Album Review: Guns n' Roses - Chinese Democracy

Guns n' Roses - Chinese Democracy
Release: November 23, 2008
Genre: Rock
Label: Geffen Records
Length: 71:18

Nick's Rating: 2.5/5

Oh, the pain, my flesh is burning. Listening to this album was so hard, and writing this review is even harder. The album's greatest success is only as a whole, and even that's not exactly on a musical level. Chinese Democracy is a nightmarish ride through an obsession with Nine Inch Nails finally being brought to the forefront, a trek through the marshes of mediocrity (it contributes three good songs, a few aveage ones, and some true shit to the GNR legacy), but most importantly, a look deep into the shallow depths of Axl's soul.

I don't really know why this is a GNR record. Why, because Dizzy Reed contributed "Silkworms," which didn't even make the album, anyway? It's just another of Axl's megalomaniac tendencies, showing that he was the band, when his whiny vocals tended not to suit a band who sang about bad neighbors, living poor, and Night Train. Meanwhile, Rose's needle-like vocalizations actually benefit this album in most of the places where they're audible. While I would probably have vomited if they completed the lead vocals of "Shackler's Revenge," he manages to pull out well enough on some of the ballads.

But first, we should look at some of the things that were NOT included -- should we be thankful? Actually, no. If a few of the more uninteresting songs (such as "Scraped," which I can't even remember now, and "There Was a Time") were cut for "Silkworms" and "Oh My God," the album would probably be a lot better off.

Speaking of better, I'm finally beginning to be okay with that song. At the time the album was first released until about a week ago, I hated it. The hook was limp and the lyrics were just another of Rose's wanky indictments of everyone who 'betrayed' him. Truth be told, the hook is poor, and the into is almost a complete dealbreaker, as is the middle section, but it's a pretty good song, because of its... uh, distorted to the point of cleanness (boy, that Axl Rose is nuts, ain't he?)... main riff, over which Axl explains his plight with an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend or something that I can be even less arsed to figure out than... most other things, actually. The fact is, the song sounds like several GNR songs, and I can't quite place which one/s off-hand, and that's probably why I actually grew to like it. It's still a pale shadow of those old songs (Axl, when oh when do we get another "Right Next Door to Hell?" Or another "Mr. Brownstone?"), and the nineties nostalgia consumes the entire song.

That's probably the big problem with this album -- the change in sound. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but GNR cannot do this very well, not to mention that any time this sound is used, it already sounds like it's been done so much before that it cannot provide any sort of pleasure at all, and it devoids songs of any vitality, with few exceptions. For a good example, check out "I.R.S.," which wasn't necessarily a great song in the first place, but in older demos, the riff came to life and didn't sound like it was cheaply made on a computer. Now, as it stands, it's cute, but utterly worthless, and if earlier songs weren't proof that the skip button was the greatest thing to happen to the CD player since... the CD player... you'll be up and heading for the machine as the plastic-forged riff rears its lifeless head. I mean, I do like a few songs whose riffs could've been a rip-roarin' demon of a distortion-wall but got frozen into a fragile form, but there has to be a reason for this other than wanting to test out the latest technology from the early 1990s, about when Axl probably locked himself in his room to cry about how everything should change. Eventhing except the music, of course -- otherwise, why would Nine Inch Nails' Robin Finck or Josh Freese, who now is a member of Devo of all groups to have any association with Axl Rose, be needed at any point along the record's development?

There are only two reasons why you shouldn't turn this album off after the first three tracks, but neither is very great... they're just good. The first is in the form of Rhiad and the Bedouins Riyadh and the Bedouins Riad n' the Bedouins, where Axl Rose proves his controlling nature by changing the name of the song not once but twice during its development to simply change the spelling. That... is perfectionism. "I don't give a fuck 'bout them / 'cause I. Am. CRAZY!" indeed, Axl. May I recommend Prozac? Did you predict the future and steal dialogue from Crazy Dave of Plants vs. Zombies, mate? Lyrically it's a suckjob, yes, but it has a damn good riff for swimming in a sea of mediocrity. The other, though, wins solely on an emotional level, and that's closer "Prostitute," which seems to manage the 'forlorn' feeling Axl was going for throughout the whole album, where you finally can actually feel for Axl and his self-induced abandonment. Of course, lyrically, it's the same dumb shit you should expect from this man.

Of course, the two absolute best songs (to me) sit at the very start of the album. The title track, despite its completely unnecessary massive, cinematic, string-flooded opener, actually pulls out a nice opener and, unbelievably, acceptable, if generic vocals (probably because the actual lead seens to be handled by someone else with Axl in the back!) that actually allow the bitterness and anger (probably not directed at the People's Republic in the title, but at some other backstabber) that, combined with the fact that the song has something resembling drive, make it pretty much of a winner. Its pair, then, is the restrained, brooding, not... not necessarily creepy or even dark, but definitely making a good attempt at it... "Shackler's Revenge" boasts a lot of dynamic shifting that make it a startling and even disorienting listen, with the band aiming for a dark atmosphere and an almost honest account of a killer seeking to exterminate... another backstabber. Overall, very boring lyrically, but those dark vocals, and the weird-sounding solo section with the odd chorus in the background that sound like they want to be flamethrowers, while the bass remains invisible and the drums sound like plastic... it's very weird, which is a symptom the whole album suffers from, but it's actually shockingly good.

The album, though, brings up one very important point. Let's remind ourselves that the record took 15+ years to see release and has 14 tracks, of which two are great, three are modestly okay, and the other nine range from total shit to too unmemorable to be considered. I think, then, that we can make a simple test for a new album. If the ratio between years since last album and number of tracks on the album is 1 or greater, the album is probably not worth buying in whole. It's depressing; I like the 90s electronic-based rock 'scene,' which has given us great albums like Violator and Broken, but this half-assed tribute (musically speaking; lyrically... this album is oddly lacking on swears, so how close can it get to Reznorian dimensions, since Trent came up with that "I wanna fuck you like an animal" song. You know, "Closer"?) to that era leaves me damn cold in some places. The best parts, though, tend to resemble the songs of the style that GNR used to do so well before the hiatus. You know, back when Slash was in the band. Which just goes to show that this is a band that, even if they had only the one skill, had it in spades. Can we deny for even a minute that Appetite for Destruction and the Use Your Illusion saga were deserved gargantuans? Fuck no.

I should note, though, that I probably am a little bit bitter about having to buy this at fucking Best Buy, where I paid around $16 US for this CD new. I have always fucking hated Best Buy with every fiber of my existence, and this record's price versus its quality may have something to do with it. As well, I didn't get my free Dr. Pepper two years ago, but what can you do. I feel I was being conservative with this record's rating, but remember that 2.5 is basically a "just below average" on a scale of one to five. It's just extremely frustrating... and this record makes me want to take a fifteen-year nap before I post my next article.

Good lord, I am angry. I'll try to actually review something likable next time.

Cosplay!Get : Utena Tenjou

As a cosplayer, one of the best feelings in the world is to get a costume out there that you feel proud of. If you're wearing it and you're having a great time, then you can consider it an outfit well made. Recently I've posted about my in-progress Utena Tenjou cosplay, from Revolutionary Girl Utena.

I'm really proud of this costume; it reflects how far I've come as a cosplayer. Way back when I was making my first messy hand-stitches in 2006, I never really thought I'd ever manage a tailored coat with full props. The coat here was created from a basic women's suit jacket pattern, with each side elongated to form the 'flaps'. The crinoline was rouched and sewn on the inside of the panels in a manner that would not show the stitches on the outside.

All props for my group were created by me; most gems were moulded out of dyed, poured epoxy resin, or sculpted out of clay. It's here where I've found that my talents really lie in prop creation as opposed to sewing. I'm not a good seamstress at all, really, but I love to make all the little (or large!) finicky, shiny things that make a costume pop out in a crowd.

My two fellow cosplayers were good friends of mine, and I was really lucky to be able to stick around them for the entire weekend of Anime North 2010. All in all, a really comfy, really good looking, and really fun costume to wear!

Review: Ico

Title: Ico
Developer: Team Ico
Platform: PlayStation 2

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Regarding Fumito Ueda's minimalist puzzle-adventure Ico, the cat's kind of been out of the bag for a while. The substantially more successful Shadow of the Colossus garnered interest in Mr. Ueda's previous work, and the upcoming The Last Guardian (which was conspicuously absent from this year's E3) has fired off rumors of an Ico and Shadow of the Colossus two-pack Hi-Definition re-release. So Fumito Ueda is the vanguardist Japanese developer of the moment; in the West, at least.

I don't like how many reviewers speak in hushed, reverent tones about Ico, though, like it's not a video game. "Step back, guys; now this, this is art!" I don't know Mr. Ueda, but I figure he knows that people like his games not only because they're soothing and emotional, but also because they're fun. There is an alternate, lightly humorous ending in Ico, you know, and also a hidden lightsaber weapon that dissipates enemies in one swing. (These features were omitted from the North American release, however.) And since there are already a lot of reviews of Ico out there that recycle the stock terms ("poignant", "gorgeous", "unique", etc.), I'm just going to give a straightforward commentary on what is admittedly one of my favorite games.

Ico begins simply enough. The titular character is a small boy with taurine horns jutting out of his head, and he's being carried by armored men into a seaside castle shrouded in mist. Ico, as all horned boys before him, is going to be sacrificed "for the good of the village". But he manages to escape his premature tomb, and meets a perturbingly beautiful girl named Yorda. Now, the two will attempt to escape the castle's stone bowels, but the Queen, apparently Yorda's mother, will not allow her to leave. All of this is told through sparse cinematic sequences spoken in a fictional language. About two thirds of the subtitles are in English, while the rest are in really pretty-looking hieroglyphs, which we are to assume correspond to the fictional language.

The meat of the game consists of, as the nimble Ico, navigating the castle's various areas, climbing ladders and working switches to manipulate the environment in such a way that Yorda can safely cross to the next area. Each place is a massive puzzle, and none of them are outstandingly hard. To hinder your progress, a black vortex will periodically appear, letting forth a host of smoke-creatures who will try to whisk Yorda away. Ico has to ward them off with a stick (and later a sword). Combat is very rough, limited to mashing Square until the enemies dissipate and the vortex disappears. Seeing as Ico is a boy as opposed to a capable swordsman, this makes sense, but doesn't save fighting from becoming monotonous. Fortunately these sequences are always quite short and never too frequent. The game can be completed in something like six hours, but as I mentioned, there is some extra content to motivate a second run.

Are there technical issues? Definitely, but none are very frustrating. Probably the only one that really stands out is Yorda's A.I. Sometimes she simply won't know what to do. Ico may extend his hand to help her cross a chasm, and she'll just stand there. Ico may take a seat to initiate the game-saving process, and she'll just stand there. Ico may call her to climb down a ladder, and halfway down, she'll start climbing back up. But you'll come to love Yorda, felicitously, even if your particular Yorda is a little damaged in the head.

Now, regarding what is probably the most commonly evoked term for this game--atmosphere--, Mr. Ueda shows his predilection for exposition through simplicity in Ico. Despite how gray things may look, it all works in blacks and whites; the key to Ico's freedom is magical light, while smoking shadows try to drag Yorda into imprisonment. Yorda herself is an ethereal, almost alien white, immediately asserting her status as some sort of royalty or unearthly deity beside Ico, who is small and evidently human. The Queen is draped in black.

More famously, Mr. Ueda excels at size comparisons, conveying an almost dizzying sense of scale; this concept would later be worked into the very core of Shadow of the Colossus. The castle is an impossible feat of architectural sorcery. With the flip of a switch you will manipulate gigantic, rusted containers dangling from golden chains above a foggy abyss. Arched bridges stand infinitely tall over a churning, frigid sea. It is in certain platform sections that make great use of this setting that Ico shows the influence of Eric Chahi's Out of This World. Both are simplistic platform games about exploring alien worlds, punctuated by sparse music and dialogue. Out of This World is sci-fi and Ico is fantasy, but they use similar tricks: vast landscapes extend far beyond the player's range of movement, with vague shapes outlined against the endless sky. It always makes the player wonder what's over there. In the case of the castle, you will often find yourself looking into the distance to spot areas that you have already visited or will soon visit, establishing it as a real, concrete place. Or maybe you'll just force the camera way to the side to get a good look at the sea.

So Ico does a great job when it comes to building a fascinating world, and only letting you explore a diminute portion of it. This, of course, makes it all the more seductive. It deals with common and identifiable themes; a brave, kind youth seeks to free a beautiful damsel. Alienation, loss and longing for the past all play a part. It is a decidedly romantic adventure, and because all of these things are presented in clear and uncompromising images, they can pack a stronger punch than your usual narrative video game, which spins a long and winding yarn. When you're done with Ico, you'll probably have a lingering feeling of something, but then again, I suppose that's the case with many other video games.

But a nice aspect of Ico is that anyone can play it and complete it, no matter their 'specialization' when it comes to the games they play. It's a pretty succint and distinguished experience, although the organic build of the puzzles and the game's familiar silence can be very alluring; the first time I beat it, I immediately started a second round.

For what it's worth, I still like Ico better than Shadow of the Colossus, because it's more intimate, more disarming and more naïve. Or maybe I just think I prefer it because it's a little more obscure than its successor and I want to feel different. Either way, you'd do well to give it a try; you have very little to lose, anyway.

... Well, other than money. Ico fetches quite the price these days. Let's hope that rumor about an HD re-release is true, if only to make copies affordable again.

Album Review: Alice Cooper - Dragontown

Alice Cooper - Dragontown

Release: September 18, 2001

Genre: Rock

Label: Spitfire Records

Length: 50:48

Nick's Rating: 4/5

At times, it's easy enough to spot genius, even for the truly stupid. When you scan over rock music, you're bound to note the favorite genii of the average radio-listener in the Beatles, the Stones, Zep, et cetera; the genii of choice for the hipsters and neo-goths in Joy Division, The Cure, et cetera; metalheads' musical brains in Black Sabbath, Metallica*, et al.; and so many more. Sometimes, though, there are some that you do not expect to fill these positions, and yet, they do it deftly, fitting the throne as though it were built especially for them.

Alice Cooper is not the man you would expect to ever do this. He was smart, yes, but what did he do? Give Marilyn Manson his goonish costumes and make a few okay albums? Write a few hair-metal songs then fade away into Christian conservative golfer obscurity? Crank out shlock in the 70s then turn to shit? However, most people who say this forget a few things:

a) He was discovered by Frank fucking Zappa. Uncle Frank would not go out of his way to getCooper Vincent Furnier (back when 'Alice Cooper' was actually the band) onto his label if he thought the man was mediocre.

b) Marilyn Manson wasn't exactly his idea, and he... is indifferent, I'd say, to him.

c) "A few okay albums" are only the ones that sold, except the aforementioned hair-metal nonsense.

d) The hair metal was mostly just to either a) exploit that genre's typical listeners (you know, the guys who make pot shots at Donald Fagen just for his name) from 1986-7, or b) send a message in a medium that might be listened to from 1989-91 (well, in most cases, he was).

e) Most people are judging him by a maximum of five songs.

There's the rub, of course. Five songs, as many Muse fans hasten to tell me as I cringe at my radio, are not enough to judge an artist. You might be inclined to think of Cooper as only having developed the whole 'stage makeup' thing outside progressive rock and David Bowie. That may be. However, is it necessary to be a progenitor to be a genius? Wasn't now-deceased Voivod guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour a genius? (The fanbase is inclined to believe so, at least) Did he invent technical thrash guitar? (Fuck no!)

It's this sort of genius that boils to the top with Alice Cooper's Dragontown, a fine, and wrongly-overlooked, album of the early 2000s, at a time when music was in severe self-conflict with no sign of an ending in sight. One of the major problems with this was that the then-common nu-metal artists, everyone from Disturbed to Godsmack to Otep and beyond, seemed to take themselves deadly serious. We're talking about Alice fucking Cooper here, though; if a Cooper album were completely serious, somebody's head would probably explode. (Again, Frank Zappa connection.) At the same time, though, Alice is not only less serious than these artists, but he's more serious (no, really), and has a real message (was there a message to Disturbed, et cetera?). On some level, you could say that Alice is overly preachy here, that he spends the album evangelizing on the nature of Hell and how all mankind are sinners. Well, yes, okay... but it's not like he's trying to convert us to Christianity, he's simply indicating the evils of the world. In all, agood message -- yeah, from the guy who wrote "School's Out."

It might be better to start this flea circus show at the very beginning, given its conceptual state. Generated in an era of semi-industrial hard-rock (following more along the Rammstein pattern, with its wry sense of humor), you'd be shocked to find that opening song "Triggerman" is basically just a psychedelic pop song with heavy guitar sounds as opposed to a lascerating 'links zwo drei vier!'-worthy death anthem. Boost this one a few more points with its lyrics from the point of view of Big Brother (with some mechanical effects applied to make the joke really sink in). What sets this apart from one of Alice's standard jokes, though? Black comedy has always been the Coop's modus operandi, situated somewhere between the nightmare and mildly creepy ends of the creepiness meter, but here Alice is intent on slamming it into the nightmare end. The first song is him doing his best to muster paranoia fuel incarnate -- and while he doesn't seem to be a master of that, "Triggerman" is at least a good rock song.

It's from here, though, that things take an interesting turn. A friend of mine called "Deeper" creepy. Said friend of mine had only ever been seen (by me) to be creeped out by one other thing, and that was Giygas. Even the second-most-nightmare-inducing boss I've yet run into, the mermaid boss in Rule of Rose, didn't much phase him. So, that stands as basically an explanation of how nasty this song is, as Alice leads you into an elevator straight to that place where Satan lurks. The fear of being trapped on a one-way street to the abyss, where anything could be lurking in the shadows, rides high throughout, and serves as the perfect introduction to "Dragontown," which is Hell itself, and appropriately dark and creepy.

For the most part though, the rest of the album is trivial, except the song "I Just Wanna Be God," which is a riot throughout, a truly humorous song that averts the creepiness of other parts of the album, but still proves that the Coop and his band are as great as they always have been... even if the band is not the same that came up with "I'm Eighteen" or, uh, anything on Billion Dollar Babies (you can choose your favorite), or even Welcome to My Nightmare. This is a much better band than chart success (yeah, right... the album scraped by at #197 or so without a trace) would have you believe. From here, the rest of the album is rather, again, trivial, but that's not to say you shouldn't listen to it. In terms of theme, the album retains a solid focus throughout and never stops being enjoyable, even if it's kind of preachy... but that's part of the point. The album succeeds on that level. One of the problems with the album, though, is that you might get bored with some songs, and particularly with being buried in social commentary on songs like "Fantasy Man" and "Somewhere in the Jungle" -- the latter of which, by the way, is certainly a haunting song about the Rwanda genocide, but, as would be expected of such a song, not easy to listen to.

The important point about this, though, is that, despite the occasional industrial and nu-metal stylings, this is essentially similar to just what Alice has always been doing, and the fact that it's been so forgotten is just unforgivable, especially since the media at large has a massive hard-on for 'classicism.' I recently purchased Stone Temple Pilots' self-titled album. Never in recent history have I heard so many uses of phrases such as 'Beatlesesque' thrown around. I just find it very odd that a media so obsessed with borrowing sound from classic rock records managed to only point out that this record borrows from a nu-metal sound and that it's a "good" record. The fact is, this record manages to visit the intended themes of the Coop's newest followers in the music industry, Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie, better that they have shown themselves able to. Songs like "Triggerman" and "I Just Wanna Be God" make the album a worthy purchase, while songs like "Deeper" and "Dragontown" show that the Coop is not only aging gracefully, but that he is still a true genius, because of just how many imitators he has generated. The 'nightmare' aspect Manson et al. go for in music, and which, in other media, something such as Eversion might seek, is done far better here than in such media, not to mention, the performance skill is great, considering it is, apparently, a nu-metal album.

By the way, I read somewhere that there's a 'special edition' of this album, but I have never actually been able to get hold of a copy of it.

*More well-read metalheads will tell you that this credit should go to Accept, among other bands, more than Metallica

Cosplay: Utena

I really enjoy cosplay. I'm comfortable in the costumes, having my pictures taken, props, everything. But let it be said that sometimes the process isn't the most smooth of ones. There's lots of stops and starts, as well as quite a bit of experimentation -- even when an outfit's done you're still thinking of ways to improve it. Enter Utena. I've been working on this for about a month now, on and off -- probably about 15 hours of work total?

There's still a lot to be done. But have some process pictures!

This coat forms the bulk of the costume proper. What you're seeing here is all the parts just pinned on, therefore, it's still in need of a bunch of tailoring, as well as figuring out the collar bits. But I'm really happy with what's done so far!

Utena's shoes are of the 'tuxedo' sort. Unfortunately, they don't make ones like hers in a tuxedo style if you're on a budget. Since I needed a comfortable alternative, I did kind of a nifty thing. White converse can be bought at any store for around $20. They're basically the same shape as Utena's shoes, so what did I do? Paint them!

These are just a few odds and ends I've been making out of clay and painting. The Resin is currently cooling outside.

And there you have it! A cosplay in process.

OST Review: Final Fantasy XIII

An OST review from one of our guest bloggers, Azkam.

Final Fantasy XIII OST (Standard English Edition)

Release: January 27, 2010

Length: 4:03:26

Azkam's Rating: 4/5

So What's the Deal?

First of all, I’d like to thank Sydney for bestowing upon me this wonderful 4-disc box of ear-candy. Delicious. The Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack—composed by Masashi Hamauzu—is mystical and epic; in other words, perfect adventure music. The abundance of high strings and military drums, as well as a strong brass section, lend to the imagery of vast landscapes both natural and man-made, and evoke emotions ranging from determination to desolation to hope. Seamlessly blended electronic and ambient elements, piano accents, and atonal/chromatic sections in individual pieces give the music a modern feel.

‘Prelude’ on Disc 1 sets the mood of the soundtrack perfectly, beginning with drums, chilly ambience, and low strings. Low brass is added, and the track builds to a triumphant, sweeping climax. I’d also like to mention track 2 on Disc 2, ‘The Promise’, which is arranged several times throughout the soundtrack. It is a sweet, delicate piece reflecting both sadness and love. I especially like the string/low brass outro.

Character Themes

Lightning has a beautiful theme. The piano and strings flow together wonderfully, weaving in and out of each other to create the image of a hero who pushes onward despite inner turmoil and hopelessness. Parts of this theme are used in Defiers of Fate (?), Blinded by Light, and a couple of other tracks.

Serah’s theme: in short, ‘The Promise’ with vocals.

Snow’s theme reminds me a lot of the Digital Devil Saga OST. Nice guitar sounds, but overall not a very memorable track—personally, I think it could have been more fast-paced.

Sazh’s theme is groovy! Although that was probably a given seeing as the character has a bird living in his ‘fro. The atonal guitar strumming provides an upbeat backdrop for yummy piano solos and some jazzy trumpets. Also, it provides alternating bars of 5/4 and 6/4 time. Craaaaazy.

Hope’s theme is a soothing acoustic guitar piece. Regardless of whether or not you like the kid, give this simple but emotional track a listen. Also used in Sustained by Hate, and This is Your Home.

Vanille has a light, simple piano theme that definitely reflects her optimistic outlook on life. Nice to listen to on a rainy day.

Fang’s theme sounds like it should be overworld music. It reminds me of the Kingdom Hearts orchestral pieces, and while that’s not a bad thing, I feel that it’s a bit too grand for one character.

‘Chocobos of Cocoon’ is an interesting electronic take on the famous theme, and is pleasant enough until the weird auto-tuned vocals come in. Eck. ‘Chocobos of Pulse’ is much better, featuring a syncopated trumpet melody and a great rhythm section.

TL;DR?

Tracks worth checking out:

• Prelude
• Saber’s Edge
• Eternal Love (vocal track)
• Blinded by the Light
• Lightning’s Theme
• Sazh’s Theme
• Hope’s Theme
• Chocobos of Pulse
• Fabula・Nova・Crystallis (my favourite arrangement of ‘The Promise’)

Album Review: The Dresden Dolls - (self-titled)

The Dresden Dolls - The Dresden Dolls
Release: September 26, 2003 (initial released)
April 27, 2004 (Roadrunner Records)
July 13, 2005 (Roadrunner Records Japan)
Genre: Alternative
Label: 8ft. Records (original release), Roadrunner Records (re-issue)

Length: 56:53

Nick's Rating: 3/5

Fuckin' A, I hate so many things that make 'obscure' music popular. As a for-instance, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and games like that, all include 80% your standard fare in terms of guitar rockers, then they include one or two numbers that are slightly obscure that everyone latches on to and plays non-stop. Not that most of them aren't good, but now every pissant teenage Metallica-lover knows Voivod as if they were joined at the hip, and Judas Priest's "Painkiller" is the second-most-played Priest song on last.fm.

Almost as bad, or perhaps even worse, to me, are those people who like to call themselves 'nonconformists' and who all listen to the same shit. If you brought this to their attention, they'd probably call it irony, and be quick to explain to you that they didn't learn the word from Alanis Morrisette like half of America did. I've met a fair few of them, many of whom have given me music suggestions -- probably because I look a mess, wear black shirts, and don't listen to the radio. Of course, they neglect to note that the black shirts are my torso-covering of choice because they tend to have my preferred musical billboard emblazoned on them (Pink Floyd, Rush, Motorhead, you get the picture) and I don't listen to the radio because a) most songs I like are album cuts and often too long for radio play, and b) your average radio DJ tends to jabber like an idiot given so much as five seconds air time. They then proceed to torture us with whatever they feel like, from middle-of-the-road rock-and-roll wannabes to random tapes of mutually ego-stroking interviews. One time, a radio DJ actually aired a mashup of "Enter Sandman" and "Don't Stop Believin'" -- I wish I could make this up. I can't. He played a fucking mashup of fucking "Enter Sandman" and fucking "Don't Stop Believin'." I can't stop swearing and I think I'm going into spasms. I need to stop writing about this.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the so-called nonconformists. Well, one of them (who, incidentally, loves System of a Down and Metallica and Rush on top of his depressive shit) told me to listen to the Dresden Dolls (without even so much as lending me a CD, naturally), so I did. I found their two albums and one EP and found them all to be about average. The fact that they're as popular as they are is utterly staggering. It may just be because Amanda Palmer, lead singer and pianist for the duo, asserts that her middle name is "Fucking" (how hip! how edgy!), they appeared just on time to fill in the void of good music for goth kids left by three years' delay since The Cure's last album, the fact that their next just wasn't enough like either of the two Pornography trilogies (Seventeen Seconds-Faith-Pornography or Pornography-Disintegration-Bloodflowers), and because they were signed to Roadrunner Records for some reason; Roadrunner Records is a metal-centric label that also distributed Within Temptation and has, since adding Amanda Palmer and her drumming sex poppet Brian Viglione (I had to look up the spelling on that one), Megadeth, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Airbourne, Trivium, and DragonForce. They don't seem to care about the music so much as being hip and trendy (which explains the Dresden Dolls being on their label), and their continuous cash grabs (Did you hear about them wanting to digitally re-edit a Palmer DVD to make her look thinner? Whoo! Unfortuate implications ahoy!) make them seem like a particularly unfunny Ed, Edd n Eddy episode, but instead of jawbreakers, their quest is the total domination of rock music.

Well, it's either that that's to blame, or their presence at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in 2002.

Regardless, the record itself is, well... modestly good, anyway. It's very even, and most of the lyrics are kind of funny, if not outright cute... sometimes, I can't tell if there's irony to be found or not in a place like the bridge of "Coin-Operated Boy," where Amanda, after having espoused the joys of having a coin-operated lover, tells us that it's to hammer in the despair... but it's clearly just a jokey song about how much better a sex toy is than a real man. Is this one of those Gary Cherone moments where she's actually mocking these people? You can call bullshit on this one as many times as you want, IT IS POSSIBLE! Yes, it's fully, FULLY possible that she fucking with us and telling us that people who are that sexual have problems with them and are constantly in despair and-- yeah, okay, you're right, that's a stupid idea. With its origins in cabaret, the music of the duo DOES have quotas to fill in the sexuality department.

Better than that song, though (while "Coin-Operated Boy" is a nice, harmless song, it's basically just a jokey monologue over a sparse backing track), is the lead single (shockingly, this album did have associated singles...) "Girl Anachronism," which resembles a moderately fast rocker, but trades guitar for piano, giving it something approaching an interesting sound. The lyrics aren't greatly interesting (Palmer lamenting that she was born in the wrong time -- what, making that kind of music? No shit?), but they're reasonably amusing, which gives it a few points. Of course, most of the whole album is pretty amusing in a sick, perverted way, which seems to be the only way Palmer knows how to be (cf. the "Evelyn Evelyn" project, wherein she and another perform as, apparently, a pair of conjoined twins in a circus who apparently had been involved in child pornography, or something else kind of stupid like that... which resulted in backlash from everyone ever aimed at everyone else).

A review I read of the album somewhere once began to intimate that this was a musical revolution of sorts, or at least that Palmer and Viglione (please don't make me ever have to spell that again) were originals. I guess, yeah, but they're so overrated as such. On this album, on Yes, Virginia..., on No, Virginia..., they seem to have a consistent problem of not getting the balance right. It's kind of heartbreaking, too; they seem like they could be so good if they'd just strike a freakin' balance between their black humor, their quirkiness, and decent songwriting, which comes and goes a little too quickly for my tastes. It makes perfect sense why hipster 'non-conformists' would latch onto this type of music, but it's just... not done well enough in many cases.

One last thing: next person who mentions that they're "Brechtian punk cabaret" to me is going to cause my head to explode. "Brechtian punk cabaret," Palmer's description of the musical genre, is a fake genre, which she devised to dodge being called "goth." Hilariously, most of the people who bought her record are probably exactly the people who buy every other record that gets called "goth." So much for that plan, miss Palmer. Is that why you wrote "Backstabber?" This reasoning is probably the same that Emilie Autumn used when she came upon "Victoriandustrial" (to keep faux-goth kids who wouldn't understand the music or the pain from buying it) -- and in a cruel twist, you can find that at Hot Topic. No word on the Dolls' material, but then again, it's not like I actually like any of their records enough to even consider buying them.

Note to self, start reviewing more records you properly like.