our Kiss fandom. Part of it is nostalgia, sure, and part of it is just love and devotion. And part of it is just a genuine hope that Gene Simmons' rhetoric about "the best album in 30 years" and "a renewed creative spark for the band" isn't just bullshit hyperbole. I mean, it's possible, right? Right?

'Cause that's another thing about Kiss: their music holds up super frighteningly well. I mean, it's just as back-to-basics rock as the Pistols and the Ramones, but it also has a nice dark heavy edge like Zeppelin and none of it really sounds dated -- well, except disco experiment "I Was Made For Loving You," and we all know disco is cool, now, so who cares? If you're thinking about revisiting the group, here's a quick rundown of some essentials:

Destroyer: A genuine hard rock masterpiece. Bob Ezrin's production adds a bombastic sheen to the group's already humongous sound. Highlights: "King of the Nighttime World," "Shout It Out Loud," "Detroit Rock City," and the weepy, awesome Peter Criss-sung ballad, "Beth."

Rock and Roll Over: The best album cover houses, IMO, their best album. The sophisticated sheen is muted, but the songwriting is strong. Highlights: "Calling Dr. Love," "I Want You," and again, a Peter Criss-sung ballad, "Hard Luck Woman."

Self-titled: The first album, pound for pound, song for song, is probably their most important. A sheer rock and roll blast from top to bottom. Highlights: "Strutter," "Firehouse," "Cold Gin," and the awesome "Black Diamond" -- again, sung by Peter Criss.

Alive and Alive II: Neither TRULY live in the strictest sense of the word (both feature extensive re-records/overdubs, and "II" even has a studio side), both absolutely capture the raw, potent quality of the band's music better than the studio slabs. Essential.

Unmasked: The "pop" album. Closer to Cheap Trick than you'd care to admit. The underrated gem of the catalog -- check out how smooth "Shandi" is, or how pop "Tomorrow" is, or what a massive hook "Two Sides Of The Coin" is swinging. It's a great album, maybe my favorite of my recent discoveries.

Gene Simmons solo: Of the four, I've always liked Ace's best. On re-listen, I suddenly note how damn Beatlesque parts of Gene's is. Check out "Man of 1,000 Faces" -- full of lush, full, 60s-influenced harmonies, or the gorgeous, sweet "Mr. Make-Believe," which could live on a Left Banke LP.

So what does Kiss mean to me, really? I could talk all day about how their pure, innocent (yes! innocent!) rock and roll blast hits right to the soul in a way that other, more intellectual bands can't, or how a sense of shared community with other folks my age gives me a sense of place and context within history like I'm sure the Beatles were for the generation before me, or how surprisingly awesome their music is, and how full of twists and turns you wouldn't ever expect. But that's to over-intellectualize something that shouldn't really be intellectualized. Really, Kiss just is rock and roll. They're what I like about rock and roll music. Riffs. Hooks. Melodies. Harmonies. Big things. Explosions. Whatever. EVERYTHING. It's that simple. It's that boiled down.

So, um, yeah, you can bet that just like it's 1978, I'm going to be the first in line (at WAL MART of all places, see Omnibus Blog Post #3, coming later) when "Sonic Boom" comes out. And I want so badly to buy tickets for the show so I can take my lovely then-to-be-wife and daughter. And you can damn well bet I'm not going to tell her they're "bad news." Which probably makes 'em less appealing to her, but heck, the explosions'll get her anyway. Right?

Check these out, and get rid of your preconceived notions about Kiss, yo:

Omnibus Blog Post 1: Heavy vs. Light

I noticed recently that I'm drawn to extremes in music. The stuff I like -- and by that, I mean the stuff I really like, the stuff I'm obsessed about -- is usually either really heavy or really light. On the one hand, we have stuff like Zeppelin, Sabbath, Kiss (see: Omnibus Blog Post 2, coming soon), the Cult, Wolfmother, Jet. On the other, things like the Free Design, yr. various Yacht Rock groups, Joe Raposo, Carpenters, certain Beach Boys albums, whatever. Heavy as an anvil, couldn't possibly be heavy enough, or so light it's in danger of floating away into the stratosphere. Extremes.

I've also noticed recently that nowadays, you can't really get either. Oh, there's a couple (literally just a couple!) of bands doing Really Heavy -- particularly Wolfmother, they're nicely heavy, and really really good. And a couple bands doing Really Light, too (though I'm hard pressed to name 'em -- certainly nobody doing the Carpenters, or something that blissfully airy). But for the most part, everything's straight down the fucking middle. Think of a band like -- I dunno, Modest Mouse. Good band, I suppose, but they're Middle of the Road in every possible way in the old-school use of the term. Straight down the middle. And safe. Very, very safe. Good songwriters, I'm sure, but they're just kind of...the same. All the time. Not fast, not slow, not hard, not light, just THERE.

And that's why I hate everything nowadays, I think. And not just music, but everything. It's not just that people are AFRAID of extremes, though they clearly are -- "we want to," goes the logic, "appeal to a majority of people, and the way to do that is to never go too far in any direction, to play to the widest tastes, to offend nobody." This goes for every artistic media, from movies to television to music to whatever -- and hell, even in politics and conversation and fashion and everything. Can't be too heavy. Too light. Too theatrical. Too big. Too flashy. Too gay. Too whatever.

But it goes beyond simple fear -- it's almost like people are embarrassed of extremes. Like -- okay, let's do this. Imagine you're in a club and a band is getting on stage. They've got makeup on, and are wearing -- I dunno, purple velvet jumpsuits and feather boas. And they light into music that's loud and heavy and they posture all over the stage. What do you think? What's your first reaction? Ten bucks it's to get embarrassed and laugh.

But I mean -- double-you tee eff? That's cool, isn't it? When did we stop desiring that? Are we afraid that expressing an extreme means it'll reveal something about you? Provoke strong emotion? Strength or weakness?

What's weird is even when artists these days GO extreme -- think of, say, Marilyn Manson -- it seems so half-assed in some way. His music wasn't terribly extreme, for one thing -- it was second-rate watered down Nine Inch Nails. And all he was doing was adding more cock and blood to something Alice Cooper had done already. It was a real sort of SAFE extreme. Like climbing up onto a diving board, yelling "Hey, look at me, I'm going OUT THERE!" and then tiptoeing up to the edge and then climbing down.

And the end result is that there's no band that provokes the kind of SLAVERING ADMIRATION AND ADULATION that groups used to, y'know? Like -- can you imagine 30, 40 years down the line being a part of the Modest Mouse Army? The Daughtry Army? I dunno. I just feel like lack of extremes also means lack of enthusiasm. You like. you don't love.

So, y'know, that's my challenge to you, artists. Go balls out. Do something risky, big, splashy, stupid, loud, quiet, long, super-short. Do something that goes to an extreme, and don't feel like you gotta slide it straight down the middle. That's all.