50 Cent "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" [2003]

It's no secret street 'hoods who go all gangsta don't likely do too well in school, but less than a decade after Tupac and Biggie Smalls are senselessly killed, they still have a taste for the tragic, real-life handgun murder and mayhem of rappers like 50 Cent? Just how stoopid does one have to be? And we wonder why so many otherwise well-meaning people have permanently turned their backs on all the bad neighborhoods in this country. Then again, it's all a charade, isn't it? Sure, 50 Cent has a couple bullet scars and found his ass in prison for a spell (he's "authentic," in other words), but industry sell-outs Dr. Dre and Eminem are ultimately behind "Get Rich or Die Tryin'." In fact, it could be strongly argued that the only reason Fitty got a record deal in the first place is so Marshall Mathers could pretend he was gangsta, too (at least give him credit for knowing he couldn't get away with it on his own albums). What you hear track after track on 50 Cent's debut is violent power fantasies for the ultimately powerless; it must be some perverse therapy I can't quite fathom, but it boils down to the same sad phenomenon that perpetuates liquor stores and lotto in the ghetto. And 50 Cent has the nerve to keep saying he "ain't playin'" when he's cashing the fuck in on his old 'hood's various miseries and laughing about it? Shee-it.

Sam Cooke "Ain't That Good News" [1964]

Sam Cooke's last studio recording put together before he was beaten and shot to death without any pants on, "Ain't That Good News" smacks of incredible irony to everyone who wasn't a racist who worked for the FBI in 1964. But it's also ironic from a music critique standpoint: it marks the time when Cooke clearly displayed he was past his prime -- Smokey Robinson had by then already picked up the ball Cooke had fumbled. The nodules on his vocal chords had obviously progressed while his simpleton writing and lyrical stylings had obviously not. Further, all those cheesy Ray Charles horn charts were a step backwards, not forwards; just because Elvis had been hijacked by Colonel Tom and bound to the Paramount Studios lot doesn't mean Cooke shouldn't have known the electric guitars were coming anyway. I mean, even Berry Gordy could figure that one out. So Sam Cooke wrote and recorded "A Change Is Gonna Come" -- but in what practical way was he able to implement this, either professionally or personally? Well, he wasn't -- maybe that's the real tragedy here. He sounds tired on this track, like he'd been running around hotels with his dick swinging free for far too long. OK, that's really not fair -- that chick stole his clothes; but what exactly excuses the use of Lawrence Welk's orchestra to cheapen all of Cooke's ballads and decorate them like grotesquely out-of-date birthday cakes? If this was Cooke's way of making peace with his legions of haters, it clearly didn't work.

Genesis "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" [1974]

In this reviewer's opinion, it was a very good idea for Peter Gabriel and Genesis, his band of faceless art-wank peons, to combine the pinheadedness of prog rock with elfin Hobbit music -- this makes it much easier to dispose of in a single flush. Gabriel's descent into inscrutable madness is on full display here, all the more pathetic for him to be proudly flaunting his weird derangements -- you'd think somebody with this many mental problems would rather try to downplay what an embarrassing spectacle he's likely to become rather than write and record a double album of material dedicated to it. That his voice sounds like it resides in a decrepit octogenarian only heightens the sensation that you're witnessing something you know you shouldn't, and that it's likely to end gruesomely any second now. And all this before the introduction of those fucked up ELP synth solos -- good god. I mean, I know the 60s were terrible, but at least they didn't allow for impulsive baroque grandstanding by way of the sonic equivalent of marshmallow fluff. And no mistaking it -- every half-baked, dubious twist and key change came from Gabriel himself; it's quite obvious his band lacked enough spine to stand up to this lunatic's skewed visions. If anyone truly wanted to honestly assess "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," they'd do well to rename it something like "Somebody Tell Grandpa to Get Off the Roof Before He Fucking Kills Himself."

Ray Charles "The Genius of Ray Charles" [1959]

Yeah, some genius -- hiring Frank Sinatra's horn section and faking his way through a bunch of worn-out covers doesn't exactly require much brain power at all, aside from resisting the temptation from the brass blasts at the top of each number to sing a rendition of "Meet the Flintstones." Besides, kowtowing to the ramping consumerist society of the Mad Men era was like shooting fish in a barrel; if Ray Charles were a true genius, he might have made people think twice before engaging in 3-martini lunches and tawdry affairs with their bimbo secretaries. Maybe we wouldn't have been caught napping when the government sent everyone's boys off to Vietnam, thus causing a hideous counter-movement of drug ingestion and lame, hairy young-person protest better known today as the hippie era. A little responsibility would've gone a long way, and it doesn't matter that Ray Charles was blind -- he'd still rather have hung at the Playboy Mansion than perform any worthwhile acts on behalf of society in general or black people in particular. Basically, Charles provided the bridge of black musician sell-outedness between Sammy Davis Jr and Motown, eventually manifesting itself in the existence of Hootie & the Blowfish and Wayne Brady. See, white folks? Black folks ain't so frightening, just so long as you're not part of fascist task-master Charles' traveling band. Besides, I'd like to see what kind of a genius he'd be if someone kept moving his electric piano around while he was trying to play it.

Belle and Sebastian "The Boy with the Arab Strap" [1998]

Nick Drake died way too soon; had he stuck around long enough to hear Belle and Sebastian, he'd finally have received all the adulation he thought he was due but really wasn't. Plus, he'd have some extraordinarily fey and glum Brits to mope around with and make him feel like he belonged, and he could have told them when to fucking end a song. But it's not just Drake this band is musically molesting on "The Boy with the Arab Strap," it's at turns Mo Tucker lead vocal amateur hour with extra-wimpy Lou Reed, along with stoned John Phillips demos and that jive-ass mellow beat the Beatles and the Stones were wise enough to stay away from but almost no one else in the 60s was. For "good" measure (though it's anything but), there's some Stonesish smacked-out slide, Winwood wheezing on the B-3, that Motown "every beat" drumming and a dab of Arthur Lee's patchouli oil. All this as if stupid neo-deadheads hadn't completely raped and pillaged 60s culture a full decade before this album was released. As a result, Belle and Sebastian come off about as interesting, progressive and courageous as tuna casserole with a Jello mold for dessert. It sounds for all the world like they've constructed a shoebox diorama of a hippie party for their homework assignment, and its affect is just as small and underwhelming.

Sonic Youth "Daydream Nation" [1988]

Most musical "experiments" are total failures, which is why no one in their right minds would normally release them to the music-buying public. But in the dark days of the late-80s indie "suck-rock," things were very different: pointless noisescapes and horridly amateurish vocals were not only encouraged, they were allowed to run on until they became both rude and boring. Take the cloying, clamorous and oh-so-full-of-itself "Daydream Nation" by Sonic Youth (a clearly ironic band name -- these people all look like Montessori substitute teachers): a brazen double-album full of droney pop-rock and tuneless guitar pollution. They sound like R.E.M. having a bad trip on Lou Reed's leftover drugs when they're not self-consciously aping garage rock like the art-school poseurs they are. Imagine the Stooges and some random bar chick recording on mushrooms while Iggy's in the middle of writing his doctoral thesis to get a clear view of how edgelessly pretentious this album comes off. Sonic Youth were always good at playing the "cool kids," however, which is how their crap talent and worse ideas likely got signed in the first place, and were thus able to lead hundreds of lost, spoiled, talentless young assholes like lemmings into the sea of the independent-label music business. Be thankful if you weren't suckered in back in the day, and resist any urge you may have to check it out -- "Daydream Nation" is nothing more than a musical dumpster dive.

Sigur Ros "Kveikur" [2013]

Imagine hallucinating from being stuck on an iceberg for a month by yourself and you'll get a pretty good idea what you're in for here. Sounding like the elfin love children of Cocteau Twins and... I dunno, those German weirdos from Can or something, Sigur Ros takes pains to turn the word "ambient" into an insult. Of course they're from Iceland -- what self-respecting Westerner from any real country would try to break into the music business recording the aural equivalent of melting icicles? Thing is, these guys had already been around awhile before "Kveikur" (whatever in the fucking hell that means) came out, updating the Deep Forest-style soundtrack at that crystals-and-incense bookstore you only go into last-minute when you forgot to buy a Christmas present for somebody. There's so much echo and unnecessary noise in between the female-registered guy singer Jonsi Birgisson's utterly indecipherable flights out of the stratosphere that it's next to impossible to hear Milton Nascimento telling this guy to grow a pair of balls. It's apparent Sigur Ros is interested in illustrating what music would be like in heaven (or at least Coldplay's version of it), but isn't pretending to be in heaven when you're still alive the kind of creepy thing that Mormons usually do?