Initials: B.S.

Rest of it probably not worth the effort, but as this mostly agrees w/ most of our musical opinions (OK, some of these acts we've never consciously heard/listened to more than once, max.) we'll just leave it here.

Blame it on stubbornness if you will, or subconscious ass-covering, but I honestly can’t manage any kinder words now than I did at the time for Sting’s early solo work (“a tedious, bankrupt and vacuous cavern of a record … his pedantic instincts and bulging ego inform the lyrics at every turn with political dilettantism, literary namedropping and prolix pseudo-profundities”), Jane’s Addiction (“most of the record sounds like the work of an incompetent Aerosmith cover band. And Farrell’s effete habit of interjecting the word ‘motherfucker’ merely frosts the album’s maggotry”), Barenaked Ladies (“As cute as a baby and as appealing as a loaded diaper”) or any barrel-bound fish I have shot at. I do a mental check of my animosity for Bruce Springsteen now and again (he’s not an artist I’ve written much about, but my friends have all heard the spiel, and I was once included in a newspaper article about rock crit apostasy because of it; my other digressions from the gospel include the Flying Burrito Brothers, Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams and Wilco), and I’m still not a fan.

Note to self: Nice start to the new yr., abusing the successful & popular from a collapsing hovel in downtown Bitter-Fucking-Hatredville, where we're sitting around in last yr.'s stained & hole-y underwear.