Thursday, March 28, 2013

"Saturday Night Fever" Soundtrack [1977]

Removing all the blackness from funk and everything gay from the original disco movement, "Saturday Night Fever" presented a completely sterile, homogenized version of the late 70's dance scene, setting off a nuclear cultural meltdown that contaminated Americans thousands of miles past the radius of Three Mile Island. As such, "Saturday Night Fever" was a very fitting soundtrack. Dominated by the Bee Gees, who were the best at trivializing the styles of the genre, "Saturday Night Fever" emanated far beyond the hapless, idiotic mooks who populate the film, and the Bee Gees themselves helped influence future baby-voiced pop vermin like Kenny Loggins and especially George Michael. If there's anything worse than that, it's the reduction and dissection of what disco could have become into commercialized, bite-sized doses of saccharine shuck. "Jive Talkin'," indeed.

Lady Gaga "The Fame" [2008]

Hmm… writing and performing songs from the point of view of the girl at the club about to get Rufi'd… interesting, in that kind of pathetic way people enjoy watching horrid reality TV "stars" like Honey Boo Boo. In fact, let's just go ahead and call Lady Gaga the Honey Boo Boo of contemporary music. I know she'd prefer being compared to Madonna or Gwen Stefani, but it's clear whoever Lady Gaga really is thinks far too much of herself. Vacuous, disposable dance beats and disgustingly bubblegum choruses over which Ms. Gaga vocalizes irresponsibly, haphazardly and worst of all unoriginally, she's prone to displaying her lack of ability to behave like a properly functioning human being: "We're plastic but we'll still have fun" says it all. She's a blow-up doll with a record deal.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Queens of the Stone Age "Songs for the Deaf" [2002]

This gang of obscure misfits consists of a corn-fed football moron with his guitar too loud singing lukewarm laments about girls too hot for him and his partner, a screeching maniac playing a bass so drop-tuned the strings routinely threaten to get caught in his ball sac. Oh, and there's also the Screaming Trees dude sitting around getting drunk, growling into a mic every now and then, and a bunch of phony-baloney "radio broadcasts," just in case you weren't already annoyed enough. How they ever got the Foo Fighters guy to play drums for them is a total mystery (supposedly drugs couldn't have been involved, as the drummer says he's always been clean [cough!]). In any case, this is an unholy mix, well illustrated by the pitchfork on the red cover. Be very afraid… if you hate sucky rock music.

Fun. "Some Nights" [2012]

Strictly for those who feel Freddie Mercury was too aggressively hetero, Fun. is perhaps the most torturously full-of-itself group of smart-ass brats ever formed outside of Britain. Clearly from the "kitchen-sink" school of musical production as other waste-of-time bands like Arcade Fire, Fun. assembles pedestrian progressions drenched in shudder-inducing pomposity, and then layers Nate Ruess' ball-pinchingly high vocals over the top. It's enough to make Death Cab for Cutie beg to be driven over the side of the bridge at last. Unfortunately for the future of contemporary music, Fun. has already found success writing songs solely for 30-second commercials, and this trend shows no sign of abetting. But nothing if not self-aware, they called themselves "Fun-with-a-period." Yeah, that's these guys.

Green Day "Dookie" [1994]

Hey, they named their album this, not me. But let's hear it for some truth in advertising, finally -- "Dookie" is one big, stinky log. Musically, it's in essence Nirvana for kindergarteners, except its constant on-the-nose lyrics, banal song topics and permanently nasal-congested vocal delivery of Billy Joe Armstrong  is better suited for the day-care set, where its listeners are less discerning and are able to evacuate their bowels at will each time a new moronic 3-chord "anthem" erupts. Besides, it's apparent the dim bulbs who make up this band have no clue this music had already been done infinitely better 25 years before they stumbled onto the scene. Hell, The Romantics did it better, and they were frickin' horrible!

Red Hot Chili Peppers "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" [1991]

Shaved orangutans could create better songs than these SoCal low-lifes, and on "Blood Sugar Sex Magik," the Red Hot Chili Peppers set out to prove this to the world. Produced by unshaved orangutan Rick Rubin, this double-album dose of narcotic spooge and retarded funk did for rock music what Tom Green did for comedy. Worst of all are the unbelievably shitty pop ballads here, in which searingly off-key singer Anthony Kiedis (during his pre-pitch-corrected years) put blisters on the eardrums of anyone within a mile radius of a college dorm in the early 90s. Instead of being allowed anywhere near a recording studio -- or any instruments, for that matter -- humanity would have been much better served putting these guys in a cage at the zoo and letting them beat off on each other.

My Chemical Romance "The Black Parade" [2006]

Whether or not the members of this suburban mama's boy American rock group actually ever enjoyed an actual "chemical romance," it's clear whatever happened could not nearly change their metabolism enough to create any good music. Playing fast and throwing in a couple minor chords is woefully insufficient in keeping anyone actually listening from recognizing these guys are a bunch of pencil-necked sports bar creeps at heart. Not that their major label would ever have any inclination about such an anti-aesthetic (though I'm sure their A&R guy told them to ditch the baseball caps) -- sports-bar creeps may be the most desirable demographic for wasting the most disposable income in actual dollar amounts. Meanwhile, calling their album "Black Parade" would seem to indicate the scariest place My Chemical Romance might imagine themselves: being trampled to death by a funky inner-city marching band.

Black Keys "El Camino" [2011]

As if the Black Keys' played-out hairy-dick Bad Company phony soul riffs and vocal lines weren't enough to keep any discerning listener of music far away from a new release by the two guys on the planet who make Joey Ramone look like George Clooney, on "El Camino" the duo opts for "production values" for its latest volume of blooze-rawk filler for trashy dumbasses. It's clear people like Black Keys never learn the lessons of the past: adding female backup singers and keyboard accents to their particularly lame brand of garage rock only kills the listening experience all the more, like beating a dead horse and then shooting it 50 times. This "El Camino" is a total lemon, and it needs to be relegated to the scrap heap. Or at least the cut-out bin.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Pavement "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" [1994]

Here they are: the worst band ever. Ever. EVER. No exaggeration -- nobody sucks worse than these limp-dick spoiled brats. You know your grandma who thought Nirvana was the most offensive-sounding thing she'd ever heard? To her, Nirvana sounded like this album actually does. Music tracks warble through sludge like a hangover twice as bad as you've ever experienced, and S. Malkmus' mangled-goat voice is so snotilly pitch-challenged, rancid and ugly, it's enough to make Wayne Coyne commit suicide. To then have the audacity to swagger coolly through track after track like they've earned any right to express themselves "musically" is downright homicide-inducing. That Malkmus remains unmurdered to this point proves no one has apparently gotten through "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" all the way yet. I certainly couldn't do it, and I don't intend to try for the remainder of my existence.

Peter Gabriel "So" [1986]

An aging troll with enough elfin conceits to pack a Renaissance Fair past capacity, Peter Gabriel's knee-jerk reaction to being outsold by Phil Collins, his immeasurably callow former bandmate, was to try and turn himself into a love machine. Ick. Faux pop-soul bust-outs like "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time" prove all men are indeed pigs, even those who wallowed in reverse-mohawk anonymity for many, many years. Elsewhere he melodramatically leans on synthesizers and invites other arch, formerly obscure losers like helium-voiced Kate Bush to the party. After listening to "So," red rain is most definitely "boring down all over me," too.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Public Enemy "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" [1988]

To say Public Enemy's breakout album is artless as a street mugging would surely be taken as a compliment, in that it would purport the idea that anyone would be frightened by their "music" (and also prove that I'm a racist). In fact, "It Takes a Nation of Millions…" does indeed scare me, but only in regard to how far the quality level had fallen for hip-hop even as early as 1988. "Education" through intimidation, left-wing polemics dressed up in right-wing militia garb, with "important" topics like copyright infringement and not being able to watch the football game, Public Enemy is a study of drastic, contradictory extremes that directly cancel each other out. Demanded to be taken seriously by Chuck D's rhythmically challenged, ham-handed baritone one minute, in the next comes one Flava Flav, whose sub-human blather and crackhouse chuckling undermine everything established previously. Doused in a cacophony of street noise and bad jazz, "It Takes a Million to Hold Us Back" may be the most unlistenable album in the history of rap -- which is definitely saying something.

U2 "The Joshua Tree" [1987]

Jesus Christ, do these guys suck. By 1987, of course, this was no secret to anyone, but "Joshua Tree" displays U2 at its most sickeningly bloviated. More grandiose than a Liberace chandelier, the band's pompous anthems are -- far from romantic odes to freedom -- claustrophobic kowtowing to Top 40 aesthetics and pathetic self-righteousness, gobbed with toxic amounts of hair gel and gauzy overproduction. The aggressive con artist/bible salesman going by the name Bono does his utmost to conquer America one dumb suburban white kid at a time. It might have even worked had it not been for the man's (and the band's) Irishness, which, true to form, disallowed them from actually being able to conquer anything. Associations to the biblical story involving the joshua tree only make sense if legions of people stage a mass exodus against this album and this band.

Rolling Stones "Exile on Main St." [1972]

Anytime you let a full-blown junkie take the controls, you're bound to wind up in a ditch. That's just what happened when Keith Richards invited friends and bandmates to smack for breakfast at his crumbling shack in the south of France to record the unfathomably terrible double album "Exile on Main St." Weak, loose, informal and vomit-inducing, this album no doubt accurately represents Keith's physical state at the time. Unfortunately for everyone subjugated to listening to this infernal wreck -- with its faux-country and faux-gospel twangs and wails, brazenly ripped off blues covers and Keith's nodded-out backup vocals -- he solidly proves that just because a tragedy existed doesn't mean it should be documented. (There's even a song here called "Turd on the Run," a completely on-the-nose description of the entire enterprise.) This album is so bad, it launched Mick Jagger head-first into embracing disco as a valid musical form.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Moby "Play" [1999]

   MOBY - "Play"


No one ever said DJs need to have musical talent, but Moby's "Play" just rubs everyone's noses in it. Barely able to plunk out a chord on piano, then dubbing simpleton dance beats no one can dance to and sampling weird, sing-songy nursery rhymes on top, Moby basically dares people not to try to kick his ass after listening to his self-important jerk-offedness (a much better album title would be "Moby - Plays with Himself"). The chord progressions are routinely moronic, the repetition is mind-numbing. Even Moby himself knew nobody would be able to listen to this album past Track 3, which is entitled "So This Is Goodbye" (and on which he further tries to rub everyone's nose in it by actually trying to sing -- ugh!).

The Doors "The Doors" [1967]

Just because everyone was zoned out on bad grass in the 60s doesn't remotely excuse this hollow mix of brain-dead blues riffs and obnoxious calliope organ, fronted by surf-dick phony shaman Jim Morrison. Like most counterfeit holy men, Morrison was little more than a big sex and drug moocher, and his unapologetic facade (which eventually would've landed him in the pokey had he not chicken-shitted himself into European exile) directed legions of lazy stoner draft-dodgers headfirst into a world of grotesque drunken debauchery it would take a decade to recover from, if they ever did recover. Elvis' retreat into the Army and the Hollywood film studios doesn't seem like quite such an atrocious idea in retrospect (though he still suffered from the same soul-crushing egocentrism as Morrison, but without the shitty organ accompaniment). Gauche musical patterns as ridiculous as everyone's clothes who attended parties where they played "The Doors" on the hi-fi negatively stigmatized the era like nothing else aside from the Vietnam War, though after listening to this record again, I'd have to consider it a tie.

Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" [1966]

Sappily sentimental enough to gross out any unicorn-and-rainbow illustrator, the Beach Boys' lauded "masterpiece" entitled "Pet Sounds" was edgy as an Easter egg and unpretentious as the Taj Mahal. That any record label would sign off on such overly articulated bullshit says a lot about both how much everyone feared The Beatles cornering the market on sonic preciousness to sell to grandma and the level of drugs music executives were ingesting in the mid-60s. Basically, any warmth generated in "Pet Sounds" by Brian Wilson's plaintive girly voice is cancelled out by the ice-cold effects utilized in the production throughout. Add to this overcompensating instrumentation, stilted doo-wop harmonies and a seemingly infinite number of found sounds that serve no musical purpose save those no one on a debilitating amount of hallucinogens could comprehend, and it would become crystal clear to anyone: surf music never sounded so boring. Far from being a classic, this album is one big wipe-out.

Beck "Odelay" [1996]

The easiest way to know that a recording "artist" has nothing to say is when he or she buries his or her songs in a whirlwind of studio samples, loops and other assorted crap. Nothing displays this technique quite like Beck's "Odelay," which features exactly none of the excitement purported by the dumb-ass critics who lauded this Gen-X turd when it came out. It's far too easy for Beck's lemmings to refer to his uber-cheesy use of synths, slide guitars and 808 drum machines as "ironic," but that doesn't make it an enjoyable listening experience. Quite the contrary -- everybody actually hates this shit, and the only people who ever defend it are dorks too afraid to admit it doesn't make any sense. It's about nothing, by a nobody for no one.

Replacements “Let It Be” [1984]

Any time "genuine" rockers careen off course toward Bullshitville, the end result is never good. "Let It Be" -- the name of the worst album by The Beatles bested by this, the worst album in the history of pre-Pavement indie rock -- is a perfect example of a lead singer thinking he’s grown beyond the limitations of his own band without realizing he actually sucks without them. “Let It Be” re-hashes Paul Westerberg's trite, common riffage, then drapes everything in a pseudo-meaningful maudlin sentimentality and slows it all down to a Top 40 tempo. Ironic Kiss covers clash with solo Westerberg demo-quality sketches about as pleasing as a case of athlete's foot. OK, Paul, so you’re “Unsatisfied”? Think of how the rest of us feel after listening to your crappy album!

Bob Dylan "Highway 61 Revisited" [1965]

Absolutely every questionable aesthetic foisted into the milieu of rock music not already introduced by Elvis or the Beatles came from this dipshit: nasal, pitchy vocal delivery; lousy harmonica playing; snot-nosed self-importance; stinky campfire conceits; and most importantly -- bitching about random aspects of society not in order to make the world a better place (impossible with himself in the way, for starters) but to sledgehammer his own grievances into a Neumann mic just because some music industry putz allowed him to. No level of triviality escapes Dylan's engorged wrath, and his dime-store paperback vocabulary fools legions of people that he actually knows what he's talking about -- so much so that his devotees always forgive the fact that he's easily the least-talented singer/guitarist in recorded history (pre-Pavement). What Dylan fans never acknowledge is that his exorbitant volume of recorded work didn't end the Vietnam War, Watergate did. Each song on "Highway 61 Revisited" sounds like it goes on forever, even the short ones. This is the album kids in school 50 years from now will be forced to study and hate every minute of; if there's anything they'll glean from the experience, it's that everyone back in the 60s had horribly shitty taste in music.

AC/DC "Back in Black" [1980]

Of all the crimes against humanity perpetuated by John "Mutt" Lange, his foisting of Neanderthals AC/DC to pop-star status has to be among his worst. The dick-brained lyrics combined with the oh-so-pristine meticulousness of the musical production makes this effort from the perpetual grade-school numbnuts a nightmare to listen to from start to finish. Getting unsuspecting young girls to sign onto this catastrophe in the form of the single "You Shook Me All Night Long" proved remarkably easy, asserting that you can never go broke underestimating the American public. How anyone could find it difficult to get laid when these ridged-brow goons could is a mystery to me.

Iggy & the Stooges "Raw Power" [1973]

So basically David Bowie propped up his drug-shooting partner Iggy Pop and attempted to rescue his burnt-out group of depraved garage rockers who couldn't sell any records. They still couldn't sell any, even after "Raw Power" came out; Bowie could only do so much with Iggy's bipolar retarded monster schtick. He brought to the Stooges a guitarist who wasn't completely hopeless, but in an era of endless guitar solos it was merely another way in which the Stooges were woefully deficient. Apologists like to say "Raw Power" is one of the main precursors to the punk rock movement, but scraping nails on a chalkboard has more commercial appeal than this album. Perhaps the worst example of sound mixing in human existence, it's a drug-fueled conglomeration of trailer trash crudeness, unchecked psychosis and pure musical ignorance. As some sort of compensation for the band's "glue-sniffing cavemen" approach, somebody decided to throw some amateuristic keyboard filler over the top of a few songs, but it's done so monotonously it only adds to the brain-dead tedium. Lame as Bowie can be, this probably wasn't his idea; in fact, there's only one rocker in history with a low enough IQ to try and get away with something that stupid -- Iggy himself.

Marvin Gaye "What's Goin' On" [1971]

Let it serve as a lesson to all recording artists: if you're trying to make an album with topical, modern urgency, it's best not to float off into catatonic fake-jazz wank. Gaye spends so much time meandering through synth lines in "What's Goin' On," Stevie Wonder would find it embarrassing. ("What's Goin' On," indeed -- I sure as hell couldn't figure it out.) Then again, it's better than the actual songs, which all sound the same and prove how much of a rut Gaye was in (not that the rest of his music is against "rutting," however). Besides, you'd think a Romeo like this guy would have a clue that nothing kills a good fuck-fest like talking politics.

Paul Simon "Graceland" [1986]

During the recording of Paul Simon's "Graceland," there were many protests about the pro-apartheid South African location of the sessions. Once the album was released, however, it became apparent that the protests were warranted: this is shitty music. Here we have a fey, middle-aged folkie trying in vain not to get bowled over by African musicians, a doubling-down of Simon's conceits of the 1970's, when he proved he couldn't play with American black guys, either. God knows why he decided to invoke Elvis for this volume of sentimental tripe, but the bloated, white carcass of an aging frontman actually works quite well in this instance.

Derek & the Dominoes "Layla" [1970]

Begin charting the rapid downfall of rock music here: this double-album load of pretense and heroin-soaked bleating conned people into thinking it was a labor of unrequited love of Eric Clapton for his best friend George Harrison's wife. Skip over how dickheaded this conceit is and hear the music on its merits, or lack thereof: big-time rockers exercising their creative control even when they aren't being the least bit creative. Sluggish blues covers serve as filler to grandiose time-wasters of guitar wankery and comatose repetition. I can only guess how bad it smelled in that recording studio during the "Layla" sessions, but by listening to the songs I think I have a pretty good idea.

Aerosmith "Toys in the Attic" [1975]

Already piecing together their self-made legendary rock-star status in their already drug-addled brains, Aerosmith's rise to prominence in 1975 should have been a giant red flag to the rock community: get your shit together, or disco will eat your children. The community turned a blithe, bloodshot eye to this premise, settling for second-rate Stones bands like Aerosmith, Bad Company and heroin-era Led Zep. In retrospect, it's not surprising "Toys in the Attic" was a big hit: the radio was filled with novelty songs like "Shaving Cream" and whatever the hell countrified clowns like Ray Stevens and Jim Stafford were cranking out back then. Aerosmith fit right in, as a complete parody joke, though they were likely far too fucked up to be conscious of this fact. "Toxic twins" Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were essentially Clive Davis' rats in a cage, constantly hitting the narcotic drip until they sailed head-first into self-perpetuated obscurity by the end of the decade. Their studious, eggheaded backup band had little to contribute themselves, though they did manage to stay upright in concert the whole way through the show. So there you have it: "Toys in the Attic" did no one any favors -- not rock fans or concert-goers, and not the band themselves. The only ones who made out like bandits were the record company execs. Still wondering how/why these guys were brought back from the dead a decade later?

Soundgarden "Superunknown" [1994]

Apparently, you can never overestimate Seattle residents' ability to act like complete sad-sacks, regardless how many fortunes land in their collective lap. Soundgarden, the first of the "grunge" bands to sign to a major label (though not surprisingly the last to meaningfully make the charts) hit the commercial peak of the movement with the release of "Superunknown," yet take a crap in their own punchbowl with song titles like "Fell On Black Days," "Head Down" and "Like Suicide." Gee, what misery you guys must have experienced, playing for tens of thousands of people per night and raking in millions of bucks! Is it really raining as hard in your souls as it is in your home town all the time? Or are you just trying to reinforce how darkly rawkin' you are (pretending to be)? I guess they didn't trust we'd hear the endless scrap-heap of Led Zep and Sabbath references. Although perhaps everything really is a drag for them: with all the odd time-signatures and drop-tuning rampant through "Superunknown," it's clear these guys were too stoned to remember where the "1" was, or how to properly tune a guitar. Compounded with Sammy Hagar-soundalike contest winner Chris Cornell's inane lyrical technique of pitting opposites against each other ("light is dark!" "bad is good!" "shallow is deep!"), the only thing "Superunknown" about this album is how they got so many suckers to buy it.

Led Zeppelin "IV (ZoSo)" [1971]

Thuggish, entitled, plodding, bloated and stupid, somehow these poseurs from across the pond were supposed to have created the finest work of hard rock ever. But it's not -- not by a long shot -- unless you count blatant misogyny, schizophrenic time signatures and hippies prancing with fairies worthwhile material. Packaged, as always, with useless but nevertheless annoying "artwork" attempting to depict its "poetry" as "important," beneath the surface of this epic monstrosity is, in fact, something quite profound: a yawning chasm of utter meaninglessness (unless the entire meaning is "let's give pimply American boys something to sniff glue to"). Everybody knows "Stairway to Heaven" isn't about anything, but neither are any of the other tracks, save "Rock and Roll," which is barely even a real rock 'n roll song.

Stevie Wonder "Innervisions" [1973]

You'd think a guy with no eyesight would have acute enough hearing to recognize when his laconic funkiness is getting undermined by his overly ambitious arch jazz posturing, but such is not the case with Stevie Wonder. Apparently by the time "Innervisions" was being made, Stevie still had yet to get the message that his career was only supposed to be as a miniature Ray Charles novelty act who taught white people to clap on the beat (for the most part). Instead, he fancies himself a sort of disabled Marvin Gaye with even sappier ballad tendencies. Playing nearly all the parts himself aside from future "Ghostbuster" songster Ray Parker Jr. on guitar, Wonder demonstrates himself as little more than a show-off with a Sunday-school worldview that includes anti-drug hectoring ("Too High"), the kiddie-pool-depth of Jonathan Livingston Seagull ("Higher Ground") and poor Spanish and geography skills ("Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing"), tangled up in a clusterfuck of synth and clav lines. Good drumming for a blind guy, though.

Bob Marley & the Wailers "Burnin'" [1973]

Not sure how long this "underdog" stance was supposed to last for Bob Marley, but by "Burnin'" it's already threadbare -- and it's his band's first album on a big record label! Critics have bowed at the feet of this album since it first came out, but I suspect it was more from fear of being chased down by marauding Jamaican street gangs than an honest assessment of its musical contents. The laconic skank grooves erase any urgency of these so-called "call to action" songs, but what do you expect from a group of people who smoke cone-shaped spliffs by the ounce?

R.E.M. "Murmur" [1983]

This schmucky band of Southern sad-sacks was so abused by IRS Records' demands to keep touring America for next to nothing in the early 80s that it seems the music industry took deep pity on them when their debut LP "Murmur" was released, and decided to like it (there's literally no other reason for them to have done so). Problem is, by this time in their young lives R.E.M. already sound like creaky-boned old-timers -- a cautionary tale if ever there was one. I mean, at least Black Flag got to beat the crap out of everybody when the monotony got to be too much. That said, with all the performance time these guys had accrued by this time, you'd think lead singer Michael Stipe would have bothered writing lyrics for his songs. But no, not this neo-hippie. Even more egregiously, this band had no fucking idea what to do once they finally lucked their way into the recording studio. "Murmur" is a pastiche of fake-art cluelessness: ripped-off 60's guitar riffs (that didn't work when Tom Petty used them, so why'd R.E.M. think they'd fare any better?) and enough idiotic echoing effects to assure the listener that producer Mitch Easter was scared shitless that everyone was going to see through this big pile of kudzu. Ironic they named their band R.E.M. when they were all clerarly in need of some sleep; lucky for the rest of us we get it immediately upon listening to "Murmur."

Pixies "Doolittle" [1989]

Who says fat perverts can't achieve success in the music world (at least those in front of the mic, that is)? Parading a seemingly endless line of sicko fantasies and lowlife characters, the doughy frontman calling himself Black Francis spooges all over college radio and not only gets away with it but is revered for infecting everyone with his worldview, exactly the same way that deranged cinematic ass-hat David Lynch did around the same time. "Doolittle" exactly illustrates the woeful condition of popular music in 1989: Black's vocal delivery ranges from a salivating horny growl to a psychotic screech, and is only bested in outright annoyance by Joey Santiago's atonal lead guitar (when he's not allowing his Surf 101 exercises to be actual guitar solos). Throw in Kim Deal's baby-voiced simpleton pop instincts and you have what represents the last major migraine for American listeners before grunge-rock issued in a whole new set of problems. I now know why "This Monkey's Gone to Heaven" -- he offed himself after contemplating what Black Francis was interested in doing to him.

Nirvana "Nevermind" [1991]

The record-buying public of 1991 should have heeded this album title's advice; we'd all have been much better off not minding this representative of a new generation of rock stars who don't even bother to spruce up before hitting the stage. "Nevermind" is nothing more that nursery-rhyme poetry over falsely roughed-up chord progressions unfit for The Monkees. It was deemed successful because it somehow convinced impressionable music fans begging to be rescued from Milli Vanilli and U2 that its bitchy, bratty approach somehow meant something. In fact, it meant quite a lot -- between its painful, vain shyness and paranoia and its bitterness regarding anyone who refuses to kiss the rubber tip of their Converse high tops, Nirvana's main contribution to the music world is this: one gigantic hypocrisy. Hey Kurt, a mosquito's not only your libido, it's also the size of your musical talent!

Jimi Hendrix "Electric Ladyland" [1968]

Both a landmark recording and the mother of all cautionary tales, and they're both the same thing: Hendrix had finally rid himself of the horrors of sobriety for every last second of every day by the time he dragged his white boys into the studio one last time to do "Electric Ladyland." The schizoid and uneven recordings here -- freak-out noisescapes, acid-blurry off-time soul (think Curtis Mayfield in a rubber room), painstakingly manicured radio singles and drunk late-night blues jams with British rock's hoi polloi -- make for incredibly annoying and haphazard listening. And that's just Side One of Four! Hendrix is so bent on attempting to play "everything" that he accomplishes "nothing." Adding insult to acid casualty, lyrically Hendrix frustratingly blasts off into outer space or down to the ocean floor with feckless regularity, never bothering to relate an actual "experience" at all, despite the name of his own goddamn band. "Electric Ladyland" is a classic only among people who craved to caress the hem of the man's tackily-patterned garment. The rest of us can easily recognize when someone's spiraling out of control, and what to do about it: get out of the way before he pukes on you.

Jeff Buckley "Grace" [2004]

Answers the unasked question: What would Led Zeppelin sound like if they were a bunch of homosexuals? Every thunderous beat is manicured, every soaring wail a sobbing lament. Buckley approaches Robert Plant via Judy Garland -- not an easy trick, but one which anyone with ears would do well to avoid for all eternity. That Buckley was able to do something with Leonard Cohen's ghastly, punny "Hallelujia" (only Jackson Browne could find more stinky ways to rhyme the name of his song) speaks volumes: there is no "there" there. It's all phony ghosts and ginned-up emotion from the saddest clown of the undeservedly depressed circus that was mid-90s rock.

Sex Pistols "Never Mind the Bollocks" [1977]

Undoubtedly the most celebrated assholes of all time. Apparently, all one had to do back in 1977 was flip off a photograph of the queen in order to be considered edgy. But the Pistols went much farther than this: chiding women for getting abortions, berating cross-dressers for existing and ridiculing the youth for having the least shred of hope about their future. You basically could show the Sex Pistols' lyric sheet to random liberals who consider "Never Mind the Bollocks" one of the greatest albums of all time (thanks, Rolling Stone, you dicks) and substitute Toby Keith's name instead; without exception they'd consider it one of the most reprehensibly un-PC collections ever recorded. Comes down to this: though they were limo-riding drug addicts themselves, the Pistols had the unmitigated audacity to call out everyone else for their hypocrisy. I guess there's nothing like stolen Mott the Hoople riffs and Richard Hell fashion statements to project your own inferiorities onto others. What a bunch of "faggots."

The Who "Who's Next" [1971]

Just when you though it was impossible for rock to get more self-righteously pretentious AND still generate radio play, previous benchmark-setters The Who (with the pungent load of bombast that was "Tommy") outdo themselves by invading pre-Nam draftees and their easy girlfriends across every beer-can-littered forest preserve in America in the summer of '71 with "Who's Next." Aside from Roger Daltrey's adreline-injected bullfrog voice, lead pomp provocateur Pete Townshend chimes in far too often with his melodramatic pedestrian whine. Besides which, Townshend's still stuck in a power chord rut he hadn't been able to escape since he started playing guitar, regardless how many pin-headed synth loops he throws over the top of the songs no one who's listened to more than a half-hour of classic rock radio will ever be able to escape. It's tough to measure the level of destruction "Who's Next" wrought on Western society, especially by the time they promise "The Song Is Over" and still carry on for an entire Side B. Finally, on the cover "art," The Who are pissing on a wall; they should have been taking a huge, steaming dump to better describe the music within.

Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" [1973]

As if anyone needed another reason to help explain the amazing assholishness of the Beatles, here it is -- in horrid detail. Garishly sentimental lyrics ground into Alan Parsons' fart-brained synth loops and found sounds only prove the future of popular music was absolutely face-down in 1973. Except "Dark Side of the Moon" is stupider, stonededer than anything the Fab Four tried (in vain) to accomplish. Adding insult to injury are all the illiterate soul-laced vocalizations and ridiculous saxophone lines which serve as filler between audacious odes to greed and phony psychology, not to mention jazz progressions that would make Freddie Mercury shout, "This shit is over the top!" "Dark Side of the Moon" spent over 700 weeks on the charts, but all that proves is that the people keeping track of these things were just as wasted as everyone else back then. The 70's sucked, and this album shows you why.

David Bowie "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" [1972]

"Garishly pretentious" doesn't even begin to really describe this -- a concept album about a rock star who looks good and dresses real freaky; gee, to whom could he be referring? Clearly desperation was setting in for Bowie, who'd already struck out numerous times trying to climb to the top of the heap of late 60s/early 70s airwaves, with scant success (to put it mildly). By now deep in hock to his record label, Bowie went for broke completely and wound up as the circus freak nightmare we all know today as Ziggy Stardust. Ruder and noisier than previous releases, he's still at heart an egregious purveyor of "cabaret rock," which really should have gotten him flushed into total obscurity and forgotten about. But no -- not in the 70s: self-conscious pomp and wank was just coming into fashion, and this album is largely to blame for this (only his remedial-level musicianship kept him from attempting a 20-minute magnum opus). Bowie shows tremendously audacious cheek for someone beginning a cocaine-induced metamorphosis into a gigantic insect: cashing in on some Elton John-style piano hackery one minute, ripping off art-fops Roxy Music the next. Ultimately, Bowie has always been an incorrigible attention-seeker; we ought to have just ignored him and sooner or later he'd have gone away.

The Clash "London Calling" [1979]

Perhaps the only double-album that consists of 100% filler, "London Calling" fits the lexicon of classic albums the way a nuclear meltdown fits a top-5 list of modern-day concerns. In truth, this is nothing more than a full-of-itself conglomeration of ignorable pub rock spew, putrid white-boy approximations of reggae and a self-fulfilling manifesto of socialistic mediocrity. Once Joe Strummer's shit-voiced blather finally loses steam, Mick Jones is always right there to fill in with his insipid 3-minute nasal pop tweaks. Even loads of studio-hack session horn players can't rescue this abomination; The Clash on "London Calling" prove once and for all that punks ruin everything.

Bruce Springsteen "Born to Run" [1975]

Bruce Springsteen is undoubtedly someone who could make a random person hate America. Breathtakingly pretentious songs about "losers" aimed at others rather than the much-more-deserving songwriter himself, "Born to Run" was released shortly before the US's bicentennial, at which time America knew for sure it was completely full of shit. This album would have thus become its anthem, had anyone given a crap about the Boss besides louts from New Jersey at the time. Unfortunately, America did eventually buy into Bruce's brand of cheeseburger sentimentality, and because rock music was in such stupendously bad shape at the time of "Born to Run''s release, he wasn't justifiably run out of the music biz altogether following this collection of banal macho posing and overcooked bar-band pot roast. If you're "Born to Run," it's best you put it to the test and get away from anyone suggesting they play this LP.

Prince "Purple Rain" [1984]

If there ever was anyone who needed to wack off before writing a bunch of songs, it's Prince before coming up with his embarrassingly horned-out "Purple Rain." Apparently, his main interest -- besides displaying his self-congratulatory exhibitionism -- was having sex with ugly girls (got to think that despite his ability to get a movie made based on this album, Hollywood producers must have had a problem with either the girls or the ugliness -- not sure which they found worse), though I thought his ripping off of godawful Robert Palmer riffs was far more offensive. Ultimately, Prince riding Michael Jackson's coattails to fame and fortune has to be his biggest infraction on the dumbfuck music-buying public in 1984, with his faux-Hendrix guitar noodling and ELP synthesizer abominations. Prince's "Purple Rain" stands out as an example of profound abuses inflicted on 1980's culture, and we are the worse for having experienced him/it.

Velvet Underground & Nico [1967]

It officially became OK for drug-addicted douchebags with zero musical talent to get signed to record deals and inflict their atonal pain on others with the (relative) public's acceptance of "Velvet Underground & Nico." Repeating the same stoned-out progressions until they fall asleep was a good technique for Andy Warhol to get behind, as his artwork and films always had exactly the same effect. Dime-store chanteuse Nico sings so abysmally, she makes Lou Reed sound downright professional, except when one considers his pure-shit, out-of-tune guitar work, which resembles nothing so much as Roger McGuinn being run over by a Mack truck. Icing on the cake is John Cale's violin torture on nearly half the songs. Warhol's banana image on the cover art does make sense, in that bananas go bad after a few days and are thus totally indigestible. Keep them around for 40 years or more, and they invite all manner of vermin and disease, though likely none so foul as the members of this band.

The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" [1967]

The beginning of the end for the Beatles. By naming their record "Sgt. Pepper's," even the Fab Four themselves recognized what they had created was indeed something to sneeze at: arch groovelessness featuring John Lennon wallowing in drug-addled depression (e.g. the least-inspiring get-high anthem ever, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds") and Paul McCartney pausing to contemplate his navel long enough to decide he'll be wearing the granny panties permanently from this moment forward ("When I'm 64"). Throw in hapless George Harrison stuck in his yoga pose (the seemingly endless "Within You, Without You") and Ringo Starr elbowing his pedestrian drone into the mix ("With a Little Help from My Friends"), and the tower of pretension for "the greatest album of all time" comes crashing to the ground -- hard!