Okay, let me just say right off the top that I’ve always had a bit of a problem with Trent Reznor. This was purely from an artistic POV. As a huge fan of Ministry’s early industrial output (the landmark records Twitch and The Land of Rape and Honey), I saw Trent’s Pretty Hate Machine as a homogenized version of the Ministry aesthetic. It was as if someone had sawed off all the harsh, jagged edges of a Ministry record. No, let me rephrase that. It was as if someone had taken a basic rock record…you know, verse/chorus/verse stuff…and added a little industrial window dressing.

That the suburbs, malls, and amusement parks were soon littered with suburban kids with NIN logos on their chests and backs was proof positive that Trent Reznor had succeeded in making industrial music palatable for the suburbs. After all, suburban kids wanted to feel “bad-ass” too, but those Ministry records were some scary shit. NIN, on the other hand, was no more frightening than watching The Crow for the hundredth time.

So, yeah, I thought Reznor was a poseur.

That opinion did not change when I saw him have a mini-meltdown at Lollapalooza when his pre-programmed keyboards wouldn’t work. Seriously, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, and the rest of their ilk have nothing on this guy.Of course, along the way, the guy actually managed to write “Hurt,” which I heartily believe is a fucking great song, but doing so only made me expect more from the guy. If he was capable of that, then why did we keep getting albums that were, by and large, huge steaming piles of unfulfilled promise?

Because his fans accepted those albums as symbols of musical brilliance, that’s why. (more…)

Popularity: 14% [?]

This is the first in a series that I call Random-onium!, for lack of a better term. The premise is that I go to a friend’s house and pick a few CDs out of their collection — completely at random– and review them for your reading and listening pleasure.This week, my buddy John was kind enough to allow me access to his collection, making sure to point out in advance that the Natalie Merchant and Bangles CDs belonged to his lady, who thought it would be cool to merge their respective collections soon after she moved in.

“What?” he exclaimed defensively, noticing the expression on my face. I could have said any number of things and laid him out like a punch drunk boxer decades past his prime, but my sly grin and silence said it all. Of course, my insatiable adoration for “the obvious joke” overpowered my restraint and I let loose with a “whip crack” that would have made Michael Winslow proud, for which I paid the ultimate price as John thumped me in the shoulder. Not just my shoulder, though, but the exact spot on my shoulder that hurts like a mother when you knuckle punch it.

After “walking it off,” I promptly closed my eyes and blindly reached into his stack of tracks, pulling out… (more…)

Popularity: 10% [?]

There are those artists who get a couple releases into their career before they feel the pressure from the suits at the label to “have a hit,” and then there are those artists who sell out right from the get-go.

Ministry certainly falls into the latter category and their debut longplayer smacks of blatant commerciality…blatant, misguided, and downright silly commerciality.

Hailing from the urban mecca of Chicago, Alain Jourgenson and Steven George formed Ministry in 1981 as a funk-tinged synth duo, scoring a couple minor dance hits before inking a deal with Arista Records.

Despite a pedigree that included a stint in the hard-edged alt-rockers Special Affect (a band that also included future My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult founder Groovy Mann), Jourgenson’s vision on With Sympathy was single-mindedly aimed at the charts.

(Ministry circa 1983: Al Jourgenson, left, and Steven George)

How else does one explain such tracks as “Work For Love” and “What He Say?” — the latter a laughably kitschy blend of synth-pop and, uh, world music…I think. (more…)

Popularity: 10% [?]

So much of our lives are shaped by how we carry ourselves — our self-confidence, if you will. Yet I have come to believe that confidence is actually an indicator of:

a) the ability to convince people you have confidence when, in fact, you don’t, or

b) severe narcissism and a delusional belief in one’s self.

As luck would have it, I once befriended a co-worker, with whom I shared some musical interests, who fell very much into “column B.” He was a guitarist who fancied himself a singer/songwriter and, while his songs were pleasant enough, he had an uncanny knack for writing tunes that keenly captured the essence of songs that already existed. When he played a show and a girl came up afterwards and said that one of his songs sounded like something she’d heard on the radio, but she couldn’t remember what, he took it as a supreme compliment.

I had never met a guy who took such shameless pleasure in talking about himself. At first, I just thought it was because we shared an office and quickly ran out of other things to talk about, but when we ventured out for a night on the town at one of L.A.’s many hotspots where aspiring (and expiring) actresses gather, the night would invariably go a little like so:

He’d spot a couple tramp stamps, wander over, introduce himself, and then challenge the women to get a word in edge-wise over the next couple hours before escorting one “lucky lady” back to his place. (more…)

Popularity: 9% [?]

Girlfriends, I was sitting on my diamond-encrusted toilet the other day thinking that ya’ll probably had no idea what kind of music to buy. Judging by your willingness to accept my book choices as gospel, I realize the power I wield and the idea of sending a couple million sheep tumbling off the nearest cliff does tickle me, child, but I digress.

So, without further a-do-do-do-de-da-da-da, here is this week’s pre-cease-and-desist-order Oprah’s Rock Club pick:

Bolt Thrower, Those Once Loyal (2005)

This one has been out awhile, but, hey, I’m Oprah. I get there when I get there. These lovable boys from Birmingham (England, not Alabama) deliver the goods on their ninth (and final?) long player, which sees the return of original vocalist Karl Willetts.

Like a dependable dog with a mean case of rabies, Bolt Thrower not only fetch the paper, but tear the sumbitch to shreds and lay the saliva-drenched pulp at your feet while unleashing pure skull-fucking fury on standout tracks “At First Light” and “Those Once Loyal”.

I personally thought they had done it all and said it all on Who Dares Wins from ’94, but Oprah stands corrected.

Those Once Loyal is a four-on-the-floor, Marshall-stack-powered full frontal assault on the senses that will leave your favorite Victoria’s Secret thong in a crumpled heap and smelling of motor oil on the floor of your Ford Freestar (right next to a Starbucks cup that seems to have been MacGyver’ed into a makeshift …oh, nevermind, child…Oprah’s already said too much).

Now, drop the kids off at soccer practice already and haul ass over to Borders and special order this one from the cute guy with the nose ring that works on the second floor. Like you needed an excuse, Honey.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I don’t wait by the phone like I used to
I don’t hope for kind words you might say
You don’t prey on my mind like you used to
But you can still ruin my day

I’ve always been amazed, amused and, ultimately, saddened by the importance of perception in our romantic interludes. In the span of days, or minutes (as the case may be), one can go from floating on air, dropping their guard completely, and falling head over heels for someone to being sickened by the sight of them.

It isn’t that the person who once caused our heart to skip a beat each time we saw them has changed, mind you, but that our perception of them has. We’ve all probably been on the receiving end of such changes in perception and, truth be told, it would be disheartening to know what minor detail brought about such a dramatic change in perception.

In one such instance, a friend of mine who’d been unreachable for the past couple weeks, caught up in the throes of passion with someone they described as “the one,” called me out of the blue and asked if I had any dinner plans. When I asked why they weren’t spending every available minute with ‘the one,” they rolled their eyes and informed me that they’d broken it off. “Too needy,” they replied with a shrug. You or them, I asked? “Not funny,” they shot back, punching me in the arm.

See, it was only when “the one” seemed aloof and unattainable that my friend had dropped everything to pursue them. Only after “the one” reciprocated the affection and then went one further by displaying a sense of vulnerability did my friend decide they weren’t really “the one” after all. The idea that my friend might go the rest of their life repeating this chain of events struck me as incredibly sad. What was sadder is that I knew I’d been guilty of much the same thing at various points in my life. (more…)

Popularity: 11% [?]

The cutout bins are filled with what I’ve always called “blatant pop attempts” — albums created for maximum commercial appeal that, despite such intentions, failed miserably on all fronts. In most cases, one listen to the album in question reveals precisely why it was such a dud. I mean, we consumers have bought a lot of crap over the years, but we know when we’re being pandered to, right?

But what about those BPAs that really weren’t all that bad?

One such album is Kix’s 1983 release Cool Kids. I remember seeing the cover and thinking the band had a bit of a Ramones vibe going on. They looked metal, of course, but these were the days before “hair metal,” so the shaggy manes weren’t an automatic turn-off. I was in the mood to rock and these guys looked like they might just deliver, so I bought the album.

What I heard both confused and delighted me. Imagine, if you will, a band that looked like a Baltimore street gang (not that I’ve actually seen a Baltimore street gang, mind you) coming at you with a synth-heavy mix of bubblegum and vintage AC/DC. It’s a weird mix on paper and even weirder coming through the headphones, but once I wrapped my teenage mind around it, I was hooked.

“Cool Kids” is the kind of song that should’ve been blasting out of radios during the summer of ’83, a pitch-perfect slice of teen angst set against staccato guitars and a tight-as-a-prom-date (did I really just type that?) bass line. Seriously, download this bad boy and give it a spin. If you aren’t rockin’ the air guitar in your cubicle by the first chorus, we may wanna start feelin’ for a pulse, brah.

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Popularity: 13% [?]

The news of Danny Federici’s passing has me contemplating a number of emotions. It seems that with every passing week, there is news of cancer claiming yet another beautiful spirit and you can’t help but wonder if such a thing is really necessary, or fair, for that matter.

While I readily admit to being a recent convert to the magic and splendor that is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, the reason Danny’s death hits me especially hard is because I too suffer from cancer. I’ve been through chemotherapy a number of times and am scheduled for surgery in mid-May to remove some tissue my doctors describe only as “suspicious.”

Even before I was diagnosed, I was well aware that cancer was the kind of disease that toys with its victims like a cat pawing at a wounded mouse. Sometimes, it takes you swiftly and other times, it lets you alive in such unbearable pain that you wish for death as a release from the prison that life has become.

What was even more disheartening were the countless stories of those who’d supposedly beaten the disease – gone into remission – only to have the cancer return stronger than ever, stealing them suddenly.

Springsteen and his band are gods. There’s really no other way to put it. I can only imagine what it must be like to have lived in New Jersey during the band’s rise from obscurity to super-stardom. Unlike most bands, Bruce and the E Street Band were a gang of brothers, bound by blood and an unwavering devotion to the cause that was rock & roll. (more…)

Popularity: 8% [?]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away lived a kid who hadn’t a care in the world. In the small Indiana town he called home, he had a ton of friends and spent his summers riding bikes around the neighborhood, building makeshift ramps out of scrap pieces of wood, and giving the stay-at-home moms (of which there were many in those days) around the neighborhood minor heart attacks with stunts that would give Evel Knievel pause.

Then one day his own mother told him the grandfather he loved more than anything was dying of leukemia. The family would move to Michigan as his dad had agreed to step in and run the auto parts stores his grandfather had turned into a thriving business.

His first day of school in Michigan would set the tone for the remainder of his childhood. One of the kids took him aside and told him that if anyone tried to beat him up, he’d protect him. Why anyone would beat him up was such a foreign concept. Back in Indiana, there’d been no cliques, no bullies, and no reason to need one of the bigger kids to protect him.

Unable to reconcile such idiocy in his mind, he retreated into his own world and found solace in the music that blasted from his stereo. It became his most trusted friend when others failed him. It understood him when others couldn’t be bothered to try. When his grandfather passed away - having beaten the cancer, but being too weak to stave off the pneumonia that followed – he lost the one human who never judged him harshly, who’d always believed in his every dream as if it were his own. This was a man who’d been told by a teacher that he’d never amount to anything. Years later, after having become a successful business owner, he was visited by this same teacher, who’d come into the store for the express purpose of saying he was wrong. The kid always remembered this when someone told him that he too would never amount to anything. (more…)

Popularity: 16% [?]

When I was a kid, my heroes were, at the very least, deserving of adoration. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Cheap Trick, Dan Pastorini (the one non-musician of the bunch) — the one thing they had in common was that they were immensely talented at what they did. Some would say that they were among the very best, and thus, they seemed bigger than life to me and the millions who adored them. I was inspired by them and what I perceived to be their dedication to the craft. I also admired their shrewd understanding that a fair bit of marketing went a long way, too.

Of course, the music world is not just full of legendary artists such as those named above. For as long as there have been artistes, there have been those whose marketing overshadowed their artistic endeavors. I’m thinking along the lines of C.W. McCall, Taco, and — oh, what the heck — Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

Such one-hit wonders would invariably come out of nowhere, dominate the airwaves for every last second of their fifteen minutes of fame and then, thankfully, disappear into pop oblivion. The respectable artists who were temporarily swept aside to make way for this brief dalliance with the latest “here today, gone tomorrow” pop confection would then return to their rightful place on radio playlists and the ship would right itself.

I mean, acts like Tiffany, Sly Fox, After the Fire, and others had their success, but it was always understood that they’d go away. That’s what one- or two-hit wonders did. It was understood.

But then something weird happened.

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Popularity: 19% [?]