Robert Cass: It’s time for me to come clean with all of you — I’m from the future. Though I’ve been living among you for some time now, I was born in a more technologically advanced age in which time travel is possible. Unfortunately, they don’t make ‘em like they used to, so my time machine broke once I arrived here. While I wait for repairs to be made and tricked-out accessories to be added by a man named Robert Zemeckis, who I was told could help, I’m basking in the awesomeness that is 2008.

You people really don’t know how good you’ve got it. For instance, did you know that the music of this decade is the best music of all time? It’s true! Those of you who think the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, or ’90s produced the best pop music are hopelessly stuck in the past, whereas I’m literally stuck in the past, but at least I know for a fact that music peaked in the “aughts,” so I actually have something to get misty-eyed about.

Ah, 2008. It was the last time Metallica would put out an album. In 2010 they broke up after Kirk Hammett’s hair plugs gained artificial intelligence and strangled him in his sleep. He was the buffer between James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, who couldn’t get along without him there to block their punches. Hetfield retreated to a cabin in the Ozarks, where his homemade brand of “light” moonshine made him a billionaire, and Ulrich retreated to Middle-Earth, where he became a wizard.

In the future there is no war. But there are still anti-war videos. It gives liberals something to do on their down time at the re-education camps.

Beau Dure: Re-education? Does that mean in the future Americans are educated in the first place? That’s an improvement.

As for me, my nightmares about the “One” video will be replaced by nightmares that we get to the future by listening to this dull remake of it over and over, eight grueling minutes at a time. (more…)

Happy Monday, folks! What says “starting off the work week” like counting down the Top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100? Nothing, that’s what, so let’s get to counting!

The last time we visited the Hot 100, this damn song was on it, and here it is, still hanging around. Previously, I said I loved it because it represents — it has to represent — the ludicrous end of the road for the Auto Tune plague that has smothered Top 40 radio like a smallpox-infected blanket for the last year and change. Admittedly, that really doesn’t fit the standard definition of love, but it’s more than I can say about “Lollipop” this week.

I don’t hate Lil Wayne, and I don’t even really hate “Lollipop,” but I can’t hear past that damn vocal gimmick — which is probably the point; take it away, and there isn’t much of a song left over. Of course technology has been masking artistic weaknesses for decades; from a certain point of view, this little dung heap is to the ’00s what, say, Rick Springfield’s “Celebrate Youth” was to the ’80s. Does this mean Lil Wayne is five years away from playing casinos and state fairs? Cross your fingers. (more…)