I can’t remember being a year old.

In fact, my earliest childhood memories come from my fifth year or so, sneaking next door at night just to drive my parents crazy. I did nothing remarkable in my first year, my parents assure me, nothing that they felt necessary to notify the newspapers or the authorities over. I started walking, I said my first word (“cracker,” believe it or not), and otherwise I just made a lot of noise at odd hours, signifying nothing. It was a completely unremarkable first year.

I mention this because my baby, this weekly outlet for my artistic, musical and personal concerns, is as of this column one year old. Like a proud father, I’ve watched it grow into itself over the past 12 months, at a much faster rate than I did. (Some would say I still haven’t grown into myself, while others might cruelly point out that I really haven’t stopped growing since high school…) And sure, like any infant, this column fell on its face as often as it ambled forward, but to its credit, it kept getting up and coming back week after week. You’d be surprised how little I had to do with that.

Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone who’s been there since the beginning, everyone who witnessed Tuesday Morning 3 A.M. start walking and say its first few words. And while it sure did make a lot of noise at odd hours, often signifying nothing, I’d have to say that this first year has been anything but unremarkable.

So, thank you.

*****

Now, then.

Some of you have noticed that the majority of records reviewed here are of the soft, intimate variety, and have in fact inferred from that the unreasonable conclusion that your faithful author is a bit of a wussy-boy. That he likes to prance around in fields of flowers, wearing a skirt and picking daisies to give to his mom. That, in short, you all could kick his ass. Twice.

Does this artsy-fartsy, left-leaning, bleeding heart peacenik listen to nothing but soul-affirming pussy music, you ask? Does he not ever feel the need to bloody his own nose, so to speak, with the guitar-laden screams of the tortured and the righteously pissed? Does he honestly consider Ani DiFranco “confrontational”? Does this preening pile of pathetic passivity, who even had nice things to say about Sting’s new live album, not ever throw himself bodily into a kinetic expression of rage, fueled by the incessant crushing tones of real, honest-to-Christ heavy shit music? Does his amp not go to eleven? Does he not ever, if you’ll pardon the phrase, tear the motherfucking roof off the joint, metaphorically speaking?

Listen up, you ungrateful sacks of shit. You’re talking to the guy who, in 1991, thought the best album ever made was Megadeth’s Rust In Peace. You’re talking to the guy who knew who Pantera was before the world did. You’re talking to the guy who covered John “Nuclear Assault” Connelly’s “L.H.A.” with his high school band. And, you’re talking to the guy who’d like to point out that if you’re actually talking to me, I can’t hear you.

Real, seriously heavy shit metal has been on the wane for some time, sadly, and has been eclipsed by this “nu-metal” thing, whatever that is. Metallica’s all about sales figures, Megadeth hasn’t made a decent record since ‘91, and even though Slayer soldier on, their schtick has turned tired and repetitive. The best metal band in the world, in this nancy-boy’s humble opinion, is Brazil’s Sepultura, who took grinding, downtuned speed metal and infused it with tribal elements to make a new hybrid. Real, crushing metal appears to be a thing of the past.

While the two-guitars-bass-drum-growl lineup has faded somewhat, there are new practitioners of heavy music that know what they’re doing, and proudly wave their fuck-all flags. Two of them had new albums this year, and in between swooning over estrogen-laden folkies, your milquetoast hippie of a columnist managed to hear ‘em both. Metal, like all musical trends, must adapt to survive changing tastes and technologies, but these new breeds testify loud (repeat: LOUD) and clear that the form is long from dead.

When stacked next to the endless, faceless assembly line of nu-metal acts that have crawled out of the post-grunge sludge since Korn, Armenia’s System of a Down are, comparatively, insane. Never content to ride a groove into the ground, System’s nimble foursome dance the fandango all over their tunes. Vocalist Serj Tankian, especially, swoops from carnival barker to hell demon in a heartbeat. The phrase “from a whisper to a scream” has been used to describe every vocalist that’s ever aped Kurt Cobain’s dynamic sense, but how many of them actually whisper, and then milliseconds later, scream? Tankian’s range and fearless vocal command is one of the primary draws of this band.

Thankfully, it’s far from the only one. System of a Down writes quick, complicated mind games that pose as songs, and they all bleed into one another, even more so on their exponentially better sophomore release, Toxicity, than on their debut. Seriously, don’t even cue up the manic, blistering opener, “Prison Song,” unless you want to commit to all 45 minutes of this constantly surprising record.

System have increased their political content here as well. Toxicity is almost an old-school punk record lyrically. Observe the aforementioned “Prison Song,” a rail against minimum sentences and prison overcrowding. Interspersed with sobering statistics (“The percentage of Americans in the prison system has doubled since 1985”), the song finds Tankian turning the line “They’re trying to build a prison” into a shouted singalong. Metal has always borrowed its social consciousness from punk, even though that consciousness often gets lost in a mire of medieval imagery and satanic verse.

In some ways, System of a Down’s sprightly genre-jumping works against them from a metal standpoint. Really crushing metal has always had a single-mindedness about it that defies diversity. System’s mentally exhausting acrobatics are admirable, but in a completely different way, the physical exhaustion you get from Slipknot is just as admirable. If ever there were an album that’s not for the faint of heart, it’s their sophomore slab Iowa.

Slipknot’s a nine-member ensemble that attacks high-speed rage-core with stubborn fury. Their sound deserves the tag “extreme.” Everything is set to maximum, and no dynamic range is allowed. Scream, pummel, assault, then breathe for four seconds before screaming, assaulting and pummeling some more. Slipknot goes to the added extreme of practically punishing the listener for purchasing their record. Most extreme metal records (Slayer’s, for example) have the good sense to be no more than 40 minutes, out of sensitivity to the human pain threshold.

Not so the 68-minute Iowa, which never relents. Halfway through, you’ll feel like George Foreman came to your house and beat the shit out of you. By the time you hit the 15-minute title track, an exercise in extended monotone, your tolerance level will have been severely tested. Iowa is positively punishing, there’s no other word for it.

The lyrics never lift the veil of gloom and rage, either. What can you say about a song (“Disasterpiece”) that begins with the line, “I want to slit your throat and fuck the wound”? The album is 68 minutes of bile, spite and violence, the sort of thing that in a pre-September 11 world played like harmless venting. Who knows how such an uncompromising pile of venom will affect those with already frayed sensibilities? It’s probably a moot point, because those folks won’t buy Iowa, and they sure won’t hear this shit on the radio. Still, it begs the question of how harmless this lyrical style really is.

Slipknot is a prodigiously talented band, able to stop on a moment’s notice and play with counter-rhythms like a single organism. Their roster includes a pair of percussionists to add to their already propulsive nature, and a turntablist who confines himself to slashing bursts of noise. The sound, as you may imagine, is huge, almost monolithic, and all geared to cause sheer physical pain. Only masochists will enjoy this record, but musicians of all stripes will likely find themselves sitting in stunned admiration, both of the band’s musical prowess and its single-minded vision.

Say what you will about my gentler musical leanings, I made it through Iowa three times. So there. I will brook no further besmirchment of my masculinity, for as I have just proven, I am the original fucking metal god.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go listen to the new Jewel record while dancing in a moonlit meadow.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Jeff Maxwell has been making me laugh since the eighth grade.

I met him at the Mount Saint Charles Academy for Wayward Youths in Rhode Island. He looked like Jeff Daniels, had the martial arts skills of Jean Claude Van Damme, and was funnier than both of those guys put together. He was the only one brave enough to do stand-up comedy at our school talent show. He would occasionally organize “emergency fund drives” so that he could afford to travel the country. On one such trip, he drove to Florida, stayed just long enough to send postcards, and drove right back. He sang a song for my band that almost got me kicked out of high school. (That’s a story…) He taught me what a “time fuck” is.

And he has faithfully sent me letters, usually one a month or so, since 1992. I remember the first one I got posed the question, apropos of nothing, “Wouldn’t it be weird if we all had one arm that came straight out of our chests?” These letters never fail to make me crack up, and I’ve often wished I could share them with everyone I know.

And now I can.

Jeff Maxwell has started an e-column, one which he plans to write every Sunday. He’s wanted to be a writer ever since I’ve known him (that or a CIA agent, it was a toss-up for a while…), and he’s taken the bull by the horns and started his own thing, which he’ll send to anyone that wants it. If these columns are anything like the letters I’ve been getting for 10 years, then all of you will really enjoy his work. It’s free and easy – just write him at bostonmaxwell@excite.com.

And I wanted to add a quick shout-out to Jeff’s lovely wife, Melissa, whom I read about for at least a year before I met her. If ever two people were perfect for each other, it’s these two. If you subscribe to his column, I’m sure you’ll read nothing but nice things about her. Believe every word.

*****

It seems to me that being the King of Pop is a lot like being undisputed ruler of a septic tank. All you really have to offer people is second-hand crap.

Which would be an apt analogy if pop music weren’t so… well, popular. What passes for pop these days probably wouldn’t pass for Muzak in the ‘70s, when even the sappiest musicians were at least that: musicians. (Okay, except Cher.) These days, we accept the most minor variations in sound and style as “personality,” even though most pop music is made by the same three studio guys. New Kids on the Block are the Backstreet Boys are ‘NSync, just as En Vogue are SWV are Destiny’s Child, forever and ever amen. The only differences are in the packaging.

Hence, it’s become the standard in popular music to shift the focus onto the package, as opposed to the rancid candy inside. Does anyone really like Britney Spears for her songs? If you answered yes, then imagine the same music sung the same way by a 350-pound black woman. There’s no way those records would sell with that woman’s picture on the cover, but the music would be exactly the same. That’s the miraculous tragedy of marketing.

Hype has become a central component of pop record releases. New albums can’t just be new albums, they have to be complete revolutions of pop culture. Every new disc has to be perceived as the biggest, best thing ever undertaken by humans, or else why bother? Who wants to buy a collection of songs when you can buy a lifestyle? Never mind that the albums themselves are very much like the wizard behind the curtain. They’re small, ineffectual things that the flashy marketing is hoping you won’t pay any attention to.

If this is the case for your average pop act, imagine how much bigger and better an album by the King of Pop must appear? Michael Jackson has inexplicably put himself in this position, where every new release has to be viewed as the culmination of centuries of human history and the dawning of a grand new age. Expectations are so high for his stuff that anything short of God almighty descending from Heaven with the 11th through 15th commandments would be a disappointment. It’s a wonder he releases anything at all.

But he has. Jackson’s sixth solo album, Invincible, hit last month after an eight-year wait. Angels did not sound trumpets. The earth’s tectonic plates did not shift. The planet did not go spinning out of its orbit. Jesus Christ did not request “You Rock My World” as a personal dedication to Mary Magdalene on TRL. Obviously, Invincible was a big fat failure.

The tragedy of Invincible, and in fact of Jackson’s entire post-Bad career, is that it isn’t that awful. Compared to a lot of listless pop records that have come out recently, it sparkles with character and class. Jackson’s legion of fans, at the very least, should be pleased with all 16 songs, but even more discerning music lovers could find one or two surprises here.

Invincible’s biggest problem as an album is that there are too many producers. The whole thing sounds drowned in money, so much so that Jackson himself, unarguably the album’s biggest asset, is often obscured beyond recognition. Young punk Rodney Jerkins, responsible for six tracks here, seems especially overawed by the chance to work with Jackson. Just about every second of his productions is on skittery beat overload. I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent months polishing these tracks to ridiculous extremes.

There are two superb songs on Invincible, and not coincidentally, they’re the ones that sound the least overworked. “Speechless” is a classic Jackson ballad, produced by the man himself, in which he makes the trite and Disney-esque work like no one else can. It’s almost a capella in its arrangement, and sequenced as it is after seven giant studio creations, it’s like a breath of fresh air. “Whatever Happens,” meanwhile, is a suspenseful number that actually makes tasteful use of Carlos Santana. Both of these songs point in the direction this album should have gone, and probably would have gone were they making an album instead of a royal proclamation.

The problem with being crowned King is that you’ve suddenly got a long way to fall. Just ask Paul McCartney.

He’s one of the world’s greatest living songwriters, a title he’d have earned just for writing “Here, There and Everywhere” back when he was fab. As the poppiest of the Beatles, it seems that if anyone can lay claim to the title of King of Pop, it’s McCartney. He obviously doesn’t want it, though, because album after agonizing album, he churns out tripe that even his disciples would reject. It’s terribly depressing.

Driving Rain is McCartney’s first album of new material since his wife Linda’s death, and by McCartney standards, it’s a very good effort. That may be because those standards have been eroded by decades of silly love songs, but nevertheless, Driving Rain is the best new McCartney album in about 25 years. Which unfortunately says more about those 25 years than it does about the album.

Like his last effort, the covers album Run Devil Run, Driving Rain sounds like it was done in a weekend. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For a guy who spent two decades sounding washed up, this album finds him expressing a surprising amount of energy and passion. He lets that energy overtake all reason by the album’s dreadful conclusion, the 10-minute repetitive slog “Rinse the Raindrops,” but on the shorter tracks, it adds tremendously to what could have been a soggy, sappy pile of dreck.

The lyrics, without fail, drag the record down considerably. Long-suffering McCartney fans have come to expect drivel from him, and Driving Rain certainly delivers. Try this bit from the title track: “Something’s open, it’s my heart, if something’s missing it’s when we’re apart, if something’s good it’s when we’re back together again.” Or how about this, from “Your Way”: “I like it, please don’t take my heart away, it’s happy where it is so let it stay.” Or how about this, from “Your Loving Flame”: “When we kiss, nothing feels the same, I could spend eternity inside your loving flame.” He even goes on to rhyme, “What am I to do, if I don’t have you, I’ll be feeling blue.” That’s a step or two away from Mr. Rogers land.

The music does make up for it, especially the sweet “From a Lover to a Friend,” the pulsing “Tiny Bubble” and the rollicking title track. It’s no surprise, though, that the best song is almost entirely instrumental: “Heather” is three minutes of joyous piano and guitar, and brings to mind those lengthy bridge sections Wings would sometimes do.

Overall, Driving Rain isn’t that bad, but you’ll probably find yourself asking if an album by one of the greatest living songwriters shouldn’t be better than this. Yeah, it should, but after decades of being fed dog biscuits, even a greasy cheeseburger can taste like filet mignon. This album definitely puts him back on track, as long as you don’t think about the fact that with a little more effort, McCartney could easily outclass anyone making pop music today.

So, okay, if McCartney abdicated the throne in 1970, Jackson lost it in 1990, and none of the new guys seem capable of claiming it, who gets to be King of Pop? If we’re talking about music and not marketing, the obvious choice would seem to be Elvis Costello, but he’s gone all classical on us and taken Billy Joel with him. Elton John is a shadow of his former self. The King of Pop, it would seem to me, has to have been at it for a while, or else Ben Folds would be a good suggestion. So, who?

Well, there is one guy who’s been making deep, powerful pop music for about 25 years. He’s always overlooked because of his public persona, but his musical genius is undeniable. He even has a royal nomenclature. And while I may be laughed at for suggesting this, he seems to be the strongest candidate, one that has never really gotten his due. Give up?

His name is Prince, and he is funky.

Here’s a guy who’s a perfect example of packaging being more important in the culture’s eyes than music. Prince is definitely a self-obsessed weirdo who dresses funny and preens for the camera whenever possible. He’s also amassed one of the most consistent catalogs in pop music history. There has been no downward slide, no descent into sugary radio balladry, and no VH-1 special. The last (and only) rocky patch in his catalog was 1990’s mixed-bag Graffiti Bridge soundtrack. It’s been smooth sailing from there, punctuated by moments of towering excellence.

He’s also a marketing moron. In 1992, Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in an attempt to screw Warner Bros. Records. His insistence on being called The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (or just The Artist for short) capsized whatever good will he had gained with Diamonds and Pearls, one of his most commercially successful works. He complained endlessly until Warners released him from his contract in 1996, and he celebrated with Emancipation, a three-disc set of amazing material on his own NPG Records.

Of course, at $25, no one bought it, but that didn’t stop Prince from releasing a four-disc set next, the stunning Crystal Ball. Packaged with this set was The Truth, one of the man’s finest works, which no one heard. Thankfully, he marked his return to major label status in 1999 with Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic on Arista Records. Sadly, the album was merely good – if he’d released The Truth through Arista, it would have been a smash.

True to form, Prince has reclaimed his name for his first new album as Prince since 1992. He’s also gone back to NPG Records to release The Rainbow Children. He’s also made another absolute masterpiece that no one will hear.

The Rainbow Children is being misinterpreted as a Bible-thumping evangelical record. Not true. Midway through, he samples Martin Luther King’s famous quote – you know, the only one anyone ever quotes – about people coming together to sing the old Negro spiritual, “Free at Last.” Well, The Rainbow Children is an attempt to write a new Negro spiritual. It’s a concept album about the people of God and their spiritual history, and it’s as much about sex and race as it is about religion.

Musically, Prince has encapsulated 100 years of so-called black music into his funk-pop style. Imagine Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, the Delfonics and LL Cool J all getting down at a southern Baptist church and you’ve got the idea. Complex jazz fusion melds seamlessly into silky R&B, which morphs into slamming funk with blistering guitar solos weaving in and out. It’s nearly breathtaking how Prince can jump from the orchestral pomp of “Wedding Feast” to the smooth soul of “She Loves Me 4 Me” to the loose anger of “Family Name” with such ease.

Prince played the majority of the instruments himself, but you’d swear that a band the size of Parliament Funkadelic was jamming out these sounds. Prince has always been about God and sex, so the subject matter of The Rainbow Children is really nothing new, just more overt. Even so, you’d think he really had found religion, so reenergized does he sound throughout. The album ends with 16 of the finest minutes in Prince’s massive catalog, swelling from the giant funk workout “The Everlasting Now” to the gospel-tinged majesty of “Last December.” Even if you’re an atheist, you’ll be clapping along.

The Rainbow Children is undeniably weird, like all of Prince’s best work, but it’s genuinely about something, and it’s a musical work of wonder. He seems not only freed of commercial constraints here, but of commercial concerns, striving only to make the greatest art he can. The Rainbow Children is among the very best Prince albums, which is really saying something. It’s the pop equivalent of a good Spike Lee film or Wynton Marsalis’ Blood on the Fields: an ambitious, polarizing work that paints its author as a true artist.

In the end, Prince may not want the title of King of Pop either, but he deserves it for 25 years of uncompromisingly great music. While Michael Jackson’s been believing his own hype and Paul McCartney’s been floundering about in search of a good record, Prince has been delivering, year after year. If that were the criteria, he’d have this competition all wrapped up. Okay, next week, I dunno, but probably a hard rock roundup of sorts. Top 10 List in four weeks…

Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everyone.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

David Hayter must die.

Seriously. I don’t call for the elimination of another human being lightly, but this guy has simply got to go.

Before he ruins everything.

Who is David Hayter? Glad you asked. This is the hack behind the hackneyed script to the X-Men movie from last year. You remember it, right? Captain Picard vs. Richard III in a battle for mutantkind? Director Bryan Singer’s first bad film? Remember?

Let me tell you about that first. The buzz in the comic book community (yes, there is such a thing) was that the X-Men movie, the first major Hollywood production based on a comic book since the death of the Batman franchise, would re-energize the industry. It would single-handedly prop the dying comics medium up and infuse it with hundreds, nay, thousands of new readers. The world would finally understand the complexities and subtleties of the comic format, and accept it as the art form it undoubtedly is.

The X-Men movie was supposed to save comics.

What the industry hasn’t quite learned yet is that only good comics will save comics. And there are good comics, ones that should be marketed and made into movies and given mass exposure. From Hell is an excellent example, a superb comic book written by Alan Moore and drawn by Eddie Campbell. It delved into the secret history surrounding the Jack the Ripper case, balancing equal parts whodunit and conspiracy theory into a rich, masterful whole. The movie, adapted by the Hughes Brothers and starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham, came out a couple of months ago.

It was a disgrace.

They chopped up Moore’s meticulous research and added a ridiculous Hollywood ending. They cast beautiful people with perfect teeth as poor prostitutes, and (by necessity) gutted huge chunks of Moore’s overarching hypothesis. This film didn’t make a single moviegoer interested in the book it came from. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a big deal – the filmmakers really don’t care if you read John Irving’s The Cider House Rules or John Grisham’s The Firm, for example – but comics is the only mass communications medium in the world that seems to rely on other mediums to provide its own success.

Which brings us back to X-Men. Ideally, Hayter and Singer’s film was supposed to bring new readers to the comics. X-Men is already one of the top-selling books in the industry, ranking at about 150,000 copies an issue. That, by the way, is a pathetically small number, even when compared with comics of 10 years ago that were selling in the millions per issue. The film was supposed to improve that number, and while it may have slightly, the film sucked. It only served to confirm to those not reading comics that they remain what their detractors consider them to be: adolescent superhero fantasies with no depth at all.

Here’s the thing, though: X-Men the comic book sucks, too. As the industry’s public face, it’s a pretty poor ambassador, chock full of static characters in funny costumes beating the shit out of each other for the flimsiest of reasons. If anything, the movie was better than the comics, so those potential readers who saw the film and then sought out a comic shop were greeted by a convoluted mess of a comic with trite dialogue and lousy artwork.

As I said, only good comics will save comics. The last time the industry saw a resurgence was in the early ‘80s, culminating in 1986 with one of the best comics ever produced. It was a massive, perfectly executed examination of the superhero mythos and cold war politics. It was subtle, complex and literate, a true work of literature and, in many ways, the last word on superhero comics.

It was called Watchmen, and to this day few comics have surpassed it in scope and craftsmanship. It was written by Alan Moore (him again), simply one of the finest writers working today, and drawn by Dave Gibbons, an artist so sublime that you only understand how good he is through subsequent readings. Watchmen is a mystery at heart, and all the clues you need to solve it are there in Gibbons’ artwork. You should know the main villain’s identity before he even appears on stage.

Watchmen is an ideal choice for mass exposure. It works on numerous levels, and can be read as a superhero adventure, a commentary on mutually assured destruction, a psychological treatise on costumed heroics or a condensed history of comics from the ‘30s to the ‘80s. It is, hyperbole aside, a near-perfect comic, a synthesis of the finest elements of the art form, and as such, translating it to other media has proven nearly impossible.

Terry Gilliam tried it. He was gung-ho to write and direct the Watchmen film in the late ‘80s, and then he gave the treatment a go, and came up with an 8-hour, hundred-million-dollar outline. He deemed it an impossible project, even though he goes back to it every few years. Now, think about it. This is Terry Gilliam, the man who makes sense of the labyrinthine on a regular basis. He’s filmed books that were deemed unflimable before (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), and wrapped complex structures into finely woven tapestries (12 Monkeys, for one). If he thinks Watchmen is unflilmable, well, I’m inclined to take his word on it.

But not David Hayter. Oh, no.

Here’s a guy who thinks he can do it, and do it in two hours. In fact, based on the strength of X-Men, he’s been given Watchmen as his directorial debut. The thinking probably goes that one comic is just as good as another, and if he can do X-Men, why not give him this other comic. That’s like saying, “Well, this guy did a pretty good job of adapting the latest Stephen King book, let’s give him Love in the Time of Cholera. A book’s a book, right?”

Jeezus.

Strikes against him: First, he’s never made a film. Terry Gilliam’s made 12, and even he can’t get his mind around Watchmen. Second, he wrote fucking X-Men, in which a character actually says, “Do you know what happens to a toad that gets struck by lightning? The same thing as everything else.” That line’s almost a master’s thesis on bad grammar and shitty dialogue, and should be listed under “Don’t Do This” in the scriptwriter’s handbook. Third, Hayter thinks he can do this with no problem, which says to me that he has no idea of the scope and importance of the work he’s adapting.

Why am I so worked up over this?

Because while it’s true that only good comics will save comics, the industry can be brought down by bad representations of it in other media. Do you think any new Batman readers were gained through Batman Forever or Batman and Robin? No. And yet Fantagraphics noted a huge upswing in sales of Daniel Clowes’ work after his graphic novel Ghost World was adapted into a critically-acclaimed film this year. Those outside the industry can only judge comics on what they see and hear of them. For 15 years they’ve been hearing about how great Watchmen is, but the film is what most people will experience first. If the movie makes them want to read the book, then terrific. If it doesn’t, that was our one shot to sell Watchmen to the non-comics-reading world.

This project is going to happen. And it’s going to suck.

So David Hayter has to die. That’s the only thing that might derail the film. Comics are in too much of a slump to allow this travesty to continue. Find this arrogant bastard, this young Joe Eszterhas, and club him to death like a baby seal. And let him know that he’s dying for the sake of art, for the sake of a work that he won’t be allowed to mangle. And then club him some more.

And then go read Watchmen, if you haven’t. It’s worth it.

Next week, I promise to be more serious, and to talk about music. It should be a big one, all about the King of Pop.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

THE YANKEES LOST!!! HA HA HAH!!! FUCK THE YANKEES!!!

Now, I’m not a baseball fan, not by any means. I can name four or five players, maybe, most of them Red Sox, and up until last week, I had no idea what the infield fly rule was. (Go ahead, chuckle away.) But I was born and raised in Massachusetts, in a house with a die-hard Red Sox fan, so I can credit both genetics and environmental influences with my inborn hatred of the New York Yankees. Generally speaking, I don’t care who wins, as long as the Yankees lose.

God has been laughing at us Yankee haters for three years, and now it’s our turn.

*****

The sudden upset of the hated Yankee dynasty only added to the sense of the surreal that tinged last week for me. I have decided that I want to go work for MuchMusic, Canada’s version of music television. By all indications, it looks like MuchMusic is what MTV was in 1981 – a loose collective of music fans who basically screw around and get paid for it. Much is a low-budget affair which gets by on charm and a genuine love for the music.

What really made up my mind was this: I was flipping through channels last week when I came across a two-hour special on MuchMusic celebrating Sloan’s new album. Let me repeat that: a two-hour special celebrating Sloan’s new album. An album, I’d like to point out, that you won’t find in the U.S. without working for it.

I felt like I’d slipped into a parallel dimension. First they aired an hour-long “countdown” special filled with interviews and videos from the band’s career. (Who gets career retrospectives down here in the States? Britney Spears? “And now, teen porn videos from all two of Spears’ past records!”) Jeezus, and they played all the good ones from Sloan: “Coax Me,” “Money City Maniacs,” “Losing California,” etc. After the countdown, we went “live” to MuchMusic’s studios, where a crowd of screaming fans watched a four-song concert and got to ask questions of the band. It was like TRL, but with a good band.

And they were quite good live, playing new songs “If It Feels Good Do It” and “The Other Man” as well as “Money City” and “The Lines You Amend.” These songs are not pre-packaged hits, they’re not overproduced, teen-marketed schlock, and yet the young audience (which was probably 200 strong) loved every second of them. It was one of those life-affirming moments for me – a genuinely good band finding an appreciative audience on international television.

*****

Speaking of acts with roots in past pop music, here’s the new one from Lenny Kravitz. Who’d have thought that Kravitz would have lasted six albums? First he shamelessly rips off John Lennon on his debut, and then winds his way through every hoary ‘60s and ‘70s rock cliche in the book on subsequent records. His latest, 5, was a lengthy funk workout that stole from George Clinton and Stevie Wonder in equal doses. It also yielded a pair of hits in “Fly Away” and his cover of “American Woman,” which just added to the list of bizarre successes in Kravitz’ career.

And now here’s Lenny, a subdued, serious, altogether decent rock record that directly rips from no one in particular. Kravitz has always been good at what he does, which helps to explain his success somewhat. He synthesizes styles, sounds and whole guitar riffs from ‘60s and ‘70s chestnuts and repackages them as his own, wrapped in retro style. Lenny is just another Kravitz album in a lot of ways, but it’s also the first record on which he seems to have developed his own sound and style.

That might be pushing it a bit. Ten of the 12 songs on Lenny are straight-ahead ‘70s pop-rock, balanced off by rich, lush strings and Kravitz’ own three-part harmonies. Kravitz gives himself the Prince credit here (which is actually the Stevie Wonder credit) of producer, arranger, writer and performer. With very few exceptions, he’s responsible for every sound on the record. “Battlefield of Love,” the opening track, is a perfect example of the stripped-down one-man rock tune that Kravitz has spent his career perfecting. It’s all pretty simple and visceral stuff.

And maybe it’s just that he’s been heading towards this sound for so long, but a sweet acoustic pop tune like “A Million Miles Away” sounds like no one else but Kravitz. Since his fourth album, Circus, his material has coasted on this workmanlike groove, and the further he gets from his years of inspiration, the more original his work sounds. I mean, “God Save Us All” rides the same wave as David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie,” and yet it doesn’t bring it immediately to mind. Perhaps it’s just that we’re used to Kravitz by now, but it seems he’s learned how to make good use of his influences without recalling them.

All of which makes the two technorchestral pieces here that much more surprising. Both “Believe in Me” and the mammoth “You Were In My Heart” set beds of strings and synths over fluttering techno drum patterns. The sound is so incongruous with the whole of Kravitz’ output that it’s something of a surprise to hear his multi-tracked voice over these tracks. Both these songs slam Kravitz headlong into the present, and it’s interesting to note how comfortable he sounds there. Again, he played all the instruments, arranged the strings and produced these songs himself, and they come off remarkably modern.

Lenny is a self-assured effort that, for all its ‘70s rock vibe, refuses to sound antiquated. It’s the first Kravitz album that expresses musically the confidence he has always expressed personally. In its small, working-musician way, it’s his best, simply because it doesn’t try to say anything or be anything other than a collection of good songs. Even the righteous fury of “Bank Robber Man,” a story of racial profiling taken from personal experience, is less grating than previous efforts in this vein (“Mr. Cab Driver” especially).

Lenny is the kind of rock record Todd Rundgren used to make – a one-man show that’s about the music more than anything else. Now, if he can do like Rundgren and release a follow-up album of similar quality every six months for the next eight years, I’ll be impressed. That probably won’t happen, but by itself, Lenny is a pretty good group of pretty good songs done pretty well by a pretty talented guy.

Next week, probably Paul McCartney, but who can tell?

See you in line Tuesday morning.