Ah! The first visible cracks in the thentofore impermeable Strokes facade came when their extremely bad Stone Temple Pilots cover "Juicebox" failed to electrify listeners (me). The whiny "I'm so tired, can I come to your apartment and complain about the party" lyrics had been replaced by Julian Casarica's unfiltered "WHY DONCHOO COME OVAH HEEEEEAHH!"

And the video! Yikes! Not that the videos for "Someday" and "Reptilia" were legendary but at least they rang some kind of true. The unapologetic over-stylization of the whole thing (old woman bestiality! lesbians! gay downtown bathroom make-outs! cutting edge motorola razr phone!) combined with a totally unnecessary David Cross make for a thoroughly "huh?" experience:



Right? Where's the simple-structured youth-is-fleeting and aren't-we-wistful quality of earlier Strokes efforts? This makes me think the Vampire Weekend 3rd album will also inevitably stink.

BEST SONG: You Only Live Once -- because this was written during Room On Fire-era!

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THOMPSON TWINS - QUICK STEP AND SIDE KICK


"Hold Me Now" is forever the burden of the Thompson Twins, but it's not like "If You Leave" made any of OMD's earlier songs any less good. And besides, those are both great songs! The Thompson Twins were so weird. Nevermind that they were basically Color Me Badd but dressed in drag, their songs were poppy, catchy, peculiar and circus-y, dubby, weird and singular. They worked with Grace Jones, so you know they were awesome. Not only does this album feature greatest song ever "Lies", but it also has a song immortalized by John Hughes in a perfect sound/vision synergistic moment:



That song is also the BEST SONG, which is If You Were Here

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V/A - GHOSTLY TRY OUTS PT 2


I got this CD for free. I only know one song on it. Ghostly is a good label though. I mean, Michna's on it! If you like forward-thinking downtempo/electronica/techno you can stream it here, but I got this comp basically for the Outputmessage track.

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THE STONE ROSES - S/T


NOPE! File under "too white." Haha. Oh man. I remember when I went to the Morrissey night at Sway (do they still do that?) and Paul Sevigneeeee played "I Wanna Be Adored" and "Hallelujah" by the Happy Mondays. I asked him what the latter was and he gave me one of those "uh... the Happy Mondays [you idiotic idiot]?" and I was too ashamed to ask him what the former was.

Well, good thing anglophile Kevin was there, who informed me it was the Stone Roses. I eventually bought this album somewhere, presumably convinced of its importance bc of the deluxo CD treatment, and proceeded to listen to it never. I also bought the 33 1/3 book about this? For some reason? Ugh. So many wasted 2003 dollars. Oh well, when I'm not listening to the 19 minute version of "Fool's Gold" (always) I'm thinking about how great "I Wanna Be Adored" is.

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Iggy & The Stooges - S/T


This album is amazing! I think! I've never actually listened to it all the way through. The point in my life in which I should have been, I was listening to In Utero over and over and trying to learn how to play "Aero Zeppelin" on guitar. Sure I know all the big songs.

Duh! Sure I do!

I never have any inkling or desire to listen to important late 70s seminal punk albums UNLESS I'm reading Please Kill Me, in which case I want to listen ONLY to it.

BEST SONG - 1969