Pretty Goes with Pretty

omg the music industry is full of like totally slimy little weasels!!!

I don't even know where to begin with this one.

Ms. Digby's simple, homemade music videos of her performing popular songs have been viewed more than 2.3 million times on YouTube. Her acoustic-guitar rendition of the R&B hit "Umbrella" has been featured on MTV's program "The Hills" and is played regularly on radio stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Portland, Ore. Capping the frenzy, a press release last week from Walt Disney Co.'s Hollywood Records label declared: "Breakthrough YouTube Phenomenon Marié Digby Signs With Hollywood Records."

What the release failed to mention is that Hollywood Records signed Ms. Digby in 2005, 18 months before she became a YouTube phenomenon. Hollywood Records helped devise her Internet strategy, consulted with her on the type of songs she chose to post, and distributed a high-quality studio recording of "Umbrella" to iTunes and radio stations.

...

"No one's going to be searching for Marié Digby, because no one knows who she is," Mr. Bunt, the Hollywood Records senior vice president, reasoned. So she posted covers of hits by Nelly Furtado and Maroon 5, among others, so that users searching for those artists' songs would stumble on hers instead. Her version of Rihanna's "Umbrella" proved a nearly instant hit.

...

As Ms. Digby's star rose, other media outlets played along. When Los Angeles adult-contemporary station KYSR-FM, which calls itself "Star 98.7," interviewed Ms. Digby in July, she and the disc jockey discussed her surprising success. "We kind of found her on YouTube," the DJ, known as Valentine, said. Playing the lucky nobody, Ms. Digby said: "I'm usually the listener calling in, you know, just hoping that I'm going to be the one to get that last ticket to the Star Lounge with [pop star] John Mayer!" The station's programming executives now acknowledge they had booked Ms. Digby's appearance through Hollywood Records, and were soon collaborating with the label to sell "Umbrella" as a single on iTunes.

So we've gotten to the point where the major labels' plan of attack is to encourage their artists to appear to be diy and not actually associate themselves with the majors. Is this what Rubin's "word-of-mouth department" would devise?

Dear Rick Rubin: Did You Not Get the Memo?

I was going to do a post on the Rick Rubin article that appeared in the New York Times this past Sunday, but plenty of others have beaten me to the punch. Plus, surely you know how I feel about the industry by now.

Suffice to say that the words coming out of Rubin's mouth are right on the money, but the very act of taking a job at Columbia makes me wonder how much he believes himself, or else how misguided he is in what he thinks he can accomplish. I think Columbia is looking for a figurehead, not someone who can implement anything. Sad to say but, like that IBM commercial I've been seeing lately, I think Rubin is merely "ideating."

So here are some other places to look for reactions: Lefsetz goes on a rant. GloNo hails Rubin's new gig as a good thing. The folks at ILM weigh in. And over at woxy, too (including me, posting as Joseph Scott).

[Edit: Forgot to mention Maureen Maura Johnston's take at Idolator, which is nicely written. I'm glad to see Idolator employing bloggers that can take an intelligent pass at their subject, rather than sticking 100% to the snarky tone of the Gawker et al. family.]

Summer Doldrums: Looking Forward Revisted

Part of the reason I've been fairly inactive hereabouts lately is that I've simply not picked up much from the record store that's inspiring me to shoot a little shit. I haven't bought a new album—i.e., an album released in 2007—since some time in June. (I have, however, acquired a shit-ton of blindspots, which I'll be going on about in a future post). I just returned to my post from six weeks ago looking forward to the summer releases, to see if I'd missed something.

I do still intend to pick up the new Spoon album. It's been streaming at Merge's site and I definitely think it's terrific—a step up from Gimme Fiction, which I liked but I don't return to the way I do Kill the Moonlight. I'm also supremely stoked for the upcoming New Pornographers album. But my anticipation for the rest from my list have all cooled, based on a single mp3 from each. The new Okkervil River seems to be getting rave reviews but based on the one mp3 I've heard it's not going to shatter my world.

So, has anything come out this summer that has turned out to be essential listening? What've you been digging for the last few months?

Go Die Addendum

As a p.s. to this week's posts [part I, part II], Catbirdseat notes sales figures for a few recent indie (and/or "indie-esque") releases. Spoon debuted at #10 on the Billboard charts this week, with 47,000 units sold. They were all over the mp3 blogs for the last two months, including the full leaked album quite a while ago. That must say something about the effect of downloading on indies vs mainstream groups, right? Catbird got its data from IndieHQ, a site I've never seen before but am now bookmarking.

Dear Music Industry: Go DiePart II: How Does it Feel to be Sam Walton's Bitch?

[Yesterday: Part I: Cleanup on Aisle 7]

The industry’s allegiance to Wal-Mart has been the case since the 1990s, when Wal-Mart and its ilk began selling music at prices music retailers (indie or not) could not compete with. It remained the case in this decade when, as the Rolling Stone article details, the industry had the opportunity to make a deal with Napster but capitulated to its top retailers instead:

It all could have been different: Seven years ago, the music industry’s top executives gathered for secret talks with Napster CEO Hank Barry. At a July 15th, 2000, meeting, the execs—including the CEO of Universal’s parent company, Edgar Bronfman Jr.; Sony Corp. head Nobuyuki Idei; and Bertelsmann chief Thomas Middelhof—sat in a hotel in Sun Valley, Idaho, with Barry and told him that they wanted to strike licensing deals with Napster. “Mr. Idei started the meeting,” recalls Barry, now a director in the law firm Howard Rice. “He was talking about how Napster was something the customers wanted.”

The idea was to let Napster’s 38 million users keep downloading for a monthly subscription fee—roughly $10—with revenues split between the service and the labels. But ultimately, despite a public offer of $1 billion from Napster, the companies never reached a settlement. “The record companies needed to jump off a cliff, and they couldn’t bring themselves to jump,” says Hilary Rosen, who was then CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. “A lot of people say, ‘The labels were dinosaurs and idiots, and what was the matter with them?’ But they had retailers telling them, ‘You better not sell anything online cheaper than in a store,’ and they had artists saying, ‘Don’t screw up my Wal-Mart sales.’”

It’s worth noting this. The record labels were ready to embrace the technology and “their retailers” said “you better not sell anything online cheaper than in a store.” Now, which “retailers” do you think said that? Was it Tower, where a CD cost on average $15.99, or was it Wal-Mart, where the same CD cost half that? This was Tower’s (and, of course, the indies’) own lament years ago when Wal-Mart first decided to start selling music. The record stores ability to compete was impinged upon because the corporate labels saw dollars via quantities of CD-sales-as-impulse-buys. Now that the same threat—vast quantities of impulse buys—faced Wal-Mart, the industry should have stuck to what it knew how to do: screwing over the people and businesses that do well for it. But it bowed to almighty Wal-Mart. Why did it bow this time but not when record stores made the same threat regarding Wal-Mart in the 1990s? Because Wal-Mart doesn't need the music industry, and the industry knows it. Major labels have become the bitch of grocery chains.  And when Napster was destroyed, like a mama spider it laid millions of little illegal downloading sites that the labels had no hope of getting a handle on.

Keep in mind the chronology here, and the choices the majors made. First it tried to make peace with Napster, but the big boxes shouted it down. Then the majors sued its own customers. Bask in the power of Wal-Mart.

So now the industry is wringing its hands over filesharing like never before. A few years ago everyone was filesharing in one place—but the industry sent them scattering and now have little hope of stamping them out. I was talking about this with my brilliant wife and she had great insight on this angle. During the whole boy band era—roughly 1997–2003—the industry was pumping out singles-based artists by the truckload, but it wasn’t economically feasible to buy a CD single—one song and a couple b-sides for $6.99 vs. the entire album for only a few more dollars (depending on where you bought it—great deals at Best Buy!). So album sales went up while CD singles went down. Bully for the majors, since the production costs were essentially the same but the markup was higher for full-lengths. Plus you had the industry cash cow Now That’s What I Call Music—this little piece of plastic that you could throw your best-selling singles on and just make that much more money without having to cultivate new artists. The NOW series was charting at #1 at its peak. Mind you, these are tweens and teens buying these comps—the very kids that today are freely downloading whatever they want. When Napster came along it was a no-brainer; the industry had already bred its audience to prefer the singles and eschew the filler. And now the record industry is bemoaning the dearth of album sales? It’s their own fault for not cultivating artists who knew how to make albums.

Rosen offers her take:

“That’s when we lost the users,” Rosen says. “Peer-to-peer took hold. That’s when we went from music having real value in people’s minds to music having no economic value, just emotional value.”

The gall of that quote. The gall! Rosen is equating “real value” with “economic value,” and that it’s a shame for us all that music only has emotional value. Yeah, pity. The music industry, by their unmitigated support for grocery stores over record stores as their preferred retail venue, has implicitly devalued the emotional worth of music. They are not concerned with the notion of a trip to the record store as sacred pilgrimage. To them it’s an errand. Drop off dry cleaning; buy milk; pick up Fergie CD.

What Rosen and the industry at large are obsessing over is the fact that the “casual listener” has stopped valuing music economically. But that’s what you get when you value the retailer that sells your music two aisles down from Charmin Ultra and contact lens solution above the retailer that cares about music, that hires knowledgeable staff to sell you albums you’ve never heard before and, perhaps, turn you into a fan. But those aren’t the stores the industry supports any more—they left bona fide record stores to wither and die years ago.

The “casual listeners” who no longer value music economically are the same listeners who preferred a NOW comp because the last time they bought an actual full-length is was all sketches and dogs. Half-baked albums by artists that were encouraged by their labels to make a minimum number of radio hits—"we'll only pay for three Neptunes-produced tracks"—this is the shit that the companies are pouring millions of dollars into. That’s millions and millions of dollars spent on maybe a hundred artists who keep the behemoth afloat. These are the artists who are suffering. Again, Rolling Stone:

In 2000, U.S. consumers bought 785.1 million albums; last year, they bought 588.2 million (a figure that includes both CDs and downloaded albums), according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2000, the ten top-selling albums in the U.S. sold a combined 60 million copies; in 2006, the top ten sold just 25 million.

It's a myopic view to only look at the top ten, or even top 100. Because all signs are pointing to an indie music scene that has never been more thriving. Indie bands are appearing in the top forty with more and more regularity, and a band like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah isn’t even on a label at all. I would wager that there are more musicians making an honest living than ever before.  Their ability to survive is not being impinged upon; the people who are hurting are the select few who are expecting millions of dollars on their bottom line. Those artists, and the machine that supports them, are by and large not responsible for the best music (I’ll grant that there are exceptions to that rule, but not enough to change my point), so if the apparatus that supports them goes under, so be it. But I really don’t think the New Pornographers or Jason Molina are going call it quits because too many people are filesharing. The people with passion, whether they be buyers or sellers, will remain. Maybe I’m just being too idealistic about the whole damn thing, but art has never suffered for wont of luxury.

The real malaise of the corporate industry is its slow realization that it is mere middleman. Artists can publicize themselves, can sell their own music, and manage themselves. Even if CYHSY is a brilliant exception to the rule, it remains the case that a smaller label with less overhead can still support a band to a satisfactory degree. The lower the operations costs, the wider the profit margin. The more streamlined behind the scenes, the more financially stable musicians; the more music.

Dear Music Industry: Go DiePart I: Cleanup on Aisle 7

I’ve had a general distaste for the corporate music industry for a while now—ever since they started suing music fans, basically—but in the last month or so a handful of different stories have made that distaste coalesce into a full-on loathing. The last I saw was this, from Rolling Stone (via a thread at Last Plane to Jakarta), which paints the industry’s fate in the most dire terms.

Overall CD sales have plummeted sixteen percent for the year so far—and that’s after seven years of near-constant erosion. In the face of widespread piracy, consumers’ growing preference for low-profit-margin digital singles over albums, and other woes, the record business has plunged into a historic decline.

So the music industry is dying. My reaction? Good fucking riddance. Anything I can do to help it along, let me know. Music has never been better nor more accessible, and the majors’ woes are completely their own fault (which the Rolling Stone article also claims). They haven’t cared about actual music for decades. They’ve cared about converting plastic discs into cash, and people don’t want plastic discs anymore. If they’d done anything to foster creativity in their artists, maybe I’d feel more sympathetic.

For the amount of ink spilled on the subject, you’d think it was all your fault. Heartless music fans have bypassed the saintly corporations in satisfying their sinful needs. I think it’s worth taking another look and who really killed the music industry. (hint: there’s a run on Cheerios on aisle 14.)

One of the common refrains you hear when people disdain downloading is the mp3’s inferiority to the tangible object, the CD. Most recently it came from the mouth of Jesse Harris, songwriter behind Norah Jones’s big hit “Don’t Know Why,” when he was interviewed for the Onion AV Club’s “Random Rules”:

I buy CDs. I do. I still like to have the artwork, and see the credits, and have the CD in my hand, and take it in the car. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get over that. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to replace that with mp3s. Besides, I just don’t think mp3s sound that good. They’re definitely of a lower quality.

It’s literally the same old vinyl vs. CD debate, only the CD—once derided for its artwork-unfriendly format and lesser sound quality—has been recast as the virtuous format. Seriously, isn’t this debate corny? Who wants to look at a 4x4” panel of artwork and read the producing credits and thank-you list when you can experience a terrific website, read your favorite band’s blog, and interact directly with the musician? Preferring a tired old CD booklet is for luddites only. CDs have nothing on mp3s—except for the experience of going to a record store, sifting through the aisles looking for some undiscovered gem, interacting with record store employees who can guide you to something better and talk, face to face with actual voices, about music.

That’s no small thing—in fact it’s something I value a great deal—but don’t believe for a second that the powers behind the music industry give two shits about that experience. The industry is concerned about Wal-Mart and its big-box brethren, and that’s it. According to the Rolling Stone article:

About 2,700 record stores have closed across the country since 2003, according to the research group Almighty Institute of Music Retail. Last year the eighty-nine-store Tower Records chain, which represented 2.5 percent of overall retail sales, went out of business, and Musicland, which operated more than 800 stores under the Sam Goody brand, among others, filed for bankruptcy. Around sixty-five percent of all music sales now take place in big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which carry fewer titles than specialty stores and put less effort behind promoting new artists.

Look at that. Tower accounted for 2.5 measly percent of retail sales. Wal-Mart and Best Buy are the top two music retailers in the U.S., with Target and other multi-retailers not far off. The music industry’s lack of distinction between these stores and Tower or Musicland had far more to do with their closing than illegal downloads ever could. Tower couldn’t compete with a store that doesn’t mind taking a loss on Avril Lavigne if it means you’ll buy your groceries while you’re there. Today, the industry still values big boxes over bricks-and-mortar music retailers: witness the Smashing Pumpkins promotional debacle, in which Wal-Mart, Target, and iTunes get copies with unique bonus tracks, while Virgin—never mind mom & pops—are stuck selling an essentially incomplete album. The industry is actively discouraging you from patronizing an actual record store.

Yet when Tower went out of business, the majority of blame was laid at the doorstep of music fans—the dastardly pirates. It was perceived as a harbinger of the death of the music industry. Tower’s demise signified one thing and one thing only—the music industry turned its back on music lovers long ago. They only care about Wal-Mart. But does Wal-Mart care about the music industry? No. They’re not interested in competing with iTunes and mp3s. When the plastic disc dies, it will fill its shelves with more deodorants and foot cream. Wal-Mart will roll on without so much as flinching. Just desserts for the music industry; the people who lose their jobs at Sony can go get work at Proctor & Gamble.

Tomorrow: How Does it Feel to be Sam Walton's Bitch?

[Update: Mike Barthel is guest posting at Idolator and his post on Kelly Clarkson and the "Death of the Tusk Era" is tangentially related to some of what I'm talking about, particularly as it gets on in the comments section.]

Enjoy the Weekend: Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire: "The Carioca"

Enjoy.

My Listening Hours: Looking Forward

What would a hopelessly belabored look back be without a giddy and optimistic look forward? Well, giddy might be too strong a word—looking at the next three months, there’s not a lot that looks totally essential. For me, I’ll be at the record store on a Tuesday for just one release, the New Pornographers’ Challengers. (I know, I know, I can get it now—but as I understand it it’s only as a stream, which is not a convenient format for me; and I’m also fighting my own battle against the need for bands to unleash their b-sides and demos upon the world; I find it unnecessary and often debilitating). The rest look good and I’ll be paying attention to the advance word on all of them. If the time and money is right, they’ll come home with me from Amoeba. What are you looking forward to? Whether I’ve got it listed or not—especially if I don’t—tell me what’s coming down the pike that’s got you camped outside your local record shop come Monday night.

I should say first that there’s one other album I’m eager to hear, and it just came out last week: Tied & Tickled Trio’s Aelita. I’ve been listening to their last album, 2003’s Observing Systems, pretty regularly since it came out—yes, regularly for a full four years. I just never tire of it. Most people paying attention to the German indie scene have been eagerly awaiting the next Notwist album; I am too, sure, but in fact I find this side project to be much more satisfying. You can expect me to go into more detail once I’ve tracked down a copy.

Interpol, Our Love to Admire (7/10)
Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (7/10)
Two veteran bands that are likely to put out records that don’t travel too far afield from there previous albums. I’ve heard one song from Interpol so far and it’s disappointingly too similar to all they’ve done before. Spoon, meanwhile, have been getting all the internet buzz lately and I do love the three albums I have by them. I’ll probably pick this up and I’ll probably like it.

Tegan & Sara, The Con (7/24)
So Jealous turned out to be one of my singalong albums of 2006, so I’m looking forward to hearing their new stuff to see if they’ve continued in that direction. Earlier material from these sisters is largely insufferable, so I am the tiniest bit wary; but So Jealous was such an unequivocal departure that I can’t imagine they’ll regress.

Okkervil River, The Stage Names (8/7)
Never did buy Black Sheep Boy, nor any other albums by these critics’ darlings. I’ve nevertheless accumulated five or six songs without even trying, and I find a couple of them simply outstanding. The rest occupy territory I mined pretty well in the 90s when I bought everything on Drag City. Okkervil River can often sound like the also-rans of that era—Appendix Out, Royal City, Lullaby for the Working Class, early Songs: Ohia, et al. Sometimes a little melodramatic, sometimes a little cliché. But when it’s on it’s great, and it seems like these guys are more than capable of being on. So I’m paying attention.

New Pornographers, Challengers (8/21)
My brilliant wife inexplicably cannot get into the New Pornographers. She tries, because she knows I love them. Occasionally a song from one of their other three albums will come on and she’ll pipe up, “I like this one!” but play two tracks in a row and she starts to get a pained look on her face. I am cautiously optimistic about the fact that she is all over “My Rights vs. Yours.” I am irresponsibly optimistic about the fact that I am all over this song too.

Shout Out Louds, Our Ill Wills (9/11)
I saw the video for their song “Tonight I Have to Leave It” and thought it was okay—not terribly different from the songs on their debut, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff. That turned out to be a pretty fun album, if a touch samey. I’ll keep my ears open for more songs from this album and may plunk down some cash. I got into these guys at the same time I got into the Futureheads and the Kaiser Chiefs, neither of whom were able to replicate the fun of their debuts. Fingers crossed for the Shout Out Louds. At least they're from Northern Europe; they’re drinking the right water (see Peter Bjorn & John, Radio Dept., Jose Gonzalez, Kings of Convenience, Sondre Lerche, et al.)

Kevin Drew, Spirit If… (9/18)
I fucking love the last Broken Social Scene album, way more than it seems a lot of other people do, even. (I for one think it towers over You Forgot it in People.) I also liked Drew’s cameo on The Reminder. Why then am I wary of this album? I have no legitimate reason to be.

Iron & Wine, Shepherd’s Dog (9/25)
Jose Gonzalez, In Our Nature (9/25)
Taken in small doses, Gonzalez’s debut album was a moody gem—it sounds almost like James Taylor covering the entirety of Pink Moon. But too many similar songs in a row made that record too dour for me. I’ll likely only be interested in his next album if he brings some variety to his arrangements and dynamics. As for Sam Beam’s Iron & Wine, I only have his wonderfully spare first album (also a very samey record), which I like. I never got around to picking up his later material so I don’t really know that I’ll get this one either, unless someone comes around and convinces me otherwise.

My Listening Hours: The State of 2007 So Far

No, the albums here are not my tops of the year; they're just what I have to choose from. These are the nine albums made in 2007 that I've so far purchased or acquired, and/or completely processed as albums.

If I were pressed to make a top ten list, I'd stall at four. Here's my ranking:

1. Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha
This one leads the pack, easily, as the most rewarding album of the year.

2. Peter Bjorn & John, Writer's Block
This album has remained in my iPod for a surprisingly long time. When I got a little burned on the record as a whole, the songs kept popping up on random plays and I never skipped 'em. Lately I've come back around to playing the record straight through again and I'm reminded of how layered and thought-out the album  is.

3. Feist, The Reminder
For now this occupies the number three spot. By the end of the year there's a good chance it will still be in the top ten, but I don't know how high. I'm just beginning to burn out the record and am ready to put it aside for awhile. The question by the end of the year will be whether it ever makes its way back into my rotation. Sometimes albums have a way of surprising you the second time around and all the nagging feelings you had just evaporate.

4. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
As I said earlier this week, this is an album that I'm only now realizing is better than I first gave it credit for. As with Feist I don't really know how I'll feel about six months from now. I don't really know how I'll feel about it six weeks from now! Sometimes I embrace the record, sometimes I'm exhausted by it.

The rest? None are truly bad but none are essential, either. The Sea & Cake committs the worst sin - it's boring. While the Shins, Arcade Fire, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah all have their strong points but honestly I haven't consciously chosen to put them on since the last time I wrote about them - a good three months ago.

There are a few albums out now that I still intend to pick up--Battles and Rufus Wainwright, in particular. What about you? What's on your best-so-far list? Have I missed anything totally worthwhile? There was a lot of buzz around Panda Bear and the National, among others, in the last few months. Did you pick them up? Have they remained in your rotation? What has occupied your listening hours? Let me know in the comments.

Meanwhile I'll be looking ahead to the next three months of releases for albums I'm looking forward to. Check back here later today.

My Listening Hours: The Rest of April–June

Yesterday were the new purchases that really took up most my listening hours over the last few months. Today, all my other new purchases that just didn't stick or just plain stunk. When I surveyed "the rest" in January–March, the discs that wound up in this stable were disappointing or decent, but none were actually bad. Looking here, only Bjork really gets credit for making a record I simply wasn't in the mood for; the rest all make me wish I'd spent my money in smarter ways. I could've gone to Disneyland!

Sea & Cake, Everybody
I don't even know why I bought the Sea & Cake record (truthfully? because I found a promo on sale for a couple bucks). I haven't picked up a Sea & Cake album since The Fawn, though I do own (and like) both Sam Prekop solo albums. What I heard of the Sea & Cake in the intervening decade between The Fawn and Everybody was all just dandy; I just didn't feel impelled to buy it. For some ludicrous reason, though, I held out hope that maybe they'd try something new. But alas, no.

And why don't they try something new? John McEntire is an inventive guy. Archer Prewitt is a great songwriter and singer. Why is the Sea & Cake so much Sam Prekop's show? Prekop is fine, but he seems intent on destroying the very idea of variety in his music. So why not let Prewitt sing along every once in a while? Why not let McEntire experiment a little? There is so much potential in the individual members of the Sea & Cake that the fact that this sounds so little removed from—and lesser than—The Fawn is bewildering. Everybody is a bland record full of samey songs. It's pleasant, but that's a euphemism for boring.

Bjork, Volta
Meanwhile Bjork made a record that for the first time (to my ears) sounds like she took a step back rather than forward. I'm glad to hear that she's returned to using instruments, but she seems to have regressed to territory somewhere beyond the edgy pop of Post and sweeping gestures of Homogenic. That's not necessarily a bad thing, nor is Volta a bad album. All I can say is that it ultimately didn't grab me. Could be the album's fault, could be mine. Could be that I can't stop chanting "here's my wersion of this / eternal virlvind" and it's driving me crazy. I just don't seem to have been in the mood for Bjork this year, much as I'd like to be. When the album comes on I'm cool with it, but I haven't been making a point to put it on.

America, Hat Trick
And we come now to the three "blind spots" (today I use the term loosely) I regretted picking up this season. First up is probably the most embarrassing of all, America's third album, Hat Trick. I blame Midlake, of course. When I first fell in love with them back at the tail end of December I read an All Music review that compared that harmonies and 70s-ish sound to America. So I listened to snippets of America on Barnes & Noble's machiavellian listening stations that only allow you the smallest segment of a song at a time. What'd I hear? Harmonies and 70s-ish sound—kinda like Midlake! So more or less at random my wife and I chose this one. Again, trusting the bastards at All Music (it's no accident that B&N lets you read All Music reviews while using their listening stations), Hat Trick was described as "more ambitious but commercially unsuccessful." Sounds like the perfect candidate for an indie-hipster resusitation!

No such luck. Man, what a fucking turd. America is like the aural equivalent of those pictures where you can see two people looking at each other or a chalice. Sometimes they sound like direct descendents of the Byrds—which is great!—but if you turn your head slightly, suddenly all you can hear is a forerunner to the BeeGees—which is abominable!

Don McLean, The Best of Don McLean
We were at Amoeba one evening and my brilliant wife brought this one over to me, nostalgic for her young high school days, when she had this as a dubbed cassette and listened to it all the fucking time. Me, I was ambivalent at best, but more likely not into spending actual money a greatest hit plus nine other songs. I can truthfully say that I have never in my life actively listened to "American Pie." I can't count how many times the song has come on the radio and I have reached for the dial to change it, only to be stopped by my sister, my mother, my friends, my wife—"Hey, what are you doing? It's 'American Pie'!"—and then made to listen to anyone within earshot sing along to every goddamned word of this eight-minute folk epic. I don't hate the song--hate is a strong word, but I really really really don't like it, to quote the teenage geniuses on MTV right now, whatever they're called.

And now here I was, not actively participating as cash left my hand, to be replaced by The Best of Don McLean. I was optimistic though. I do like the folkies from that era, after all. Start singing "Cat's in the Cradle" or "Operator (That's Not the Way it Feels)" and I'm right there with you, singing loud and proud. The good news is that Don McLean's got some songs that fit that ilk. "American Pie" notwithstanding, there are probably three or four very nice songs here, plus two utterly inessential covers and a couple misfire originals. But even at his best, as in "Vincent," McLean lacks the laser-precise lyrics of Paul Simon, the dynamics and distinctive voice of Cat Stevens, or the emotive quality of Jim Croce. Croce in fact is probably the closest in sound, voice, and lyrical depth of McLean—and Croce's just better.

Van Morrison, Astral Weeks
So I can blame Midlake and All Music for America, and my wife for Don McLean—who's to blame for Van Morrison? What is with the critical praise for this album? It's a hot mess. It's a formless, stream-of-consciousness whining buzz of garbled idiocy. The pleasure to be found in this record is so far over my head, scientists are building a satalite to take pictures of it.

Cold War Kids, Robbers & Cowards
My brilliant wife actually had an innate distrust of Van Morrison; we both agreed she should have listened to her gut and barred us from making the purchase. I had a similar mistrust of the Cold War Kids. The only song I knew by them was "Hang Me Out to Dry," which invariably put that song "Possum King" by the Toadies in my head—do ya wanna die? Not a good sign. Yesterday I ate my own words regarding mp3 bloggers since they brought me Andrew Bird, but all I need to do is see the words "Cold War Kids" on screen and I remember all over again why blog hype is rarely to be trusted.

To both our credit, neither my brilliant wife nor I actually purchased this album; it just sort of made it's way into our house like a flu virus. We listened to it a little. There were some songs that were okay but I still couldn't shake a certain smarminess from their sound. Something about their brand of blues rock just didn't sound the least bit genuine. Jack White, for instance, can articulate the aesthetic choices he makes behind his sound; these guys, I'm pretty sure, just want to get laid and paid.

Then a couple of weeks ago we went to see the Little Ones play at the Echo here in Los Angeles. They were opening for the Cold War Kids. By then we'd seen their video for "Hang Me Out to Dry" and grasped that these dudes could care less whether Gorilla vs Bear or Avril4Eva.com is the reason for their success—they just wanna be famous. But we thought, optimistically, that that wasn't a de facto bad thing; that bands aspiring to arena rock levels might be worthy a fucking entertaining club gig. Then they came out, looking like a frat-boy bar band and dancing around like they were the Spin Doctors.

And that was the end of the Cold War Kids. They've officially left my sphere of awareness. They are now in the mythical land of mainstream rock, where curious chimera such as  Hinder and Rocco de Lucca roam the wilderness.