I want salty snacks!

My top ten list for 2001 is finally up on Amplifier Magazine�s site. Now I have to finish my reviews for the next issue. I have this one really terrible album to review�Frantic with Edna, Siberia. I know it�s the job of a critic but I hate giving bad reviews. Probably because most of the negative reviews you read nowadays are indier-than-thou scared little boys who wouldn�t even know how to pick up an instrument if it had pornography pasted all over it. Anyway, the concept of the CD is just fine�Siberia�for the idea of it, the whole Russian deportation land thing, but the woman has this totally flat voice, which happens to be one of my biggest pet peeves. I can�t really handle Natalie Merchant for this reason (besides all of her pretentious falsely projected earth mother spiritual wholeness) as she trails off at the end of every damn note. Courtney Love too, who doesn�t sing flat all the way through but trails off emphatically the same way at the end of every phrase. Creative! But I despise her for a whole host of other reasons. Her music is the best thing about her. Of course your music is going to be recognized when your husband�s band �broke punk.� I�m not even going to start on Courtney Love because I�ve got a cold and I just don�t want to waste the energy. Ok, so Frantic with Edna. Besides the flat vocals the lyrics are ridiculous. I can say it�s like nothing I�ve ever heard. And there�s a damn good reason for that. Ringo sings flat and even though the Beatles� are one of my all time favs, I couldn�t listen to most of his songs for quite awhile. They got wise come Sgt. Pepper�s, and purposefully wrote �A Little Help from my Friends� in his key. I saw Thee Sir George Martin speak about a year and a half ago and he was talking about how Ringo literally needed a little help from his friends at the end of the song when he hits the last �high� note. He said the other Beatles all sang it with him to boost his confidence. But then you have those songs like, �Don�t Pass me by� and �Act Naturally� which are just kind of painful for me to listen to. I wonder why I didn�t get into the Beatles until I was older�well everyone thinks the Beatles songs all children will love are �Yellow Submarine� and �Octopus� Garden.� Ok, I may be being a little jaded. I do actually enjoy those songs for what they�re worth.

So I have this cold and I don�t have much to write. I�m a big dirty bore today.