special introductory
paragraph!
Superpowerless
I Can Hear Music
International Airport EP
A Plea For Tenderness
Women In Rock EP
That Skinny Motherfucker With The High Voice?
A Grown-Ass Man
Hi, I'm Ian Ziering from TV's Beverly Hills: 90210. You know, in my eleven years of portraying the character "Mark Prindle" on www.markprindle.com, I've written quite a few record reviews. Some good, all bad, but some not bad! And in all these many, many years with loves lost and gained, one question continues to haunt my inbox on a near-annual basis: "Why did you waste your time writing a web site about an artist you hate?"
The answer, of course, is "I didn't, you fucking dumbass. It's just a very small part of a much larger record review site." But there's more to it than that. Why, take a look around my site and you'll see a veritable outlet mall of artists whom I would never in a million years buy an album by: PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Zen Guerrilla, The Jam, Dump, Weezer, and I guess that's about it actually; I thought there were more when I started this sentence.
But there's still a mystery here. Why review any bands that I don't like? Well, there are different reasons. Sometimes it's simple misjudgment on my part. For example, I could have sworn that I liked Miles Davis and GBH when I bought all those albums by them, but when I sat down to review them - Yikes! Another reason is that it's kinda fun to review artists that nobody expects me to review, and to actually try to enjoy them as much as possible (which usually isn't much); this is how genuses like Pink, Tool and Linkin Park ended up on the site. But the bottom line is if you're looking for somebody to blame, don't blame me -- blame yourselves. And Abraham Lincoln.
No wait, hear me out! As I said, I would never in my life purchase an album by PJ Harvey or those other godawful shit bands I listed in the second paragraph. The only reason I own their discographies is because YOU PEOPLE sent them to me! Maybe not you people personally; I know that readerships come and go like the seasons on the wing of a dream, so perhaps the fellow who for some reason thought I would enjoy Weezer is no longer around. But see, when somebody sends me a full discography of a band (or at least 10 studio albums), mister that band goes on my "To Review" list. It doesn't matter whether I like it or dislike it; if somebody has taken the time to send me that much music by their favorite artist, then it deserves the same chance of being reviewed as the discography of an artist that I actually like. And that's why my "To Review" list includes Philip Glass, Cake, Matthew Sweet, The Humpers, Pantera and many other artists whom I never, ever want to sit through again.
Ever.
But it's not just your fault. As I stated, Abraham Lincoln is also to blame. Because my "To Review" list always floats right around 550+ artists, I am incapable of making my own decision about whom to review next. So I flip a coin over and over and over again until it whittles down the list to one artist. This week, the coin picked Dump.
Thanks, coin.
As if Yo La Tengo isn't spotty enough, Dump is a Yo La Tengo side project. It's bassist James McNew sitting at home playing his keyboard, overdubbing his guitar, and not taking any singing lessons. He played in Happy Flowers' live band for a while so you'd think he'd kick some ass, but unfortunately his solo material sounds like lo-fi Yo La Tengo with guest vocalist Guy Whodoesntevenbotherclearinghisthroatbeforebeginningtosing. He got pretty good eventually though, so read on!
19 songs, mostly lazy slow guitar pop songs - like Yo La Tengo! Also includes some loud fuzzy stuff - like Yo La Tengo! But too many of the melodies and chord changes are really basic and standard - like Yo La Tengo! The hilarious thing about all this is that Yo! MTV Raps translates to "I! MTV Raps," which is either Rastafarian and just poor diction.
Still, there are some very pretty songs on here. James McNew is by no means an broke-eared mule with no instrumental talent; he just has much different musical preferences than me personally. For example, he likes mellow, relaxing music. I on the other hand am on psychoactive medication that keeps me about 3 inches from a coma every waking second, so the last thing I need is an entertainment package that makes me even tireder. On the other hand, if he'd go through and overdub a really fast drumbeat over every song, you're talking a great goddammed album!
Not really. Basically, you know how you probably know a guy who makes music in his dorm room on a 4-track, and he'll play it for you every once in a while and a few songs will really stand out as exceptional while the rest mine the same vein to lesser melodic effect? I was that guy. And James McNew is that guy. "Broken Conscience": Killer bowed cello/bass (?) riff, trolley bells and static! "Secret Blood": Good beat, optimistic, warm enough to be a Yo La Tengo hit! "Formerly One-Eye": As ringing and lovely as Grenadine! "The Quality Of Hurt": Listen to him brood with fuzzy angerness! "Love Theme From 'Providence'": Mature Latin melancholy! About three other songs: Not complete shit!
In short, most of this material sounds like music anybody could (and in many cases, did) make. Too many of the guitar and vocal hooks develop and resolve in the exact way that you'd predict they would. The brain demands novelty, and too little is to be found here.
And by "novelty," I of course mean "My Wife Left Town With A Banana."
Some of the songs have drums, some are instrumental. Covered artists include Wreckless Eric, Sun Ra, NRBQ, Henry Mancini and The Shaggs. The Shaggs song includes what I think is a Spacemen 3 riff though. So don't come crying to me when you turn it on expecting a faithful Shaggs cover and instead get a massive addiction to heroin.
You can learn a lot about a man by the notes he takes while listening to an album. For example, let's take a look at some notes I jotted down while listening to I Can Hear Music by The Dumps:
- "Mellow, slow homemade Yo La Tengo music"
But what does this all mean? I love Pink Floyd, and they're certainly slow. I love the Moody Blues, and they're certainly mellow. I love (early) Sebadoh, and they were certainly "lo-fi college music." So I have to conclude that the real problem I have with Dump's material is that the "chord sequences won't surprise you a bit." And I don't just mean the chord sequences; plenty of bands use the same chord sequences over and over yet manage to come up with different vocal melodies and lead guitar riffs to differentiate them. Too often, Dumpy doesn't. And I don't have the patience to sit through songs I've never heard that nevertheless feel like I've heard them thousands of times because I know exactly what they're going to do at every turn.
I'm not going to go track-by-track like a longwinded sillygoose critic, but just as a general observation, if you slow down and really listen, you'll notice that the album starts with the same sample that the last album ended with, then he starts playing a really basic Big Star-y pop chord sequence on strummy midtempo clean guitar while singing with a high wavery voice and playing drums, and adding a bit more dramatic chorus that's nice but unfortunately the annoying wavery voice is unlistenable, so wiggly and awful, but there's a whistle part! Then if you continue listening to the album, perhaps while you're on jury duty, you'll hear piercing guitar feedback and drum beats into a nice funky beat,
Jesus, I'm already sick of this gag and I've got 17 more songs to go.
Never mind. Tonight is my final Black Belt test in Tae Kwon Do (if I pass it, I'm a BLACK BELT!), so the last thing on my mind is reviewing a mediocre album. It still has seven terrific songs to my ears, so I'll just quickly describe those for you since today's generation just BitTorrents and RARs all the songs they want anyway.
"Jury Duty" - When you illegally download this one, you'll hear a really nice wiggly delay-pedal-noise-driven song with distorted guitar tones and a 2-note bass, with funky beat!
"Hope, Joe" - When you steal the food out of James McNew's children's mouths by file-sharing what could have earned him billions in royalties if not for cyberthief scum like you, you'll hear him sing the beginning of The Moody Blues' "Tuesday Afternoon" before going into a bright warm arpeggiated wonderful guitar pop song.
"Flap My Arms" - When you leave James McNew lying in a pool of blood in a dark alley by downloading everything he owns including his teeth, you'll hear a cool dark electric note riff that may remind you of late-period Meat Puppets.
"Don't Let On" - When you reach down James McNew's throat and rip this song out of his heart, then stop by his bank to withdraw $20,000 from his account, you'll hear a wonderful piece of emotional uptempo indie rock, like early My Bloody Valentine!
"Wanted Man" - Supposedly a Bob Dylan cover, but this sounds more like a cover of Johnny Cash's rendition. Also, you kicked James McNew in the balls.
"Liberty Spikes" - When your Internet breaks down and you have to resort to making a tape dub of your friend's copy, you'll spool James McNew's veins into the shell of a cassette and hear warm fuzzy catchy indie rock.
"Beyond The Door" - There's this totally killer-sounding movie I've been wanting to see called Beyond The Doors. It's a conspiracy theory film about how Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison were actually murdered by the CIA, but apparently the filmmakers couldn't get permission to use any of these artists' actual songs, so they just had the actors mime to music that sounds like Hendrix, Joplin and The Doors!! Unfortunately the movie's really hard to find now, so if anybody out there could make a copy for me, that'd be awesome. Also, you just stabbed James McNew five thousand times in his eyes and ears to hear this low-key but lovely little sensitive song.
The other 12 songs bore with sleepy tempos, lazy songwriting, organs, guitars, Casio beats, influences like Dinosaur Jr., Neil Young, Velvet Underground and a Dustbuster, and unremarkable covers of Fish & Roses, Ultravox and The Fugs (how do you do a lousy Fugs cover!? Answer: pick their hippy-dippiest song ever and make it sound even more twee. Come on, James! Where's the "Coca Cola Douche"? Where's the "I Feel Like Homemade Shit"? Where's the "Boobs A Lot"?). There is an audience for this kind of music though, so don't all pretend I'm like the King of Accuracy.
In conclusion, the other night my wife was sleeping on the couch and I was on the floor next to it, when she woke me up and asked, "Is there room down there for me?" I asked, "Why?" and she pointed to the other end of the couch, where Henry The Dog had jumped up and usurped all her foot space. I chuckled and moved over so she could come down to the floor next to me. Fifteen seconds later, Henry The Dog stepped off the couch and lay down across BOTH OF OUR FEET.
Dogs -- Is there anything stupid they won't do?
This stinks.
I'm a Black Belt now, in Tae Kwon Do. My wife is too. Give us some loving and pride. That's hard to do. Yay for us.
This EP features six songs, of relaxing sub-YLT music. ANYONE COULD DO THIS - why don't you? Dull, slow, boring organ songs with chords so basic you'll be screaming "GET AN IDEA, YOU FUCKING JEW!" and I don't even know that the guy's a jew, but you're racist so that's what you'd scream.
I love the sixth song on this EP - it's a terrific fuzzy power pop song with heaviness and such. The others are nothing of hte sort. NOTHGIN! Hwartwarming sure, but awful vocals and simplistic eh. Here's soemthing intersting though: You know how you sing a song to yourself sometimes and it sounds fine because you hear the music in your head? DUMP does a version of a Kinks song on here like that, just singing it by himself, that makes it clare that WHEN YOU SING TO YOURSELF, IT SOUNDS LIKE SHIT. I even know the Kinks song, but it's so difficult to enjoy when you have to hear the chord changes in your head. If it's just a guy singing, the important dramatic chord changes aren't there so everything just sounds like Lou Barlow.
What's nice though is knowing that DUMP got better after this. I always listen three albums ahead (I suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder) so I can tell you that he DID get better after this. Also, I attend no more or less than 3 Tae Kwon Do classes a week, and after 2 of those, I go to Pizza Uno and order peanuts, a Diet Coke and water, a FlatBread Chef's Choice pizza with hamburger, pepperoni and sliced tomatoes, and a Deep Dish Sundae with a soft cookie and extra-large scoop of ice cream. If my wife's out of town, I go one extra night a week, because I'm sad. If it's a work day, I pick out the shirt that is left-most on the closet rack, along with the left-most pair of pants that matches. If it's a weekend, I shove my hand into the bottom of the t-shirt drawer (the dark t-shirt drawer if it's wintry, the light t-shirt drawer if it's summery) and pick one at random from the bottom to wear. I write a music review 6 days a week. My normal bedtime during the work week is 12:45 because my alarm is set at 7:45. However, if it's a weekend and I sleep until, say, 12:30, then I cannot go to bed until 1:30 the next night because I must stay awake for at least 13 hours. However, if it's a Sunday and I wake up at, say, 2:00 PM, then I say "I normally go to bed at 12;45 on a Sunday night because it's a work morning the next day, but I should really not go to bed until 3:00 AM, so I pick the time directly between them, which would be about 1:53 AM and go to bed at that time. If I'm watching a movie, I flip a coin a bunch of times in a row until there is only one left, and that's the one I watch. As for listening to music, at home I keep at least 12 albums downstairs at all times, but I pick them in alphabetical order by band/artist name. Then I flip a coin to decide which of the dozen-plus I will listen. I can only bring down half of a band/artists' catalog, so sometimes it's hard to choose. Then, if I listen to the final album downstairs by a band that's too loud for me to play at work with my boss there, then I can listen to half of that band/artist's CDs as well. As for listening at work, half of my little CD book (24 cds total) is devoted to bands I CAN play at work with my boss there -- for those, I can take half of the CDs of the artist. For the other half of the book, I pick bands I CAN'T play at work with my boss there, because she's out so often. But for these, I just take one by each artist. I walk the dog for 45 minutes every morning. If I walk him at night, I walk him for a full hour. When it's time to read a new book, I flip a coin a few times until only one is left. Then, when I have only 50 pages left in the book, I can flip the coin again to decide what the next book will be. I also keep the "sex-related" books separate from the normal books because I can only read those at home or on vacation, not during normal work/subway days. I can only spend up to $9.75 on a just-released CD, and $8.50 on a CD that has been out for a while. I can only spend up to $4 on a VHS tape, and $4 on a DVD unless it's a sex-related one in which case I can spend up to $5.38.
But hey, at least I don't obsess about anything STUPID.
Noow THIS is more like it! THIS is an album that you can be happy to play at home on your stereo! THIS is an album to which Yo La Tengo fans would be proud to award a "10"! THIS is an album with all kinds of great, creative, soft, lovely, original compositions! And best of all, THIS is a CD that costs $59.95 on Amazon! (click link at bottom of page)
But in addition to the extra income it provides for me if you purchase it through my Amazon link (at bottom of page), A Plea For Tenderness finds Mr. McNew using a higher, less tone-deaf singing style that sounds a lot like Wayne Coyne and/or Neil Young in places. Furthermore, although the mood is every bit as relaxed and slow as his previous releases, these are (for the most part) not melodies I've heard eight billion times. The mood is soothing, optimistic and heartwarming; the vocal melodies are hooky and less obvious; and the songs as a whole are more fully arranged (with multiple parts for the multiple instruments).
The songs that don't SUCK MORE DICK THAN JODIE FOSTER (if she were a man), that is!!!
Come on now, I'm just telling jokes. For example, here's one:
What's the difference between James McNew and Nancy Pelosi?
James McNew just calls himself "Dump"; Nancy Pelosi LITERALLY takes a dump!!! Wait a se
Okay, I'm not necessarily telling jokes. But my point is that although this is the strongest and most consistently imaginative Dump release yet, its weakest tracks still suffer from sluggishness and predictability. I urge you not to allow this opinion to detract your attention from the Amazon link at the bottom of the page.
Look at all the good that's here -- tremeloed guitar arpeggios, folk-pop acoustic strumming, fuzzy keyboards, Casio drums, romantic dreamy ambiance, warm vocals (including some gorgeous HARMONIES even!), and covers of Jacques Dutronc (bouncy fun Frenchness!), Robert Knight (passable "Everlasting Love") and Roky Erickson (eh.). Hopefully the world's Yo La Tengo fans have a collective $59.95 between them because I can guarfuckantee you that they'll enjoy A Plea For Tenderness even more than I do, with their poor taste and tolerance for negative BPMs.
Last night in Central Park, a young black male kept screaming at the top of his lungs, "GO TO SLEEP! GET TO SLEEP!" and "YOU'LL NEVER GET ME!" and things like that, as if trying to block out the voices in his head. Today at the subway station, a middle-aged white woman began screaming at the top of her lungs, "WHAT!? ENOUGH!! WHAT!!?!" and scratching at the sides of her head with visibly shaking hands, as if trying to block out the voices in her head. Seeing as how I've lived in NYC for 11 years and have perhaps ONCE in that time heard a person screaming as if to block out the voices in his or her head, I find the temporal proximity of these two events a bit startling. Did the local Crazy Hospital experience a weekend power outage, hatchet massacre and inmate riot/escape? Is my local CIA practicing mind control experiments, secretly planting voices in random subjects' minds with the use of electromagnetic waves? Or is screaming paranoid nonsense at non-existent aggressors simply this Spring's hottest fashion trend?
Here are some movies I've seen recently: Nea: The Young Emmanuelle, Sister Emanuelle, Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals, Scum Of The Earth, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, Squeeze Play, The Danish Connection, The Prowler, May, The Undertaker And His Pals, Expose', Ticks, Virgin Report, Final Exam, Adult Fairy Tales, Alice Goodbody, Saw, Satan's Cheerleaders, Pleasures Of A Woman, SS Girls, Patrick, Patrick Still Lives, Sin In The City, Delirium, Please Don't Eat My Mother, Scream Bloody Murder, Massacre At Central High, Scary Movie 4, Guinea Pig I-III, Sex & Fury, Female Yakuza Tale: Inquisition & Torture, The Killing Of America, Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom, Tunnelvision, Schramm, Kidnapped Coed, Satan's Sadists, The Beach Girls, Scarlet Diva, Don't Go In The Woods, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Demon, Devil Times Five, The Final Terror, Honeymoon Horror, House Of Death, The Incubus, Kolobos, The Redeemer, Schizoid, Splatter University, Wolf Creek, Ed Wood, Friday The 13th Part III, Friday The 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter, Friday The 13th Part V: A New Beginning, Shredder, Panic Room, The Others, Zombi 3, Blood Link, Sorority House Massacre and Evilspeak. Did you see them as well? What were your thoughts? What did you think about that one scene?
However: Terrifying Girls High School is an incredibly entertaining film for the whole family. The kids will relate to going to school. Mom's heart will swell with pride at the abundant displays of female empowerment. Dad will love the boobies. Sex and Fury is also great. Didn't know there was a Zombi 3. But if they were able to top that scene in Zombi 2 where the zombie battles a live shark, I will eat my top hat. By the way - did that shark become a zombie also after the zombie bit him? Perhaps they tackle this question in Zombi 3??
And yes there is a Zombi 3. But there's also a Zombi 4, and it sucks even
more. Actually, it sucks so much it's awesome.
Who's this Dump band again?
This one's really good too but it's only like 2 dollars on Amazon, so I really must recommend A Plea For Legal Tenderness as the superior product. If you already own Plea though, let me describe this one for you, loyal Amazon-through-the-links-on-my-site consumer.
In tribute to the five women who perform rock music, this EP features five songs (actually four songs and a droning swirly noise). This is Bachelor Pad Lounge Pop - just right for romantic relaxation on a rainy Raturday.
Best,
Actually, just to make sure we're talking about the same CD, compare the songs as you hear them to the descriptions below:
1. "Horrible" - Drone of swirly noise. Not a song, just a drone. And not one of those hilarious BEES either, I assure you! Ha ha! I assure yoU!
2. "The Words Get Stuck In My Throat" - Better than a bunch of BEES getting stuck in your throat, I assure you! Ha ha! Peaceful guitar arpeggios, drums, bass. Bachelor Pad Bacharach E-Z Listening. Some nice bendy strings. Vocals are a bit rough, though he does try. Little organ notes. Fully developed song! An odd dischordant chord in the verse sorta skrews up an otherwise normal lounge-pop song though. I love it all except that ugly chord. EAT SHIT, UGLY CHORD!
3. "Lucy Grealy" - Keyboard chords and note riff. Light keyboard drums. Relaxed rainy day mood. Lovely harmony "Ooooh"s come in after a while. Sounds like later Flaming Lips. Takes FOREVER for the voices to come in though, and the keyboard melody doesn't sound very good without the "Ooooh"s. For those of you not versed in Ewing's sarcoma lore, Lucy Grealey is a late poet and author (Autobiography Of A Face) who lived with a disfigured face no thanks to childhood jaw cancer before undergoing tons of reconstruction surgery, becoming addicted to OxyContin and heroin, and dying in 2002 at the age of 39. Or at least that's what I assume from the "Ooooh"s.
4. "Loved" - This song is a multi-movement suite. A quiet introduction featuring acoustic guitar and a recorder (ending at-2:12) gradually moves into a slow electric middle section (2:13-5:33), before the faster hard rock final section (5:55-end). Written in the key of A minor and mainly in common time the song opens with an Am-Fmaj7 arpeggiated, hybrid-picked guitar chord progression with a chromatic descending bassline A-G#-G-F#-F. John Paul Jones contributed overdubbed wooden bass recorders in the opening section (he used a Mellotron, and later, a Yamaha CP70B Grand Piano and Yamaha GX1 to synthesize this arrangement in live performances) and a Hohner Electra-Piano electric piano in the middle section. The sections build with more guitar layers, each complementary to the intro with the drums entering at 4:18. The bridge to the solo consists of shifting time signatures (3/4 to 4/4 to 5/4 to 4/4 to 7/8) before dropping back into common time for the solo and ending. The extended Jimmy Page guitar solo in the song's final section was played for the recording on a 1958 Fender Telecaster (an instrument he used extensively with the Yardbirds) plugged into a Supro amplifier although in a Guitar World interview Page also claims, "It could have been a Marshall, but I can't remember". Three different solos were recorded with Page agonizing about deciding which to keep. The other guitar parts were played using a Harmony acoustic guitar and Fender Electric XII (12-string); both can be heard on the left and right recording channels respectively. For live versions, Page switched to using a Heritage Cherry Gibson EDS-1275 6/12 Doubleneck guitar. The final progression is a i-VII-VI (natural minor) progression (Am G F), a mainstay of rock music. The opening chord progression and verse in are nearly identical to the 1968 instrumental "Taurus" by the group Spirit. In the liner notes to the reissue of Spirit's 1968 eponymous debut, songwriter Randy California mentions the fact that Jimmy Page took special interest in "Taurus". Prior to his death in 1997, Randy California was often asked about it in interviews, to which he typically responded that he did not consider the "Loved" intro to be a rip-off, but simply a 'reworking' of his song.
5. "A Plea For Dump" - Starts with a hilarious Simpsons sample, then brings in two melancholy organ chords, guitar arpeggios and a very pretty vocal melody. Gentle, fragile, good. Peaceful but with a decent beat. Association-esque! Long but quite enjoyable and '60sy. Ends with James McNew flapping his ballsac against the mic for 45 minutes.
If this all sounds just a little too familiar, then perhaps you've been listening to Women In Rock by Dump.
Alternately, if your ear is coated in a malodorous brown sticky goo, then perhaps you've been listening to dump by women in rock.
Poop Jokes -- Is there any dying man they can't cure?
I realize it seems disrespectful to award the highest grade of Dump's career to his CD of Prince covers, but it's really good! It's not even that Prince is a better songwriter than Dump (I know many would argue that he is, but I wouldn't); it's that McNew reworks these songs in surprising and fascinating ways. The famous "1999" vocal melody is now sung lazily over a single organ chord and electronic beat playing in 7/4 time. "When U Were Mine" now sounds like a Brian Wilson/My Bloody Valentine ShoeGazer JamFest. And ugly electro-gospel vomitbag "An Honest Man" is now a lovely folk-country tune!
On a related note, what's with all these porn models sending me "Friend Requests" on MySpace? I don't run a porn model review site. Come on people, do your research before you send a spam email to the entire MySpace community. What if some of us were gay? Or allergic to photos of silicone?
But don't think for a second that this is some sort of greatest hits tribute; nothing could be much further from the truth. You will find no "Little Red Corvette" here. No "Sexy M.F." to greet you. No "Delirious," "Purple Rain" or "Let's Go Crazy." In fact, not even "When Doves Cry." Not to mention the lack of "Kiss" on hand! And come on, where's "I Feel For You"? No "I Would Die 4 U"!? What the f- Not even "U Got The Look"!?!! Who's the dumbass who compiled this Prince Greatest Hits CD anyway?!!?!
Instead, James performs two songs each from Dirty Mind and Around The World In A Day, one each from Kiss, Crystal Ball, 1999 and Purple Rain, three b-sides, and a Sheila E. hit. Hilariously, Prince wrote hits for both Sheila E. ("A Love Bizarre") and Sheena Easton ("Sugar Walls") because he couldn't remember which was which. He was all like "Yo! Who da bitch that did 'My Baby Takes The Morning Train'?" Ha! Black people and their "speaking voice". In all seriousness though, does anybody know why so many blacks pronounce 'ask' as 'axe'? It seems a strange error to have become so widespread across a single culture. Personally, I prefer 'axe' because it makes questions seem a lot more threatening and bloody, but I'm not sure that's the reason for the error. If you have any insight, let me know!
As a general description, Dump herein performs Prince covers with acoustic and electric guitars, cheap muffled keyboards, electronic effects, fake drums and occasional falsetto vocals. More specifically, he replaces the melody of "Girls + Boys" with a bunch of rhythmic swishly noise; converts "Dirty Mind" into a disorienting swarm of amelodic buzzing, bwooping and echoing electronic matter; treats "A Love Bizarre" like a fuzzy, wiggly computer wreck; and breathes a sigh of fresh acoustic air into "The Beautiful Ones" and "Pop Life."
He also does four other songs I haven't mentioned. I'm going to let their identities remain a tantalizing mystery, but here are two hints: (1) in that list of unincluded hits I typed up above, I didn't mention "Raspberry Beret"; (2) You can look up the songs online.
I did a Google search for myself today and found a guy complaining that my reviews have become "more abrasive and annoying" over the years. Well, you're not SUPPOSED to read them while rubbing sandpaper on your dick, asshole!
You fucking asshole!
He also said I'm still his favorite music writer, but I kinda latched onto the "abrasive and annoying" thing.
There are more uptempo songs this time, and it's more diverse than the others, but man alive does he nail some of my least favorite subgenres on here. Note how the subject shifted violently from "songs" to "CD" to "artist" in the course of that last sentence. These are all signs of a well writer.
The pointless novelty sample-rap of "Dump On Both Sides," the playful but dull Lou Reedy keyboard showcase "Sisters," the bouncy generic indie rock "The History Of Love" and "Basic Cable" (which sounds like a simplified "Gingerale Afternoon" to these ears), the dull-as-dirt Gerald Levert R&B; ballad "Mr. Too Damn Good," the cutesy Marvin Gaye/Mary Wells love ballad "Once Upon A Time"; the lesser Thin Lizzy song "Cowboy Song"; the (etc).
Luckily, the five good songs are among the greatest songs of his career. The acoustic pop-folk strummers "I Wish/You Wish" and "Peggy's Blues" are gorgeous enough to be Roger McGuinn presentations, the nostalgic orchestral "I'm On Your Side" basks in the spirit of Phil Spector (before the 'shooting that woman' thing), the peppy poppy "Silver Lining" blends a percolating bass tone (it literally cooks you up a pot of coffee and throws it at you through the speaker!) with creative piano and guitar interplay, and the endless, hypnotic, dreamy, melancholy driving rocker "Daily Affirmation" is the best Sonic Youth song that Sonic Youth didn't write, as well as the best song sung by Wayne Coyne that Wayne Coyne didn't sing, and the best Shakespeare play that wasn't written by Shakespeare and isn't a play. It also isn't a car, but is the best car.
So if it's diversity you're after, this is the Dump CD for you! However, if it's creative songwriting and inspired melodies you're after, this isn't the Dump CD for you! On the other hand, if it's a CD with five lousy songs, five great songs, and three okay songs you're after, this is the Dump CD for you! However, if it's a CD of Prince covers you're after, this isn't the Dump CD for you! Yes, it's truly amazing how many different reasons there might be for a CD to be either the one for you or not the one for you.
Some have put forth the theory that I find music reviews boring. What the! How could this be?
Or enjoy more SHIT at Mark Prindle's Interview and Record Review Page (of SHIT)
Please put Pantera at the head of the class on the "to review" list. I am dying to hear your thoughts on this hilariously stupid band which the high school version of me loved.
I'm STILL waiting for you to review Elvis Costello you prick.
Yeah, and I recorded an album with no singing because you didn't like my
singing and I still can't get a revvie!
"dot dot dot with guest vocalist Guy
Whodoesntevenbotherclearinghisthroatbeforebeginningtosing" - I skim-read
this as "tossing", which was horrible.
please don't review humpers. you'll break my heart :'(
- "Like Yo La Tengo but messier"
- "Lo-fi mellow college music"
- "It's so nice when he plays an uptempo one!!"
- "Lo-fi indie pop"
- "V.U. slow"
- "If you like slow tempos and chord sequences that won't surprise you a bit, you'll LOVE Dump!"
First of all, I don't give Fuck One about this band, and although Yo La Tengo isn't awful 100% of the time, I'm indifferent at best when it comes to their music.
May, with Angela Bettis? I liked it very much.
May was a darned fine movie. Angela Bettis is a good actor to the max. Can't say I give a poop about most of the other movies on the list.
Scooby-Doo
Animated Dog
#4 sounds suspiciously like "Hairway to Steven," the infamous George Harrison cover of that Killing Joke song.
