Chinese Dumb-ocracy: The Bollocks! Review, Part Fucking III

A palate cleanse is required while I let my Ommegang Abbey Ale settle. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I need to piss (gee, I wonder why so few people read this blog – this is quality shit, yeah?). Again with the water while I sniff the fruity and earthy notes that make up the head of an Ommegang Abbey Ale. This beer ain’t for amateurs – it’s a full on Belgian-style Dubbel that didn’t come to make small talk. I first heard of Ommegang Brewery (Belgian style brewery in Cooperstown, NY) in Beer magazine (you don’t subscribe? What the hell is wrong with you?) and I keep meaning to try their Hennepin Ale, but I always end up with the Abbey Ale. It’s win-win. Starting to feel the buzz now, and I’m wiping my sonic palate clean with Sonic Youth’s “Total Trash.” Hooah.

10:00PM: Free Association Songwriting: “I.R.S” makes no fucking sense. Axl makes references to various government offices but doesn’t really say what it is he wants them to do. Gee, maybe he’s a Republican (buh-dum tish). He also asks, “Would it even mattered/ The things that I’d say”. Well,  I think he asks that. That’s a question, right?

Here’s the thing. My band (Radical Edward – we had our first gig last night, but enough about me) has seven original songs right now. I’ve written or contributed lyrics to all of them. I recognize that you fuck with syllables to make the meter work, but I’m pretty goddamn diligent about making the lines make sense. You know, so people can comprehend them?  Axl is wandering around in a grammatical wasteland on Chinese Democracy and he took a decade and a half to cough up the shittiest lyrics this side of My Chemical Romance (who can at least string together a coherent line – it’s just gonna suck when they do it).

10:09PM: Jesus Monkeyfucking Christ: I know I just said “I.R.S.” makes no fucking sense, but then I heard “Madagascar.” Axl, waxing Jesus-like, sings “Forgive them that tear down my soul.” And then there’s a bunch of mismatched samples, including the one from Cool Hand Luke that famously introduced “Civil War,” a song I thought was Axl’s biggest descent into Bullshit until I heard “Madagascar.” Axl Rose samples Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I have a dream” speech on this song. Why? Is Axl worried about his civil rights as a white man with corn rows? Does he even realize that King was fighting for the rights of black people (from whom Axl didn’t wanna by a gold chain when he sang “One in a Million” – if you ask me how I know that song, I will scream like a girl and run away from you so fucking fast it will make your head spin) and that he fucking died for it? It seems beyond outrageous to me that Axl “My Engrish is So Suck” Rose would compare his struggle for… whatever the fuck he’s struggling for… to MLK’s struggle for racial goddamn equality. Christ, Axl, have you left no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Wow. I got so pissed off during “Madagascar” that I missed half of “This I Love.” Let’s start it over, shall we? Here we go: “This I Love” is a piano-y ballad where Axl whines, “Please God you must believe me/ I’ve searched the universe/ and found myself in her eyes.” It might be Rose’s best lyrical turn of the album (yes, folks, it’s that fucking bad), but still: please, God, don’t believe him.  “This I Love” is a schmaltzy ballad and yet, there still seems to be room for an annoying guitar solo. Anyone who knows me knows I have nothing against guitar solos, by the way. I just compare most of them to Tad Kubler’s solo on “Most People Are DJ’s” and find them sorely lacking.

The last song on Chinese Democracy is called “Prostitute” and I’m confused why it doesn’t include a parenthetical “I Am a”.  Axl sings, “I’ve done all I should,” with which I must immediately disagree – you, Mr. Rose, should go into a state of hiding that makes J.D. Salinger look like Ryan Seacrest.

Rose also asks, “Why would they/ tell me to please/ those that laugh in my face?” and I don’t know the answer, but I’m one of those who would definitely laugh in his face. The dude has lived in this country his whole life and speaks English like an aphasia patient. Axl kinda sounds like a hair metal Peter Cetera when he sings, “Ask yourself/ why I would choose/ to prostitute myself/ to live with fortune and shame” and while I’m not gonna take time out of my busy drinking schedule to ask myself why Axl Rose is a whore, I’ll concede that he is one. Also, the thought of a hair metal Peter Cetera is really fucking terrifying.

10:26PM: In summary… Chinese Democracy is actually about what I’d expect from an egomaniac locking himself in a studio for 15ish years – it’s a fucking mess. Overproduced, underwritten, and overperformed, it’s a testament to a man who crawled really far up his own ass and decided to make a home there. There are so many half-assed musical ideas on Chinese Democracy that it comes off as schizophrenic and, lyrically, it should be considered an act of literary (if not auditory) terrorism. I hereby authorize anyone in my band (or anyone who hears my band) to kill me (fucking kill me) if I ever write anything as fuck-awful as what Axl Rose has penned (in his own feces, as I understand it) on Chinese Democracy.

Final Palate Cleanse: I recommend more beer (I’m still working on the Ommegang Abbey Ale, and I have a dry Irish stout in reserve – it only took me three beers to get through Chinese Democracy, which I guess makes it slightly better than Chris Cornell’s Scream. That, for the record, is like saying you like the shit sandwich when the chef had corn the previous day as compared to when he or she had asparagus. It’s still a shit sandwich) and listening to Joe Strummer’s cover of “Redemption Song.” Twice.

Well, folks, I’m drunk. I’m gonna listen to something good and play video games. You’ve got a lot of choices when it comes to your music, and I’d like leave you with this bit of advice: none of them should be Chinese Democracy.

I Drink My Way Through the New Chris Cornell Album (or, What the Fuck is Wrong with Me?) Pt. 1

Okay. It’s Saturday night. The girlfriend is out of town, friends are busy, but I have a few tall beers from the Ninkasi Brewery in Eugene, Oregon. Might as well crack one open and listen to… the new Chris Cornell album. The one that Timbalind produced.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Well, you gotta make your own damn fun in the world sometimes so I’ve decided to get drunk enough to sit through Chris Cornell’s entire Scream album and write a review of it. Why would I do this? I do it for you, my loyal 6 to 9 readers (on average). For your entertainment. And edification.  I’m doing this more or less live, and I’ll go back and proofread it later. These are my unfiltered feelings on Scream.

9:19 pm. It Begins – My first beer of the night is the Ninkasi Tricerahops, their double – double – IPA. Special thanks to Jacques for the Ninkasi brews.

All right, Cornell, do your worst.

His worst is pretty bad, and damned if he hasn’t been trying to do his worst ever since Soundgarden broke up. I was a huge fan of theirs, especially Badmotorfinger and Superunknown. I know the radio made you sick of “Black Hole Sun,” but that album is straight up raucous from start to finish. But enough about that. Let’s live in the now.

Scream starts off with a synthesized horn fan-fare, the kind of obvious douchebag maneuver I’d expect from Kanye West. That introduces “Part of Me,” the chorus of which is “No, that bitch ain’t a part of me.” This all sung in Cornell’s whiny new R&B voice. Timbalind, in his infinite wisdom, decided to digitize Cornell’s voice on the chorus so that Cornell sounds like Megatron. Except I don’t recall Megatron ever being such a blatant fucking misogynist. If anyone in my band wrote a song this bad, I’d assault them. That is how bad this is. Ya know how Trent Reznor’s recent output has been kinda middlin’ lately? Well, upon hearing Scream, he Twittered (or “Twatted” as Stephen Colbert puts it) that he felt embarrassed for Chris Cornell. Me too, Trent. Me too.

“Part of Me” is waaaaaaaaaay too long. Tricerahops to the rescue! The song ends with a guitar flourish right out of 80′s Journey. Meaning it ends with a shitty guitar doodle.

9:25: MTV Party to Go – The songs seem to all blend together, as “Time” has started immediately from the Journey-esque shitstorm that ends “Part of Me”. You know, like those old MTV Party mix tapes they used to have? The chorus of “Time” consists of Cornell singing the word “Time” over and over in his Woman-hating Megatron voice and occasionally caterwauling “I wish we could rewind.” I think he means he wishes he could rewind time. I wish I could rewind time too, Chris. I’d go back to 9pm tonight and decide to listen to Middle Cyclone for the gazillionth time instead of taking  on this fool’s errand…. but no. I must not waver. It’s you or me, Chris Cornell/Megatron. And I have good beer on my side.

9:30: Chris Cornell Hates Your Girlfriend – “Nowadays I think like a woman/ I’ve been looking for blood,” Cornell sings on “Sweet Revenge.” Perhaps Audioslave broke up because the progressive chaps who used to be in Rage Against the Fact that We Sound Like the Beastie Boys grew tired of Chris Cornell’s constant misogynist tirades.  Wait. No. Audioslave broke up because they fucking sucked. Anyway… “Sweet Revenge” has a completely Auto-Tuned chorus. It’s as if Cornell and Timbalind set out to make a party album for douchebags who want to throw a theme party where the theme is “Proving the Utter Extent of Our Douchebaggery.” Scream is the Platonic ideal of douchebaggery.

9:36: Not nearly drunk enough – Fuck fuck fuck. I’m only four songs into this motherfucker. I’m listening to a song called “Get Up.” I used to think Chris Cornell had a good voice, but Timbalind apparently doesn’t think so because Cornell doesn’t seem to sing a single note on Scream that isn’t covered in digital jizz. “Get Up” has a guitar part toward the end that is exactly the kind of distorted guitar part you would use if you were an over-rated pop producer who has clearly never heard anyone play a real electric guitar.

“Get Up” has meandered into “Ground Zero.”  “Ground Zero” has less digital bullshit, but there’s still plenty of digital bullshit. This seems to be one of the platitude-filled, trite-ass (trite-cera-tops?) “positive” songs that Cornell has been coughing up lately (think “Be Yourself,” that really shitty single off the last Audiosuck album.  When I was a kid, he sang “I know I’m headin’ for the bottom/ but I’m riding you all the way.” That’s way more compelling than this shit)

9:42 p.m. Oh fuck. A love song – “Never Far Away” is next and the Megatron voice is back singing about how “You are the road I travel/ you were the words I write”. Wait a minute. Five songs ago, this asshole wanted “the girl/ but not what she’s going through.” We’re supposed to believe that this same motherfucker’s soul is saved by his lady love? (Not making this up. He sings, “I don’t have to pray anymore/ because my soul is saved”). The chorus of this song is unintelligible, but seems like it wouldn’t be out of place in a Nickelback song. Hey, Timbalind! You clearly hate music. Why not raise the stakes a little next time out and produce a Nickelback album? Can you make them worse?

Note: I’m gonna cap each part of this review at about 1000 words, so be sure to stay tuned for parts 2 through Whatever.

9:48 p.m. This is good beer – I’m halfway through. This song is called “Take Me Alive.” In the immortal words of J. Alfred Prufrock, I’d prefer not to (this beer is quite effective; not only is it delicious, but I’m buzzed enough that I can’t remember if the Eliot poem to which I’m referring is called “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” or not. I may have added the “J.”)

My Year in Lists: The Best Albums of 2008 Part II

Originally, I was going to write about my top ten albums of ’08 by discussing two albums per day for the whole week before I depart for vacation in sunny Seattle. Then, I realized that if I condense the writing down to a couple of posts, I can spend more time playing Grand Theft Auto 4. What can I say, I’m going on vacation next week and I want to be lazy this week. Sue me. When we left off, I’d ranked #10 through 5 of my best of the year. To recap:

10. She & Him, Volume One

9. The Whigs, Mission Control

8. Atmosphere, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint that Shit Gold

7. Santogold, Santogold

6.. The Shaky Hands, Lunglight

5. My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges

That brings us to #4.

4. Frightened Rabbit, The Midnight Organ Fight – Someone ripped Scott Hutchinson’s heart out, trampled on it, set it on fire, shat in the ashes, and buried the whole mess in a shallow grave. The resultant ache inspired much of The Midnight Organ Fight, Frightened Rabbit’s stellar second album. Frightened Rabbit would be run-of-the-mill, Coldplay-esque pop were it not for 2 great assets – Hutchinson’s lyrics (unlike Chris Martin, Hutchinson doesn’t pretty up his pain; rather than singing “I’ll tryyyyyyyyyyyyyy to fix you,” Hutchinson admits “I’m drunk/ I’m drunk/ and you’re probably on pills/ if we’ve both got the same diseases/ it’s irrelevant, girl”) and his wavering, heavily accented voice. Hutchinson and company have crafted the best break-up album of 2008, and one of the most honest (“It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm”). If your heart is aching even a little this holiday season, pour a double shot of your favorite vice and curl up with The Midnight Organ Fight.   But don’t despair, happy people: there’s something for the rest of us too, which is what makes this album so great. It’s for the irreverent as much as the broken-hearted: “Jesus/ is just/ a Spanish boy’s name,” Hutchinson sings on “Head Rolls Off,” taking some time out from hurting to stick his thumb in the eye of the pious.  I earnestly hope Scott Hutchinson finds true love and happiness, so long as he doesn’t lose his jagged edge and start writing songs about how cute his fucking kids are. In any event, The Midnight Organ Fight is phenomenal.

3. TV on the Radio, Dear Science – Speaking of phenomenal, TV on the Radio have topped many a best-of list this year, and they fought hard for the largest pieces of my heart as well (for albums, pieces of my heart are doled out according to repeat listenings, which is why the top three albums on my list will make perfect sense to astute readers. All 3 of my favorite albums this year wore out my CD player in my car. Perhaps literally).  And that’s because Dear Science is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. It’s fucking amazing. The band has called it their “dance” record, which I suppose I can believe, since it is a little more poppy than their other work. Whatever you call it, though, “Halfway Home,” “Golden Age,” “Family Tree,” and “Lover’s Day,” (among all the others) constitute an album that is addictive and instantly compelling. Dear Science represents a sort of blueprint for what pop can be in the 21st century. TV on the Radio have blown some serious soul into the genre (along with a blast of funk, as on “Red Dress”) and injected it with much-needed life. This band is going to be around for along time and I’m convinced that they will always be this awesome.

2. Los Camepsinos!, Hold On Now, Youngster – Every year when I make this list, there are two albums that confuse me about their place in the pecking order. This year, those two albums were Dear Science and the debut from Los Campesinos!, Hold On Now, Youngster. I give a slight advantage to Los Campesinos! but if you ask me tomorrow, I might change my mind (don’t ask me tomorrow, I’ll be playing GTA 4). Hold On Now, Youngster was made by a group of seven (!) youngsters from Cardiff and it’s a frantic, clever, and brief burst of awesomeness. The whole thing is a little over half an hour and when it’s done, you’re breathless from lines like “Plunge your hand/ rip out my spine/ replace it with a UV light/ so I can be the beacon of hope/ that you always expected” or “Deer die with their eyes wide open,” or… well, just listen to the fucking album. Gareth and Aleksandra Campesinos! (yeah, I know, everyone having the same last name is so pretentious, but so what? The music matters the most, and their music is fucking great) trade off vocal lines (and sometimes over-lap) when the whole band isn’t shouting in unison at the top of their lungs (as on “We Are All Accelerated Readers”). Most of Los Campesinos! were in their early 20s when they recorded Youngster and they’ve already turned a great second disc (called We are Beautiful, We are Doomed) to end the year. Hold Now, Youngster is a literate, sharp-tongued record of jangly pop and bouncing rock tunes from a band that most desperately needs to come to Los Angeles as soon as possible.

So what’s the best album of 2008?

(insert suspense here)

The Hold Steady, Stay Positive – You can’t honestly be surprised that my favorite band would make my favorite album of the year. But I’m not just handing it to ‘em because I like the cut of their collective jib – they earned this dubious honor (at Bollocks!, most of the honors are dubious). No album this year came close to rocking this hard.  “Constructive Summer,” (my no-surprise favorite song of the year) starts off a set that kicks ass in the good old ways (on songs like “Sequestered in Memphis” and “Yeah, Sapphire”) and some awesome new ways (like “One for the Cutters,” and “Both Crosses,” which features J. Mascis on banjo). Craig Finn’s writing is as sharp as ever (“Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer/ I think he might’ve been our only decent teacher”), and this time ’round, he took a moment to write a love note to the Hold Steady fans who have been there from the beginning – the title track points out, quite reverently, “we couldn’t have even done this if it wasn’t for you.” What The Hold Steady built this summer was an album that amplifies all of their best tricks and tosses in some stylistic growth without sounding like they’re experimenting for the sake of experimenting. The truth is, they’re getting really fucking good at what they do. Tad Kubler’s guitar is still at the forefront (as it should be – you can have every single douchebag hack who played on Chinese Democracy – Tad Kubler will blow them away while downing a bottle of Jameson’s.) and Finn, despite the voice lessons, still doesn’t have much of a vocal range (although it’s much improved and songs like “Sequestered in Memphis” benefit from his new-found tunefulness), but prettier voices would diminish the impact of what he’s saying.  I submit to you that, when picking a favorite album for any given year,  you’ve gotta pick the album that made you wanna A) jump around and yell like a drunken fool, B) join/start/continue to play in a band, C) give copies of it to all your friends, despite their repeated protests, or D) all of the above more than any other album.  For me, that album is Stay Positive. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to crank up Stay Positive and get my car-jacking on. Happy whichever holidays you celebrate (I celebrate the death of Cardinal Richlieu on December 4th, Tom Waits’ birthday on December 7th, and I think there are some other holidays this month, but I can’t remember for the life of me what they are) and merry new year!

Got a better list? Post a comment with your ten best albums of 2008. You won’t win anything (I blame the economy), but I know you’re compiling those lists anyway. Might as well share. Blender won’t let you do that.

(Incidentally, before I sign off for the year, I wanna say: I started this blog on a lark, to warm myself up for writing plays and songs and stuff, so I never expected many people to read it. Well, earlier this week, some 71 people stopped  by Bollocks!, which I know is not even close to the number of people who read other blogs, but it’s still our best ever. So thanks, everybody. For serious.)

Chinese Democracy: A Review of A Review (or, Where the Fuck is My Free Fucking Dr. Pepper?)

All right. The first issue I have with Chinese Democracy is that the folks at Dr. Pepper made a promise and then were not technologically equipped to deliver on this promise. The window for getting the free Dr. Pepper has closed with me on the wrong side of it, despite two solid hours of attempting to get the fucking site to work. See, I was gonna review that Dr. Pepper on this site today because I’m sure as hell not gonna give Axl Rose my money so I can tell you what you already know about Chinese Democracy. But we’ll deal with that later.

In the meantime, the Los Angeles Times has come to my rescue – their “pop critic”, Ann Powers, wrote a huge story on Axl Rose’s magnum dopus and I have chosen to critique her critique in lieu of actually paying money to listen to an album I know will be of less artistic quality than Death Magnetic. Probably.

But first, I wanna tackle this “exclusively at Best Buy” deal that Axl made. I know Guns ‘n’ Roses is not the only band that has gone the exclusive release route (AC/DC originally put their new album out exclusively through Wal-Mart and Smashing Pumpkins released a special Target-exclusive version of their last shitty record). But, by releasing an album exclusively through a store that does not exclusively sell music, Axl Rose has helped put a nail in the coffin not just of independent record stores but in the experience of buying albums. Now look, I know we’re all digital nowadays and I’ve certainly got an expansive mp3 collection (don’t worry Axl and Lars, I didn’t steal your shitty records), so you may be thinking, “Matt, who gives a shit about the record buying experience?” Well, motherfucker, I do. When I walk into a music store and see the rows and rows of discs, aisles of musical wonder, usually sorted by genre, I get a thrill unmatched by any other feeling. It’s like Jacques Cousteau must’ve felt before jumping in the ocean. I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna find in there most of the time, but I’m usually gonna walk away with a treasure (I even, on my last trip to Amoeba Music, scored a $7 used copy of Redemption Song, the excellent and definitive biography of Joe Strummer). Or, more precisely, a pile of treasures. When I ask the flunky at Target about a band I like, I get a blank stare, as if I’ve switched a light off in his brain or spoken in some long dead, dark language. Sure, I can get Smashing Pumpkins and Kanye “Self-Declared Voice of His Generation” West at Target but, like all thinking people, I don’t give a shit about those two particular artists. Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy can sell albums cheap because they make money by selling a lot of other products. Amoeba Music sells music, books, and DVDs while still managing to donate some of their proceeds to preserve the rain forest (I shit you not); so who’s exclusively releasing through them? Well, everyone who releases a Live at Amoeba EP, such as TV on the Radio did. Or The Hold Steady, who released a live acoustic EP exclusively through members of the Independent Music Retailer network (not sure I got the name of the organization right, but Amoeba is part of it; basically, it’s a large group of independent music stores across  the nation). Bands that are exclusively releasing through Wal-Mart and companies like them are making the implicit argument that they care about making the most money possible. Obviously, that’s their right and obviously, if you took 14 fucking years and millions of dollars to make your shitty little record, you might be a little bit more concerned with your profit margins. But the fact is, I reward bands that want to make music, not bands that want to make money (Honestly, who wouldn’t want to make money playing rock ‘n’ roll? But there are bands that are focused on their music first – bands like Wilco who have gone so far as to say that they don’t exist to make CDs per se but to create music. Bands that put music ahead of money make better music and thus, deserve my money. Bands that simply want my money – like Kiss, who can definitely go fuck themselves – do not deserve it and never get it). TV on the Radio and The Hold Steady make their livings off of their music. I’ve read that Matt Berninger from The National didn’t quit his day job until right before they started work on Boxer. I guess what I’m driving at here is a question of hunger. Young, hungry, independent acts do what they have to do to make music, including hanging on to the day job a little longer (I work two jobs so that I can pull my weight launching my little band). Old, tired, washed up acts, apparently ink exclusive deals to pump out their crap through giant chain retailers and then have the gall to blame the death of the record industry solely on downloading.

One of the (many) flawed arguments of the no-downloading crowd is that every downloaded album is money out of the artist’s pocket. This assumes that everyone who heard the album for free would have purchased it if only they couldn’t get it for free. Slash, one of Axl Rose’s former pals, lamented that Axl would lose a lot of money on Chinese Democracy because some jackass streamed seven or nine leaked tracks on his blog. Of course, at the time, there was no guarantee that those were finished tracks from a finished album, no guarantee that those tracks would appear on a finished album, and no guarantee that people who downloaded those leaked tracks would automatically skip out on buying Chinese Democracy. Unless, of course, they discovered from those tracks what I intuitively understand – that this album, like its creator, is a bloated mess. Smart bands adapt to the downloading phenomenon in various ways – Bloc Party offered a 10 dollar download of Intimacy a month before it came out and then gave me a total of four bonus tracks for free later. Radiohead famously let people decide what to pay for In Rainbows. The Hold Steady (I love those guys, but you knew that) streamed Stay Positive in its entirety on their MySpace page and then slapped three bonus tracks on the physical release. The Flaming Lips have released the coolest deluxe version of a movie or CD I’ve ever seen – the Christmas on Mars deluxe release includes a T-Shirt and a bag of popcorn!

So anyway, Ann Powers apparently went to the Best Buy and got a copy of Chinese Democracy. She went on to not only compare the album to Citizen Kane but also to compare Rose to Orson Welles (in personality, not physical stature). She later credits Rose with “Brian Wilson-style beautiful weirdness.” You might get the feeling that Powers really fucking loved Chinese Democracy, but, at the end of the day, Rose’s “lyrics, like the songs’ musical twists, are hard to praise”. So after a long article that makes an interesting attempt to capture the magnitude of Chinese Democracy’s release (many writers have already focused on how much of a fucking farce the whole process has been; genuine kudos to Powers for trying to give it more of a fan perspective. The problem is, the farce crowd is right on this one), Powers is forced to admit that the actual music, the thing people have been waiting 14 years for is hard to like. That’s not exactly album-of-the-year material.

Now, I will admit that I have not listened to the final product. And I’m not going to download it either. I will, however, give Chinese Democracy a fair hearing on Bollocks! as long as I don’t have to pay for it. If you bought the album and will let me borrow it or if I get it for Christmas (by some strange magic), I will give it an honest musical critique. I am, at the end of the day, a music lover and I’m willing to have my mind changed – I used to hate hip-hop until I found some artists that opened my eyes to the potential of that genre. So I’ll make a promise to those of you out there who pre-hate me for pre-hating Chinese Democracy: if a copy of this album, a legitimate copy, falls into my hands in some manner that keeps me from putting money in Axl Rose’s pocket, I will:

1) listen to the album and judge it on the music, keeping my hatred of Axl Rose separate from my appraisal of the music he makes

2) render that verdict on this blog with my usual literary zest

And

3) if Chinese Democracy manages to please me more than it displeases me, I will purchase a copy of it and a copy of Metallica’s Death Magnetic and give them away to the first two people who can convince me they deserve them. I’ll find some fun way of determining that.

The odds that a) a copy of Chinese Democracy will come to me for free and b) I will like it more than not are about 1 billion to 1 against. But I’m willing to keep an open mind, despite the fact that I have no free Dr. Pepper to enjoy while I do it.

Dear TV on the Radio

Dear TV on the Radio,

I am employed in the service of Chorpenning, the iron-fisted ruler of Bollocks!. I think it is safe to assume that you are not among the 6 to 9 people (on average) who read Bollocks!, but it’s a blog about music. Chorpenning is the owner and head writer (only writer) for the site and he is a big fan of your work.

That’s why I’m writing to you, TV on the Radio. You see,  a few days ago, Chorpenning acquired your new album, Dear Science and, as is his wont, he listened to it straight through a couple of times. He likes to really wrap his head around an album before he writes about it. I, as his Imaginary Secretary, have to hear a lot of albums more than once, but it’s part of the job. Some of the albums are pretty nice (I really like that Hold Steady band, which is good – I think my job depends on it) so the repetition is usually bearable.

Dear Science was like that at first. And, actually, at second. I started to worry around the time Chorpenning locked the doors to the office, turned up the volume, and announced loudly, “I can’t stop listening to this record! It’s fucking amazing!” I cannot tell if he was drunk at the time; it’s often safe to assume he is. As we work in an Imaginary Office (cheaper lease!), there is no worry that he’ll drive home in such a state and cause injury to himself or others.

That was Tuesday, TV on the Radio. Today is Saturday. I haven’t been home, and neither has Chorpenning, since your album came out. I’ve been here, with him, listening to Dear Science over and over and over again. His dog and girlfriend (not imaginary, believe it or not) miss him. I have plants that need watering.

I am not saying that your music is bad or that you should have, somehow, made Dear Science less awesome. I’m simply alerting you to the situation caused by listening to your new album. I’m concerned that other people will hear Dear Science and, like my boss, never want to stop hearing it. How many people are stuck in their offices, their cars, wherever, right now, doing the same thing they’ve done since they first heard the enchanting first notes of “Halfway Home”? They could number in the millions. Millions of people, TV on the Radio, who get all the way through to “Lover’s Day,” and, rather than going home to their lovers (“Lover’s Day”, for my money, is one of the ten best songs about fucking I’ve ever heard) and loving them, they just let the disc whirr back around to “Halfway Home.” Your production is so lush, your harmonies so great, your beats so enormous, that they may well be dangerous. If it’s not too late, you may consider a warning on the next pressing of Dear Science. Something like: “Warning: the music you are about to hear is infinitely awesome and highly addictive. You may find yourself wanting to listen to it over and over, so much so that you neglect responsibilities and basic hygiene. Please have a friend stop the disc for you after every three rotations so that you can shower and let your employees go home.” Or something like that. I’m just spitballing here.

Again, I don’t mean to offend you or in anyway suggest that it’s your fault that my boss reacted so strongly to your album. To tell the truth, I can sort of see why the stirring songs like “Family Tree” and “DLZ” would warrant a second listen. And that dancing song, the one with the “foam-injected Axl Rose” (I Googled the lyrics), is pretty catchy too. But this is ridiculous.

Oh god. He’s just started it up again.

Look, I know you’re probably on tour or doing something very important and musical or whatever, but if you happen to actually receive this letter in the next week or two, could you please send help? Or maybe if you came here yourselves and explained to Chorpenning that he has responsibilities outside of the office that he should see to? I think he might need to hear it from you that, while you’re no doubt glad that he loves Dear Science, it was never your intention for him to imprison his employees (real or imaginary) and force them to descend into madness with him.

Although, in fairness, I suppose I should have known that a descent into madness and/or alcoholism was inevitable with this job.

In any case, TV on the Radio, if you can find it in your hearts to send help, please do so at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Imaginary Secretary