We are now officially in the fourth quarter sales market. Department stores have begun to roll out the Christmas decorations, big summer movies are winding their way to the DVD department and some major releases in music are on the horizon for the all-important time in the retail year. It seemed appropriate, then, for me to discuss some of the most recent new releases in my headphones, one of which comes with a lot of expectation and another that exploded unbidden from out of the blue. Intrigued?

Ben Folds, Way to Normal (Epic)

I’ve been a fan of Folds’s work for a long time but find his solo efforts incredibly uneven. His last release, Songs for Silverman, was a leaden, ballad-heavy affair with very few tracks to really grab hold of. The latest, Way to Normal, should have been a return to form but only half succeeds. Sure, he regains a bit of his bounce and more than a bit of his bite, but the songs come from a sticky place: the dissolution of his third marriage, a relationship that informed most of his previous two albums. What you end up with is a lot of songs that make you feel like a friend has borrowed your ear for a while, relating to you how horrible that witch he used to be with has been. All the while, you have a sneaking suspicion that this friend is hardly as innocent as he claims.

I have no idea about the details of Folds’s personal life or how his marriage came apart. With semi-scathing tunes like “Bitch Went Nuts”, “Errant Dog,” and “You Don’t Know Me,” I frankly don’t want to know. Kiss-off and piss-off songs are common fodder in pop music, but they’re easier to take in smaller doses. They’re also easier on the ears when the production isn’t as abrasive as Dennis Herring’s. Tweedly-sounding synths, canned beat construction, occasional distortions that could be mistaken for blown speakers all attempt to frame the tunes in the most modern way, but become tiresome after a while. Worse, “You Don’t Know Me” employs the wonderful Regina Spektor and gives her nothing to really work with. Spektor, like Folds, has harnessed the power of solo voice and piano to great effect, so it’s really disappointing to find that anyone could have contributed her part on this song. (more…)

Dw. Dunphy

My initial idea for taking in tonight’s town hall debate was to do so with headphones and without visuals. I’ll admit, over the past month or so, the visual component has played a heavier role in how I perceived the outcomes as opposed to what was being said. Ultimately I simply watched the CBS coverage in the standard way. So let’s put aside the vision part of the television, moderator Tom Brokaw’s incessant needling over time constraints, and focus on what was said.

Unlike the dynamic found during the primaries, Barack Obama is attempting to tie what he will do with how he will do it. John McCain relies on a long strand of “just vote for me” and “I know what needs to be done”– which simply drives me insane. First, if he actually knew how to accomplish these things, as he keeps saying with such certitude, why did he wait until he was running for president? If you have a solution and you withhold it until it is politically beneficial to you, what does that say about your decision-making ability or, more precisely, your opportunistic character?

Don’t get me wrong - all politicians are opportunistic. It’s in the red blood cells of the profession. But when it comes to thinking through the haze of a crisis, or a potential crisis, (The hunt for al Qaeda for, example), and focusing everything on that specific mandate, a left turn is taken at Albuquerque to wage war on an unrelated country on the basis of past grudges, Oedipal comeuppance, unverified intelligence and basically shining that sloppy free throw into a “slam dunk.” I need someone to convince me more than just saying: “Vote for me ’cause I know what to do.” I need much, much more convincing. (more…)

Jon Cummings: My junior year at college I took a creative writing class in which all the students received copies of each other’s short stories and offered critiques in a roundtable format. Almost all the students were earnest, ambitious types practicing to write the Great American Novel, and most of the mistakes we made were problems of overreach – of attempting to go from zero to William Faulkner in 8 seconds. One young man, however, submitted a sweet little story that seemed to be written for – and by – an eighth grader. Its plot was simplistic, its characters were cute but vapid, its message was utterly immature – yet the whole thing was rendered successfully, as far as it went. My classmates and I sat around the table and had no idea what to say to this guy; we didn’t know for sure whether he’d really tried to write a children’s story, or whether this effort represented the full firing of his intellectual circuitry. So we gingerly danced around our critiques, piling on the patronizing praise for what he was “able to accomplish” with the “type of story he wrote.” And then, after we’d made the author feel like a winner, we dug into the next story with the kind of analytical intensity each of us would want applied to our own work.

That story pretty much sums up my feelings about tonight’s festivities. It’s a 200-word substitute for “Joe Biden was playing chess, and Sarah Palin was playing Candyland.” She announced at the outset that she wouldn’t really be participating in a debate – “I may not answer the questions the way you want me to, or the way the moderator does …” – and she proceeded to instead offer up a manic, 90-minute imitation of Dolly Parton hosting Hee-Haw, replete with winks and nose-scrunches and “darns” and “you betchas” and rambling soliloquies so full of shit the highlights in her hair faded to brown.

Neither Gwen Ifill nor Biden chose at any point to remind Palin that there were actual questions she was supposed to be answering, actual policies she was meant to be discussing. Palin’s answers were brain dumps interspersed with folksy witticisms aimed directly at the type of folks who are predisposed to want a know-nothing hockey mom rather than a dedicated public servant living in the Naval Observatory. Ifill and Biden didn’t seem to know what to make of this adorable bumpkin, so they carried on as though they were still taking part in something serious and Palin was merely the comic relief. (more…)

Ted Asregadoo

This is the first time Barack Obama and John McCain have faced each other as competitors rather than Senate colleagues, and it’s clear that the chumminess of that institution cast a long shadow over the early part of the debate. Both were cordial, often agreed with one another, and had trouble defining themselves as candidates with different ideas on addressing the problems of the country.

It wasn’t until moderator Jim Lehrer pushed the two of them to articulate their differences that we saw that chumminess start to evaporate.  One of the overarching themes of Friday night’s debate was about resources and how best to allocate them. Money, jobs, energy, and even troops were the resources in question, and the politics centered on how much for whom. Tax breaks for oil companies and businesses, or tax breaks for families making $250,000 or less? Which was going to do its economic magic and help the economy recover? Trickle down or bottom up?

On energy, the two candidates were pretty much on the same page, and only differed on details of how much and when. What shocks me the most is Obama’s support for nuclear energy. Why, if he’s so keen on preventing nuclear “suitcase bombs” from going off in American cities, does he not see the danger of nuclear reactors as terrorist targets? Also, almost no attention is being paid to the huge costs to taxpayers in setting up nuclear reactors, and once they are set up, how do you deal with the nuclear waste? Yucca Mountain can’t hold it all. His pragmatism on oil drilling is understandable, but it overshadows his commitment to alternative energy — which, when McCain chimes in, makes it sound like both men don’t mean it.

(more…)

We’ve been fairly professional about this up ’til now. However, after this week, my objectivity is gone. Hitch up your sports cup, rant fans: here I go.

President George W. Bush recently visited Monmouth County, NJ to press the flesh for the local candidates. There were several protests to commemorate the event, but one piece of dissension that quietly slipped by was a sign lovingly placed on Laird Road, home to an extensive apple orchard owned by Laird’s Apple Jack Company. The sign read “Mister Bush, do not come here. You are the worst president in history.”

This week, the government is betting the farm on a bailout for Wall Street. Companies allowed to run rampant and wild, trampling business ethics and common sense, are being given a huge financial do-over because, if they don’t get the money, they could run us straight into a depression. If you look at the numbers — the real ones, not the fudged figures our elected officials have been slipping us — you’ll find we’re already in a recession. We were lied to, essentially, because it’s an election year, and if the truth is kept in the darkness long enough, it ceases to be an issue. It ceases to exist. Right? It won’t harm the party, right?

Peer behind the truth-speak. They’ve been saying they want to “avoid recession,” but they really mean “avoid depression” — as in Great Depression. Because Bush allowed his rich cronies free reign, his trickle-down theory has finally short-circuited the works, and guess who gets the golden shower? You the taxpayer, or should I say your kids. You remember all of Bush’s tax cuts and that flaccid, impotent Economic Stimulus Package? You, the next generation and maybe the one after that are going to have to repay it back for many, many years to come. Because George told his white-collared criminal cohorts to go nuts, unrestricted and unencumbered, they have flipped the ultimate gambit on us, blackmailing us to pay up or else the whole  economy gets it.

George W. Bush went after Iraq like a size queen at a stud farm, diverting necessary funds and troops from Afghanistan. Now the Taliban are back and pushing hard to destabilize what little stability there was. Why did he do it? Was it the Iraq oil? Was it a sick vendetta that put his personal grudge against the welfare of the country he runs? Was it a twisted Oedipal foul to show up his father who couldn’t get Saddam Hussein, or was it an in-your-face to brother Jeb who the family, supposedly, had infinitely more confidence in? Does it matter now? The dead are dead. The hands are slicked with blood and oil, and the mastermind of one of America’s darkest days was allowed to slip away because of you, Mr. Bush. I blame you. (more…)

I’m not a politics junkie, really. I know that might be hard to believe based on some of my columns over the last year. You’d find support in your disbelief from my family members as they recount the agony I go through while running through the Sunday morning roundtable tortures.

This Sunday, much like last Sunday and the one before it, the buzz was about how John McCain has co-opted Barack Obama’s tentpole strategy of change. Some argue that he is only flipping his deck of cards around, that he utters change while he shuffles out constancy. Others are saying that he actually has presented change, but only one, yet that single one has all but assured him a close run to the White House - Sarah Palin. The other big topic for the talking heads was the collapse and eventual sale of Lehman Bros. Investments and the rapidly plummeting stock prices for Washington Mutual (WaMu) and other notable lenders.

It all started me to thinking about the notion of change beyond the rhetorical slings and arrows. What changes are we actually looking for in this country? Who among us are secure? Who are hanging in, and who have given up? Despite optimistic numbers all summer long, unemployment is at a five year record high, so pervasive that those once rose-tinted figures had to be retro-actively adjusted to gel with the facts. I posed the question to some of my fellow Popdose writers: how are you doing? We’re presenting the responses here as an invitation to you, the readers. Feel free to share your situation with us in the comments section.

A point worth mentioning: this article has been several months in the making and while individual circumstances may have changed from person to person, the viewpoints are still valid, the message still has merit and is presented in that respect.

(more…)

There are several degrees of expectation, but the key ones are low expectation, high expectation, and original Metallica fans. You’re aware of the first two, I’m sure, but number three may be a mystery to you, and for good reason, as satisfaction requires nothing less than a wormhole in time, a crate of Jagermeister, and just maybe the reanimated dead. Intrigued?

Friday marks the release of Metallica’s latest, Death Magnetic, and already the fists are flying. Some are claiming it’s a return to the sound somewhere between … And Justice for All (1988) and the eponymous “Black Album” (1991), and they’re not too far off. Balancing between the hard rock Metallica’s been working for the past decade and the guitar-solo heavy thrash of their earlier benchmarks, Death Magnetic is a study in compromises. Yes, it was produced by Rick Rubin, who made his early mark producing Slayer. (He’s also produced Jay-Z, Johnny Cash, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.) Yes, it has that dry, reverb-adverse sound that dogged Metallica’s previous album, St. Anger (2003). Yes, guitarist Kirk Hammett gets to wail again. No, this is not Master of Puppets II.

That last bit is key — after having been promised and teased that those young and angry lunatics had returned, we have the album you would expect to have followed the previous ones. Robert Trujillo is a fine bass player, but, to paraphrase Chevy Chase, Cliff Burton is still dead. Thank you and have a pleasant tomorrow.

This is where the divide becomes clear: those who appreciated “The Black Album” will find much to like about the new one, and not unintentionally. There’s a reason why the dominant graphic tone on the cover is a stark, blinding white and why we’re now up to “The Unforgiven III.” But to those who thought of “The Black Album” as some kind of heresy, this is another injustice (pardon the pun).

(more…)

Dw.: Well, John McCain is in a pickle now, isn’t he? Last week he chose a running mate that would satisfy certain weak sectors of his ticket - the Christian Right, young people and women. One day after Sarah Palin’s speech, she is suddenly the party’s superstar. It helps him in the polls, but now he has two people to wrestle the spotlight from: Barack Obama and his own VP choice.

Jon: I think McCain needs to back away from the nastiness of Wednesday evening. Mitt, Rudy and Sarah were so over the top, and the crowd in the hall was so angry, that the long-term impact might be an implosion of the Republican Party brought on by its own misplaced victimhood and unearned condescension. McCain needs to offer something different tonight.

Ted: This speech will tell us a lot about how much McCain wants to be president, and how low he will stoop to get it. So far, he has kowtowed to his advisors and party regulars, who steered him away from picking his top choices for VP (Thompson and Lieberman) in order to go with Palin.

Dw.: Tonight’s speech has to be a winner. By even the standards of the conservative pundits, Obama’s was one for the ages. McCain needs to bring the impact, and badly. The question is how he’ll approach the task. Will he rise above the verbal flogging his compatriots inflicted over the last two and a half days, addressing the audience as a statesman? Or will he sink to a barrage of easy cliches, distortions, and the kibbles and bits the red states lap up so willingly?

Ready, steady, go…!

McCain takes the stage…

Dw: Heeeeere’s Johnny!

Jon: What was with that intro video? Very Leni Riefenstahl, with the voiceover and the flagwaving. And now McCain enters, and that huge spotlight is terribly Triumph of the Will. (more…)

Multiple choice time on Popdose, kids. Make sure that pencil is a #2 and don’t forget to fill your circles completely. Your future depends on how you do on this test (snicker, snicker.) Okay, let’s begin!

1. The Alan Parsons Project was:

a) a pop / prog band from the late 1970s to the early 1990s

b) an adult contemporary band from the same time period that your parents thought were “neat”

c) a punchline in an Austin Powers movie

d) all of the above.

(more…)

Dw. Dunphy: Yes! I have been waiting for this all week: Palin Time! Do you think they’ll do the Dead Parrot sketch? Maybe even … the Cheese Shop?! I can’t wait for — What? No, please! You can’t do this to me! I have so little to look forward to! This is the only thing that got me through the week! I spent the entire evening digging out my Knights Of Ni helmet!

Fine. You win. But the Alaska chick better be hilarious.

Jon Cummings: Well, the lead-up today has been pretty darn amusing. First there was the saga of Levi, the baby daddy, and his vulgar MySpace page that concluded that he was “in a relationship” but “I don’t want kids.” Then there was the leak of an off-mic conversation between Chuck Todd and Peggy Noonan in which she admitted Palin wasn’t “the most qualified” candidate and said of her selection, “I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives … Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it … It’s over.”

Ted Asredagoo: According to my brother in-law, who lives in Alaska, Palin will be an albatross around McCain’s neck. This so-called maverick who brought home the pork to Wasilla, who was in favor of the “Bridge to Nowhere” until she was against it, who is anti-choice except when it’s her own teenage daughter who’s “with child,” and who is allegedly using the power of her office to punish her former brother in-law because, well, he’s divorcing Palin’s sister.

Mitt Romney moves (though his hair doesn’t) onstage, and quickly launches into a tirade about “liberal Washington”…

Dw.: Romney is painting eight years of George W. Bush as “liberal Washington.”

Jon: I know this guy wears magic underwear, but he’s truly delusional. Yeah, Mitt, the Supreme Court’s really “liberal.” (Well, it is if torture is your idea of good conservative values, which Mitt clearly does.) Teaching to the lowest-common-denominator test under No Child Left Behind is “liberal.” The slightest hint of regulation of oil speculators is “liberal.” Well, douchebag, if “liberal” is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

Dw.: America — more awesome than Atlantis in every way. “America — the hope of the earth!”

Jon: So the solution to all the problems created by the Bush years is to pursue…the policies of the Bush years!

Dw.: Oh, Mitt, you big, dumb baseball glove. Go get yourself a couple extra wives. (more…)