It’s a long, hard one this week, designed for your pleasure. Hi, and welcome to Bad Sex Puns R Us. How may we service you?

I won’t even try to connect these reviews thematically. Enjoy the scattered. Embrace the disjointed. Away we go…

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There are an awful lot of obscure bands.

I know that’s not really an insightful observation, but a lot of people don’t seem to realize that. An alarming number of folks believe that all the music that’s being created right now can be found in your local Sam Goody store, and can be heard on MTV. The truth is, those two companies actually showcase a depressingly small fraction of the music available, and even the most alternative-cool anti-corporate record store can only stock a slightly higher fraction of same. The definition of obscure changes according to your immersion level, of course – some people think Aphex Twin is overexposed, for example – but for most of the general public, it refers to the stuff they can’t hear on the radio. Basically, music that needs to be discovered, which means that most people will never hear it.

There are also an awful lot of bands that are obscure for a reason – they’re not very good. But then there are those acts who are obscure for no reason beyond fate’s cruel whim, bands that exist on the fringes for years, even decades, producing album after album of great stuff that most people would actually like if they ever got the chance to hear it. Starflyer 59 is one of those bands. Ten years, seven albums, six EPs, and through it all, they’ve steadfastly refused to suck. And still they remain on tiny northwestern label Tooth and Nail, selling thousands of CDs when they should be selling hundreds of thousands.

Starflyer 59 is the brainchild of Jason Martin, who was once in a band called Dance House Children with his brother Ronnie, who later went on to form long-running synth-rock outfit Joy Electric. The differences in approach between the Martins are fascinating. (Well, if you’re me, they are…) Ronnie has become increasingly insulated, eschewing collaborators in favor of producing every painstaking Joy Electric track himself. The music has progressed towards a complex (and, yes, insular) brand of synthetic pop unlike anything else out there. (I hope to get around to reviewing Joy E’s new one, The Tick Tock Treasury, in this space soon.)

Jason, on the other hand, has broadened Starflyer’s scope by opening himself up to contributions from a host of musical minds. His band has included members of the Prayer Chain and currently includes superstar drummer Frank Lenz, and his albums have been produced by masterminds like Gene Eugene and Terry Taylor. Every time, Martin has melded his vision with that of his collaborators, resulting in a constantly shifting sound that’s almost impossibly all-encompassing. In a sense, every Starflyer 59 album is the best Starflyer 59 album for different reasons, because they’re all so different from one another that they defy direct comparison.

For example, The Fashion Focus is the best Starflyer 59 album because Martin took the huge, heavy guitars of his early records off center stage, replacing them with textures and clean lines. Similarly, last year’s Leave Here a Stranger is the best Starflyer 59 album because Martin and producer Terry Taylor strove for Sgt. Pepper, augmenting Martin’s melancholy pop with bursts of pure pop psychedelia and ambient wonderama.

And the band’s new one, Old, is the best Starflyer 59 album because Martin has brought the guitars back front and center after a three-album absence, and made a superb, classic pop collection. The speaker-popping confections sprinkled throughout the last few albums are all but gone here, leaving a live band feel with minimal enhancements. Martin again worked with a star producer, this time Aaron Sprinkle of the band Poor Old Lu, and that band’s influence can be felt all over the disc.

Naturally, Martin has written another 10 great songs here. Old bursts out of the gate with “Underneath,” which contains a whiplash-inducing tempo shift about 30 seconds in. That songs contains the most production of any here, concluding with synth lines and a chorus of backing vocalists. It also contains a great chorus, delivered in Martin’s understated baritone. “Major Awards” bustles along like a steam train, and “The Lights On” alternately shimmies and struts like Starflyer rarely has. Most of the songs feature melodies played in Martin’s unmistakable clean guitar sound – half surf-rock and half Robert Smith – and it’s especially effective on “Unbelievers,” near the album’s end.

Old is a delight because Martin seems to have rediscovered the ’70s rock band he used to want to front. Closer “First Heart Attack” even contains an extended epic guitar solo, the kind David Gilmour used to play. Starflyer 59 is always kind of melancholy, but this time the album sounds like it was as much fun to make as it is to listen to, and it’s a lot of fun to listen to. It’s gimmick-free: these are 10 great songs, just waiting to be discovered.

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Strained credibility alert: I’m about to give a big thumbs-up to “Weird Al” Yankovic. If you’re one of those people that believe humor and music should stay as separate as church and state, skip to the next review.

Still with me? Cool. I love “Weird Al” Yankovic. Always have. I also think that those who dismiss him as a mere novelty act because he gets played on the Dr. Demento Show are missing the boat completely, and failing to give him proper credit as a master musician. The skill it takes to do what Yankovic does is rare, no matter where you look, and the greatest testament to his ability is that each of his albums can be enjoyed on musical terms, not just humorous ones.

The best weapon in his arsenal is his crack band, which is and has always been guitarist Jim West, bassist Steve Jay and drummer Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz. These guys are amazing because they have to sound like everybody – not like a band pretending to sound like everybody, but exactly like everybody. They’re the best cover band in the world, but even that sells them short. They have to be able to handle anything Yankovic throws at them, be it a polka medley of metal songs or a nine-minute tribute to Frank Zappa. Both of which, by the way, appear on Yankovic’s just-released eleventh album, Poodle Hat.

Okay, yes, there are parodies here, but increasingly, one gets the sense that Yankovic does parodies because that’s what’s expected of him. But hey, he’s incredibly good at it. Writing bad parodies is simple – even morning drive DJs can do it with ease. Writing good parodies is an art, one that Yankovic mastered a long time ago. He intrinsically understands the lyrical and melodic ebb and flow of the songs he’s skewering, and his joke lyrics actually ape the syllables and rhyme structure of the originals line for line.

That’s a neat trick when you’re aping, say, Eminem, who justifiably earned oodles of praise for his nontraditional, internal rhyme schemes. Yankovic here turns Em’s “Lose Yourself” into “Couch Potato,” another in a series of diatribes about how much TV sucks. The real joke is that he’s turned an anthem of self-reliance and bootstrap-pulling into a song about wasting your life in front of the tube, which is the more likely choice for most people these days anyway. He also packs three different parodies into Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” scoring some kind of bathroom-incest-mutilation humor hat trick.

None of the other parodies are that clever, but Yankovic’s fans know that the parodies really ain’t shit compared to the original tunes. It’s on his originals that Yankovic pulls no punches, and unleashes his biting social and pop culture criticism. “Hardware Store,” for example, is an insanely joyous song that embraces and pokes fun at small-town culture, places where the opening of a hardware store is an event analogous to a visit from the Pope. “Wanna B Ur Lovr” takes a swipe at cheesy soul sex songs by doling out bad pickup lines, one after another. (My fave: “I hope I’m not being too forward, but do you mind if I chew on your butt?”) Imagine Chef’s songs from South Park sung by Tim Meadows’ Ladies Man character and you’ve got the idea. The funny thing is, the song is no sillier than most of the stuff that appears on pop radio every day.

“Why Does This Always Happen to Me” is about misplaced priorities – the main character is upset that the network interrupts The Simpsons for a news brief about a devastating earthquake in Peru. It’s also about so-called “first world problems,” and doubles as a critique of American self-importance. Then there’s “Bob,” an incredibly clever two-fold joke. On the surface, it’s a letter-perfect slam of Bob Dylan’s singing and lyrical style, filled with florid images that go nowhere. A closer examination of the lyrics will show that it’s made up entirely of palndriomes, like the title, and it all rhymes. It also includes my favorite palindrome ever – “Oh no, Don Ho.” Really, though, couldn’t you just hear Dylan spouting out a line like, “Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog”?

And the closer, “Genius in France,” only illustrates Yankovic’s ability to assimilate musical styles perfectly. It’s a nine-minute epic that emulates Frank Zappa’s mid-’70s style, right down to the smallest details. As anyone who’s heard Roxy and Elsewhere can tell you, Zappa’s stuff from this period was typically impossible to play, but the Yankovic band pulls it off swimmingly. Honestly, the song gets everything right, including Zappa’s tendency to run one ethnically-inspired joke into the ground over nine minutes. It’s such an authentic tribute that Dweezil Zappa even lends a hand on guitar.

I haven’t even mentioned such winners as “Party at the Leper Colony” or “Angry White Boy Polka.” Suffice it to say that Yankovic has good and bad albums, like anyone else, but Poodle Hat is a very good one. It’s astounding that he’s managed to sustain a 20-year career, but I’m glad he has – we need someone like “Weird Al” Yankovic to take the air out of our blustery pop culture every now and then. Lately, the culture has needed the air taken out of it more and more, so welcome back, Al. We missed you.

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It surprises a lot of people that I’m such a big fan of Live, and I’m not sure why. They satisfy the two most important criteria for my affection – they write good songs, and they play them well. They can sometimes be a bit earnest, but they play with conviction, and singer Ed Kowalczyk knows how to deliver even the cheesiest of sentiments with heart to spare. After making their best record with The Distance to Here in 1999, Live stumbled a bit with 2001’s V, an overproduced and underbaked affair.

Happily, the band is back on track with Birds of Pray, their sixth album. In fact, the only thing bad about it is the atrocious pun in the title. Live has thankfully chosen to dispense with the keyboards and drum loops that weighed down V, and concentrate on writing massive hooks and buoying them with powerful guitars. It’s a winning combination that has worked for countless bands before them, but when it gels, you can’t beat it. There’s not a clunker among these 13 songs, and every one plays like an anthem, the kind of song U2 has only just remembered how to write.

Birds of Pray is also, as the title implies, Live’s most spiritual record. Opener “Heaven” could be a Delirious? song, so naked is its spiritual leaning: “I don’t need no one to tell me about heaven, I look at my daughter and I believe, I don’t need no proof when it comes to God and truth, I can see the sunset and I perceive.” Live has always swung this way, most notably on V‘s standout track “Overcome,” but they balance it with a healthy dose of social critique. Kowalczyk brings the two together on closer “What Are We Fighting For,” an anti-war anthem that calls all war “godless” and notes that “the crucifix ain’t no baseball bat.” But hey, it’s better than the pseudo-sexy crap he was spouting last time.

Really, the only major criticism I can level at Birds of Pray is that it’s too short. Like all the best skyward-looking pop-rock records, this one’s over before you know it. While it’s playing, however, it’s another in a series of winners from this overlooked band with the lousy name. Of all the guitar-rock bands that emerged in the mid-’90s, Live has carved its own place in the firmament most successfully, a place they keep earning with good records like this one.

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It’s time once again to review the new King’s X album, and again, I don’t know where to start.

King’s X is one of the best bands in the country, but you’d never know it listening to their recent output. Their first five albums are masterpieces, heavy yet melodic, and Gretchen Goes to Nebraska and Dogman are permanently entrenched in my pantheon of great records. But pretty much everything from Ear Candy forward is lousy. Not just kind of bad, but seriously lousy. They seemed to have hit an upswing with 2001’s Please Come Home…Mr. Bulbous, but shortly thereafter released the nadir of their downward spiral, the electronic groove experiment Manic Moonlight. It was pretty awful.

And now here’s Black Like Sunday, sonically the best thing they’ve done in ages. They sound like a live band again after Moonlight‘s Pro Tools-infected disaster, and Ty Tabor even whips out a bunch of awesome solos, just like the old days. Mentioning the old days is appropriate, sadly, because Black Like Sunday is a collection of unrecorded tunes from the ’80s, finally seeing the light of day via the King’s X of 2003. It’s an interesting idea, and anything that gets them sounding like they once did is a good thing. There’s just one eensy little problem.

The songs, for the most part, should have stayed on the shelf.

Take “Rock Pile,” for example. It’s a rock and roll song about being a rock and roll star, the kind of thing only written by exuberant, inept youths. Fun as a curiosity, not so much fun as the second track on a new King’s X album. It’s not as bad as the third song, “Danger Zone,” a hunk of crap about rebellious youngsters that fight with their parents a lot. There’s nothing even kind of original or redeeming about it, frankly. Most of the songs here take heavily from the first Rush album (there’s even one called “Working Man,” for pity’s sake), and it’s intriguing from a look-how-far-they’ve-come perspective. Problem is, they don’t seem to have come far at all in recent years.

Don’t get me wrong. There is good stuff here, and it’s almost indescribably wonderful to hear Ty Tabor, Jerry Gaskill and Doug Pinnick lock into a groove and play with abandon again. “Bad Luck,” “Screamer” and “Save Us” even overcome their dumbass lyrics with powerhouse licks and some, let me repeat, amazing solos by Tabor. Black Like Sunday even contains the best reason to buy a King’s X album since Dogman in the 11-minute jam-o-rama that is “Johnny.” It’s the one place on this or any of their recent albums where you can hear how great this band can be.

The thing is, this album comes nowhere near showcasing how great I know this band actually is. I’ve seen them live, only a couple of years ago, and they smoked onstage. They’re easily one of the best bands we have, so why have the members’ side projects (Pinnick’s Poundhound and Tabor’s Platypus, for example) produced better records than King’s X for so many years? This is the second time in a row the band has released an experiment in lieu of a new King’s X album that lives up to the legacy.

The upside is that they don’t sound nearly as tired and worn out on Black Like Sunday as they have since 1996. I can only hope that recording these old songs has somehow revitalized them – God knows that tearing through a thrasher like “Won’t Turn Back” sounds like it would be revitalizing – and that the songwriting will come full circle next time. Black Like Sunday is not even close to the best that King’s X can do, but it’s the best they’ve done in a while, and I guess that will have to be enough.

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I was going to try to review the Thorns without mentioning Crosby, Stills and Nash, but it’s no use.

CS&N formed as a “supergroup” when David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash left their respective bands (The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and the Hollies) to form a folk trio resplendent with gorgeous harmonies. CS&N is the obvious touchstone for any group of three rockers who leave the world of electric guitars to form a harmony-laden folk group, and since the similarities don’t really end there, I have to mention them. But just this once.

The Thorns are Matthew Sweet, Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins, all suffering mid-career crises simultaneously. Sweet has been the most artistically successful, producing a string of terrific power-pop records throughout the ’90s, and he tasted commercial success briefly with “Girlfriend.” Droge as well had one hit with the catchy “If You Don’t Love Me (I’ll Kill Myself),” off his first album Necktie Second, but subsequent records fizzled, even though they were just as good as the debut. Mullins had the most success at radio with his ubiquitous smash “Lullaby” several years ago, from his major-label debut Soul’s Core, but the follow-up, Beneath the Velvet Sun, failed to make a dent.

So here they all are, sporting acoustic guitars and co-writing sweet, simple songs as the Thorns on their self-titled debut. Projects like this have the tendency to feel like desperate acts, but this one feels like coming home. Sweet, Mullins and Droge harmonize like angels, naturally, and the album has an easygoing vibe that likely reflects the mood in the studio. Sweet’s beautiful melodies haven’t had settings this unforced in ages, especially on “I Can’t Remember” and the perfectly sad “Now I Know.” “Think It Over” brings CS&N to mind immediately, with its delightful harmony and mid-’70s folk sound, and the gorgeous “Among the Living” might be the prettiest non-Lost Dogs song I’ve heard yet this year.

The boys do crank up the electrics once, on their theme song “Thorns,” but it’s just so much fun. It’s a simple, carefree stomp that recalls Sweet’s “Time Capsule” – two chords, that’s it. Most of the album is melodic and melancholy, however, giving the feeling of having been recorded around a series of campfires on summer nights. They even cover the Jayhawks’ “Blue” faithfully, like they just remembered that they all know it and like it seconds before they hit the record button. Producer Brendan O’Brien keeps things as minimal as he is able, for the most part – there’s a string section on “No Blue Sky” and “Now I Know” that adds some drama – and the natural sound is warm and comfortable.

Truly, this could have gone either way, and it’s a wonderful thing that it turned out so well. The Thorns sounds much less like a side project and more like a perfect union. These three musicians haven’t sounded this at ease with just playing and singing in a long time, and hopefully they’ll make a career of it, like that other folksy trio. The Thorns is proof that when the pressure of financial success is removed, great musicians can make great music. This is a sweet little album, no pun intended, one that gently envelops and lifts like the best folksy pop out there.

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Only Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio would follow up his solo debut with a two-hour live album from his first solo tour. And only he would be able to pull it off this successfully.

Plasma is a two-disc collection of performances from Anastasio’s 10-piece band during their North American tour last year. He breaks with Phish tradition here, releasing a live compilation instead of the complete shows his band has been putting out lately, and I can’t help but think the record may have been better as a single show document, but why bicker when the results are this engaging?

The first thing you’ll notice on Plasma is how huge and expansive the sound of the Anastasio band is. He’s got percussionists, a horn section and a sultry female vocalist, and the sonic colors are breathtaking, especially when compared to the relatively stolid Phish lineup of guitars-bass-drums-piano. Their 10-minute take on “Mozambique” is by itself worth the price of the disc, showcasing the jazzy, exploratory side of Anastasio’s guitar playing and the powerful percussion of Cyro Baptista and Russ Lawton. They cover Bob Marley’s “Small Axe” beautifully as well.

The second thing you’ll notice, especially on the jam-heavy second disc, is that this band doesn’t really jam at all, and that’s sort of unfortunate. The thrill of a Phish show comes from the nearly telepathic way the four musicians connect with and anticipate each other, the way Mike Gordon’s bass plays an integral role in determining the harmonic direction of Anastasio’s guitar and Page McConnell’s piano. By contrast, the Anastasio band tends to groove repetitively while someone (usually Anastasio on the second disc) solos. It’s not necessarily bad, but it is less interesting than hearing Phish at their peak.

Still, the 22-minute read of “Night Speaks to a Woman” manages to visit numerous melodic places along the way, and the delightful improv “Inner Tube” skirts by so engagingly that you won’t even notice where your 19 minutes went. What’s fascinating about Plasma is how much better it is than Phish’s latest album, the depressingly simple and rushed Round Room. While reports from the road have been positive, it can’t be a good sign when your side project is making more vital music than your main band. Here’s hoping Anastasio brings some of the expansive nature of his own band back with him to the Phab Phour when next they return to the studio.

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And that will do it for me. Next week is my birthday, and the tradition has been that I take a week off to celebrate. Of course, I’ve never actually done that, so we’ll see if I stick to it this year. Anyway, next time, I’ll be 29, and I’ll be discussing the Violet Burning, Wayne Everett, the Eels, 6gig, Metallica, Radiohead, and/or Grandaddy. Bet you can’t wait. But you have to.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s Thursday afternoon, and I just watched “Chosen,” the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for the fourth time.

I know what you’re thinking. Only four times? Well, I did have to go to work and sleep and stuff, too…

I’m not sure I will be able to encapsulate what Buffy has meant to me, or the dozens of conflicting emotions I’m feeling at its conclusion. This is more about me than about the show, but I’m exposed to a lot of artistic expression on a regular basis. So much, in fact, that as I’ve grown, my buttons have become harder to push, and any movie, album or show that wants a piece of my heart really has to work for it these days. Most things I see and hear are immediately relegated to the “whatever” file, coaxing forth no emotional reaction whatsoever. Some, but less and less as the years go by, entrench themselves in a quiet corner of my being, and are content with the occasional fond thought. A very few set up shop in my soul and proceed to rewrite my life.

For the last year and a half, Buffy has rescripted my whole existence, and all but owned my heart. I quote it more than anything I have ever seen. I view events in my life through the show’s unique prism, and find my point of view has been changed, altered and revised by something as seemingly ludicrous as a television show about vampires and the woman who kills them. No other work of popular culture, least of all a television show, has affected me as deeply and enriched me as fully as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Go ahead. Laugh. I am. I honestly never expected such a reaction from myself to this show. Eighteen months ago, I was just like most of the country – I had, of course, heard of Buffy, and in fact had read numerous articles and reviews about the show’s razor-sharp wit and deep emotional undercurrent, but I’d never gotten around to watching a single episode. One thing that scared me away was the reportedly labyrinthine mythology the show had crafted, rendering casual viewing impossible – you have to start from the beginning. This is absolutely true, by the way.

And here’s where I thank God for Jody Bane. I met Jody in Indiana, and she’s one of those people with such a sweet nature that you immediately start looking for things about which to make fun of her, because you know she’ll take it well. I ragged on her for reading V.C. Andrews books (especially the ones ghost-written long, long after Andrews died), and for her pathological fear of sharks. And I also ragged on her for loving Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And rather than simply saying “piss off,” she lent me her entire Buffy collection, one season at a time, until I was caught up. By that time, of course, I was also just as much of a raving fan as she was.

What is it about Buffy that turned so many people off? At the height of its popularity, the show barely pulled in 5.5 million viewers, and the average for the just-completed seventh and final season was around 3.9 million. The show was always ranked near the bottom of the top 100, and never got a major Emmy award. What kept people away?

Where to start answering that one? First, there’s the silly title. Then there’s the premise – Buffy Summers is a teenage vampire slayer, and her home of Sunnydale, California rests on a Hellmouth, a center of mystical activity used by the writers as an excuse to flood the show with monsters and demons. Buffy fights evil and usually gets home in time to study for mid-terms. Sounds utterly dumb, right? Then mix in the fact that this show never hid from its cheesy elements – rather, it embraced them and flaunted them, usually as a prelude to turning them on their ears. We got giant snake demons, rotting zombies, tacky-looking werewolves, evil gods from hell dimensions, praying mantis demons, talking floating eyeballs, hyena spirits, and demons with squishy, foam-looking shark heads. Oh, and vampires. Lots of vampires.

And yet…

And yet we also got the most fully rounded, fully realized characters ever created for television. We got layers of metaphor and symbolism – every hellish threat Buffy and her friends faced represented something else, and usually something directly related to the emotional state of the characters. We got characters who grew and changed in ways simply unprecedented on series television. In its best moments, we got the sharpest writing of any show that has ever aired. And best of all, amidst all the unreality of Sunnydale, we got genuine, deeply felt pain and struggle. When that struggle culminated in redemption, as it often did, Buffy earned every second of joy and release with hours and hours of real anguish – and not that Party of Five kind of melodramatic anguish, either, but the kind of pain that cuts right to the soul, every time.

Buffy started out, in the words of creator and all-around genius Joss Whedon, as a way to redeem “that blond girl” in all the horror films. You know the one – she’s cute but kind of dumb, which is why she’s walking around dark alleys at night, just begging for the monsters to kill her. Whedon envisioned that blond girl walking into the same alley, but instead of being afraid of the monster, she’s ready for it, and she trounces it. It’s a simple yet revolutionary concept – most major networks passed on Buffy because a) the feature film (also written by Whedon) was bollocksed up beyond belief, and b) they didn’t think an action show featuring a female hero would work.

Even from the start, though, Buffy has always been more than an action show. Sure, there are big dumb fights in every single one of the show’s 144 episodes, even in ones you kinda wish didn’t have them, but even during the monster-of-the-week years, Buffy was fighting on metaphorical levels. Longer story arcs bore this out and expanded on it. When, for example, the mayor of Sunnydale turned into a giant snake at Buffy’s graduation and tried to devour all the students, it was representative of the real world, waiting to eat you alive once you leave high school.

The series’ most potent metaphor early on came out of Buffy’s relationship with Angel, a brooding vampire with a soul. As a result of a gypsy curse, Angel was given a conscience, forced to remember and regret all of his misdeeds over 200 years as a vampire. However, he must continue to suffer for the curse to stay in effect – one moment of true happiness, and Angel goes stark raving evil once again. That moment arrives in Season Two when Buffy and Angel consummate their relationship, and Angel quickly joins the other side and starts killing Buffy’s friends.

As Whedon said, this is certainly a story about vampires and slayers, but it’s also a story about every teenage girl’s fear – that your boyfriend will change once you give in and sleep with him. The resolution of this arc at the end of Season Two (in a beautiful two-parter written and directed by Whedon) provided the show’s first truly emotional powerhouse.

Whedon also played with television convention throughout Buffy‘s run. His only Emmy nod for writing was for “Hush,” an episode in Season Four that contained a half-hour without dialogue. This episode was Whedon’s breakthrough as a director as well, and remains visually one of the creepiest entries in the Buffy canon, but he matched and surpassed it with “Restless,” the Season Four finale told almost entirely in dream sequences.

Then there’s “The Body,” one of the most wrenching and devastating hours of television ever filmed. It’s a sustained portrait of grief – Buffy’s mother, the ever-wonderful Joyce Summers, succumbed to brain cancer unexpectedly the episode before – that explores the silences between characters during periods of mourning. “The Body” contains no incidental music, and consists almost entirely of muted conversations and perfectly drawn character moments.

And of course, no discussion of Whedon’s many achievements would be complete without mentioning “Once More, With Feeling,” a full-blown musical episode that dances rings around any such stunt attempted on television before. The key to its success is that it wasn’t a stunt – Whedon developed a logical reason for characters to burst into song, and used that device to dramatically shift the ongoing plot of Season Six. He also wrote some amazing songs, ones that revealed his characters in new ways. “Once More” is not a standalone, but an essential piece of the story, and therein lies its brilliance.

In fact, in many ways, therein lies the brilliance of the series as a whole. Buffy utilized television’s capacity for long-form narrative better than any show before it. Over seven years, Whedon allowed his characters to change dramatically, yet logically. Where shows like My So-Called Life developed themes over the course of an episode, Buffy developed them over a season, at least. The full scope of the show’s themes were often only clarified after the season finale, and as they unfurled, the characters developed along with them.

Look at the Core Four characters – Buffy, luckless Xander Harris, shy Willow Rosenberg and stuffy Rupert Giles – in the first two seasons, and then contrast that with later seasons. Buffy is no longer the confident chosen one – she’s become sullen, hard-edged and withdrawn. Willow has overcome her insecurity to become a powerful witch, yet is unaware that the insecurity remains at her core, and that her self-image can shatter like glass. Xander has become a successful carpenter – perhaps the most successful of the four – and has a balance about him that only comes with experience. And Giles has removed himself from his long-treasured role of father figure and grown much more at ease in the process.

And much of the credit must go to the actors and actresses, all of whom flew above and beyond. Alyson Hannigan, for example, took Willow from the meek bookworm of Season One to the confident wicca of Season Five to the fragile addict of Season Six, and finally to the brink of inhumanity and back in that season’s amazing finale. Her work is consistently genuine – you feel Willow’s immense pain, her yearning to be more than she thinks she is, and her intensely powerful nature which she fears she cannot control. She and all the other players brought genuine life to these characters, so much so that they regularly transcend the word characters. These people feel real.

No one did a better job of that than Sarah Michelle Gellar, the slayer herself. I realized some time ago that I take Gellar for granted, and that I hardly ever notice what an incredible job she does each episode. She embodies Buffy so completely that I often forget I’m watching an actress play a role – she simply is Buffy. In many ways, she’s had the most difficult journey – Buffy has had to struggle with the fatal flaw at the center of the slayer power: that it isolates its user and disconnects her from the world. Buffy has grown increasingly harsh throughout the series, and Gellar never flinched from showing us the worst sides of Buffy’s life.

And here I have to talk about Season Six, the most reviled chapter of the Buffy novel. It’s perhaps no secret that Buffy died at the end of Season Five, sacrificing herself to save her pseudo-sister, Dawn. (Which is a whole other can of metaphorical worms…) It should also come as no surprise that Willow and Xander resurrected her at the start of Season Six. But what did surprise most viewers was Whedon’s gutsy decision to make the rest of the season about that resurrection – its consequences, and Buffy’s intense, desperate pain. All of the characters, in fact, spend this season in hell, and the darkness of S6 contrasted beautifully with the balance of light and dark in prior seasons.

That this darkness coincided with the lowest ratings of the show’s run should also be no surprise. Longtime fans defected, mostly because the show wasn’t giving them what they signed on for, and they didn’t want to see beloved characters put through the slow, horrifying wringer week after week. These people missed the transformation of this show from spry yet resonant mythology to unparalleled emotional conduit. S6 connects viscerally like no other season, and it earns its resplendent finale. No other season ender packs quite the punch of “Grave,” anchored by terrific performances by our Core Four.

By comparison, Season Seven has been sloppy and somewhat disappointing, but still some of the best that television has (or has ever had) to offer. Among the highlights this year was “Selfless,” an hilarious and touching look at ex-demon Anya; “Conversations With Dead People,” the creepiest episode this side of “Hush”; “Storyteller,” in which formerly evil geek Andrew presents events from his hysterically skewed point of view; and “Dirty Girls,” a poem of menace and death that concludes with an assault on one of our dearest characters.

And, of course, “Chosen,” Whedon’s final goodbye. I find myself with an internal conflict about this episode, which is easily one of the series’ best. It suffers, unfortunately, from its 42-minute running time, and leaves many questions (Beljoxa’s Eye, what Joyce meant in her ghostly early-season appearances, how the splintering of the Slayer line led to the First Evil’s attack, where the amulet came from, who planted the talisman in “Lessons,” and on and on) unanswered, hanging for eternity. My brain is unsatisfied – it keeps saying, “That’s it? But…but…”

My heart, however, which Buffy has always coveted more, is completely fulfilled. Whedon’s steadfast refusal to say goodbye to his characters, and his decision to underplay virtually every potentially heart-rending moment, somehow gave “Chosen” more resonance than had he gone full-out with the tears. Buffy herself reaches a point in her journey that leaves us with a more complete sense of hope than at any other time in the series, and the genuine, subtle smile on which the show concludes feels like closure.

The scene to which I keep returning, however, is a small one in the grand scheme, and like everything about “Chosen,” it was beautifully subtle. Moments before the big final battle with the First, Buffy joins the rest of the Core Four in the hallway of Sunnydale High, full circle from the show’s beginning. Here, I thought, would be the tears, the emotional reconciliations, and the final goodbyes. The foursome had been torn apart by recent seasons, and nothing had seemed right between them since Joyce’s death. I braced myself for the last conversation.

And they threw it away. Rather than have them address the rifts I was sure had grown between them, the Core Four got together one last time, and they just were. They talked about what they’d do the day after the apocalypse, and made a grand reference to the first episode, but basically, they just were. And it was beautiful. How foolish of me, I thought, to imagine that they would be anything else than perfectly together, and how foolish to think that they would need words to communicate that togetherness to each other. All of the recriminations and pain that have threatened to tear them apart never even got close to the center of this group. The point of that scene was that nothing, nothing will ever break these four. And they said it by not needing to say it.

It’s without a doubt my favorite moment of the series as a whole.

But there are others, countless others. Buffy, like life, is a collection of small moments amid the bigger goings-on, and it’s the small moments that you end up treasuring. Here are a few that I love, in chronological order:

When Angel, embracing her, lets himself be burned by Buffy’s cross necklace in “Angel.”

When Willow first encounters real, sadistic evil in “Prophecy Girl.”

When Buffy and Giles discuss life at the end of “Lie to Me.”

When Angel (the evil version) makes his first cut into Buffy’s heart in “Innocence” – “Love you too. I’ll call you.”

When Buffy whispers “close your eyes” in “Becoming.”

When Giles and Joyce, um, get to know each other in “Band Candy.”

When Buffy finds out about that in “Earshot.”

When Xander, sporting a sly smile, walks right by Cordelia at the end of “The Zeppo.”

When Buffy and Angel share a last dance in “The Prom.”

When Oz panics in “Graduation Day.”

When a neutered Spike tries to feed off of Willow in “The Initiative.”

When Giles chases Professor Walsh in “A New Man.”

When Faith in Buffy’s body repeatedly tries out the phrase, “Because it’s wrong,” in “Who Are You.”

When Willow chooses Tara in “New Moon Rising” – “You have to be with the one you love,” Tara stammers, and Willow replies, “I am.”

When Giles sings “The Exposition Song” in “Restless.”

When Angel and Riley meet in “The Yoko Factor.”

When Willow and Tara dance at the end of “Family.”

When Anya desperately tries to understand loss in “The Body.”

When Dawn and Buffy embrace at the end of “Forever.”

When Buffy delivers her final message to Dawn in “The Gift.”

When Xander and Anya sing “I’ll Never Tell” in “Once More, With Feeling.”

When Tara leaves at the end of “Tabula Rasa.”

When Buffy refuses to believe she didn’t come back “wrong” in “Dead Things.”

When Tara reconciles with Willow in “Entropy” – “It’s a long, complicated process, and can’t we just skip it? Can’t you just be kissing me?”

When Giles enters at the end of “Two to Go.”

When Willow collapses into Xander’s arms at the end of “Grave.”

When Spike reveals his soul in “Beneath You.”

When Buffy offers her strength to Willow in “Same Time Same Place.”

When Anya sings “Mrs.” in “Selfless.”

When Buffy talks with Holden Webster in “Conversations With Dead People.”

When Xander comforts Dawn at the end of “Potential” – “You’re not special. You’re extraordinary.”

When Andrew runs out of stories at the end of “Storyteller.”

When Xander asks Willow not to cry in “Empty Places.”

When Spike declares his love, and Buffy finally listens, in “Touched.”

There are, of course, many more I’ve forgotten, but that’s the way it goes when something rewrites your life. The good parts are just too many to list, and the extraordinary parts don’t translate into words. So how does one say goodbye to something like this? (Well, “Grrr Argh” comes to mind…) I’m not sure. Now that the shape of the series as a whole has become clear, it feels more like an arrival than a departure. Still, one must say goodbye somehow.

There’s a woman who posts under the name Duskfire on one of the message boards, and for all of S7 she has eloquently, insightfully and poetically analyzed the themes and characters. Her signature file perfectly echoes my sentiments, so I hope she doesn’t mind if I reproduce that here: “To the cast and crew of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Thank you could never cover it.”

But in the end, I have to come back to the epitaph the show wrote for itself, back in Season Five. Many have used it in the days since the finale to end articles like this one, but it captures the spirit of the show better than anything I could come up with. So, one last farewell to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

She saved the world. A lot.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I had a policy a while ago of never reading other reviews before writing mine.

Now, I’m addicted to music reviews – and movie reviews, book reviews, comic reviews, and basically any analysis of art I can get my hands on. I even read those usually asinine customer comments on Amazon, the ones filled with sentences like “OMG, ths CD rulz!” I can’t help it. I’m just naturally attracted to finding out what people think, especially about something as absolutely subjective as art.

So you can imagine how difficult it was for me to keep myself away from advance reviews of albums, especially since magazines like Rolling Stone seem to publish those reviews months prior to release these days. I was honestly afraid that reading other reviews might influence the way I experienced music, and that I might find myself unconsciously ripping off another reviewer, especially one who articulated my reactions more eloquently than I could.

But right around the time of Radiohead’s Kid A, I said hell with that. I read every advance five-star ejaculation I could find, looking for clues as to what to expect, and each drooling encapsulation only increased my anticipation. And then I absolutely hated the album. Years of continuing to absolutely hate it have convinced me that my initial reaction wasn’t just a matter of it not meeting overly high expectations, either. I just think Kid A sucks.

Since then, I devour advance reviews, fairly secure in the belief that they don’t influence my opinions. I realize this is a big ol’ rationalization, and that what’s really going on is more akin to a crack addict getting his daily fix, but I now consider advance reviews an essential part of my preparation process. If the notices are good, I’m excited to hear if they’re right, and if they’re terrible, I’m even more excited to hear if they’re wrong. Which, I guess, counts as outside influence, but I find I agree with most reviews only about 50 percent of the time.

Truthfully, I’m often most excited to hear albums that the reviewing community has, en masse, deemed unlistenable. There’s something appealing to me about monumentally bad records, especially from great artists, and since a large part of my process is looking for the artist’s original intention, train wrecks (especially purposeful train wrecks) are much more fun than smooth rides. Plus, occasionally, I will completely disagree with the universal negative opinion, and that’s even more fun.

Take, for example, the new Blur album, Think Tank. Just drop the band and album name into a search engine, and you’re guaranteed to encounter a mountain of lousy reviews – one star, D minus, what-were-they-thinking reviews. You can only read so many of those before you start bracing yourself for a disaster, and it’s not like the boys in Blur haven’t been heading that way recently. Their last two albums (the self-titled one and 13) were sloppy, overly long, underdeveloped messes that veered sharply from the twee pop they delivered in their early years. 13, in fact, deserves to be called unlistenable – its few delightful moments are drowned in an ocean of noise and repetition that doesn’t even pretend to be cohesive.

And then there’s Graham Coxon, the Lennon to Damon Albarn’s McCartney. Coxon left the band before Think Tank was finished, and he only contributed to one track, the closing “Battery In Your Leg.” With Coxon gone and Albarn spending a good chunk of his time in Gorillaz, his animated electronic madhouse side project with Dan the Automator, one could be forgiven for expecting a beat-happy pile of sludge this time out, which is exactly what the majority of reviewers have apparently heard.

This is definitely one of those cases where I’m not sure if I’m listening to the same album everyone else is, because my copy of Think Tank is absolutely marvelous.

Even with Coxon missing, this is easily the most complete Blur album since The Great Escape. Albarn has, of course, embraced technology in the years since 13, and under his direction Think Tank is loaded with electronic bleeps and blips. Here’s the thing, though – where most artists use technology for its cold and distant qualities, Blur has crafted perhaps the warmest and most emotionally resonant album they’ve ever made.

Most of Think Tank takes its time to unfold, wafting in on ambient waves and subtle computer drums. Virtually every time you think the electronics are going to take over, however, Albarn surprises you with a lovely vocal melody, or a delightfully human guitar line. If, for example, you’re dismayed by the twittering electronic percussion and how-low-can-you-go bass that opens “Ambulance” (and the album), just wait 30 seconds for Albarn’s vocal entrance. His beautiful tenor raises the song’s temperature immeasurably, and sends it straight for your heart.

Think Tank contains some of Albarn’s most comforting ballads, set to chilling landscapes of electronic sound which only seem to accentuate the warmth of his voice. Just listen to the acoustic guitar on “Out of Time,” or the saxophone arrangements on “Caravan,” or even the extended ambient outro of “On the Way to the Club” and you’ll hear technology given its most human foundation. The simple pleasure of “Sweet Song,” with its repeated piano sample, cannot be overstated either.

The album is, no doubt, experimental, but nearly all of the experiments work marvelously. There are misfires – the Fatboy Slim-produced “Crazy Beat” reenacts “Song 2” with a, um, crazy beat, and no one would have missed the minute-long pseudo-punk shoutalong “We’ve Got a File On You.” But the delirious successes far outweigh the miniscule failures, and the overall effect is low-key and cohesive. The band even saves the most human moment for the end – “Battery In Your Leg” is a slow piano caress full of the melodic melancholy that characterizes this record.

So what album are the other reviewers hearing? Think Tank is nowhere near the techno-driven mess you might expect from the avalanche of bad press it’s received. (In fact, I only found one review that seems to echo my reaction, and that’s at pitchforkmedia.com.) On the contrary, in fact, it joins Supergrass and Ester Drang in the upper echelon of 2003 releases, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find it in the top five at year’s end.

I’m not sure anyone would have expected the diversity of the last few Blur releases, but it seems the band has finally hit upon something here. While many artists have taken a shine to technology recently, Blur has shown with Think Tank that they’re one of the few acts that understand it, and can use it to make their music more human, not less. This album is also the first time the band has sounded sure-footed since the early ’90s, and it bodes better than anyone could have expected for the Coxon-less Blur. But beyond all that, it’s just a beautiful record, one that deepens with each trip through. Think Tank does what all great art must do to be considered as such – it resonates, it affects, and it stays with you. You can’t ask for more than that.

* * * * *

I’m going to eulogize Buffy fairly extensively next week, so I don’t want to say much about this week’s penultimate episode, except that it was splendid and a fitting goodbye to some of television’s most fully realized characters. The feces hits the spinning blade on Tuesday, and I remain blissfully spoiler-free, an act of will so difficult that it’s physically painful. Expect an overview and a fond farewell next time, and after that, a long (like, really long) column to catch up on recent releases, most of which don’t deserve their own spotlight, so they all have to share.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m so excited to have something that I can unconditionally crap all over that I’m going to lead with it: Did anyone watch that MTV Icon thing this week?

If you’re not aware, the Icon series is an excuse for MTV to kiss mighty ass on a regular basis. Each show focuses on one artist that has made MTV money, and takes the form of a tribute concert featuring (unsurprisingly) artists that are currently making MTV money. Also, the icon in question usually has a new album that the record companies who program MTV would like to see made popular, so the icon takes the stage to play the new single and push the product. It’s all a big consumer-screwing festival disguised as an honor of some sort.

Anyway, the delightfully ironic recipient of this year’s Icon treatment is Metallica – ironic because, for the first six years of their existence, Metallica steadfastly resisted MTV and its new form of marketing. They sold platinum numbers of their first three albums (which many contend are and always will be their best), sold out every show they played, and did it all without radio or video to help. When they finally cracked and made a clip for one of their songs, they chose “One,” a seven-minute dirge, and set it to black and white clips of Jason Robards’ performance in Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun. Not exactly “In Da Club.”

True, the floodgates opened with the dreaded black album, but for a long time, Metallica raised middle fingers to MTV, preferring to do things the old fashioned way. As much as I make fun of them for it, I believe it was that same resistance to new ways of marketing themselves that led to them suing their fans during Napster’s heyday, rather than figuring out ways to make file swapping work for them. Metallica has always been a working class band, and the farthest thing from an icon in their own minds as possible.

So here’s James, Lars, Kirk and new bassist Rob Trujilo sitting there and listening to the parade of shit MTV has decided to “honor” them with, and gamely pretending that they’re into it, which made me even more sad. It was hard for me to listen to Limp Bizkit, for example, slashing and burning their way through “Sanitarium,” so it must have been kind of difficult for the guys who wrote the song to hear it desecrated. But no, the short-haired, middle-aged version of Metallica just seemed to love it.

And then there’s Avril Lavigne. This is the first and last time I will ever mention the latest Canadian pop tart in this space, but I need to point out just how ridiculous marketing really is. Avril, you see, has a carefully crafted image of a “punk rock chick” to live up to, even though she herself has never heard the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Stiff Little Fingers, or, really, any punk band at all, ever. Her marketing force must have surmised that appearing at a Metallica tribute show would be oh so very punk, even though Metallica has never even approximated punk in music or attitude.

So here’s Avril, who admitted in interviews to never having heard Metallica before either, pseudo-emoting her way through “Fuel,” and just sucking at it. She described “Fuel” as “a really long song,” because four and a half minutes is just huge, I guess. Good thing she didn’t try for “And Justice For All,” or “Creeping Death.” (Actually, that’s a very good thing.)

The kicker is, the Metallica boys totally loved it. This leads to one of two conclusions: a), the band resisted the same urge to vomit repeatedly that I did, and pretended to go along so as not to ruin their big promotional push and jeopardize their label stock options, or b), the band really liked Avril’s rendition. Either way, the news is bad. They’re just not the same band anymore, which is sad. They’ve followed Dave Mustaine up Suck Mountain, and nothing’s going to bring them back now.

* * * * *

From Metallica to Fleetwood Mac. How’s that for range?

I find Fleetwood Mac endlessly interesting, mostly because they never really were what people think they were. For one thing, the group of five musicians that most people consider Fleetwood Mac is really only responsible for five of their 15 albums. They were a gritty blues band first and a dazzling pop act second, but even the dazzling pop was a facade hiding an emotional tempest and a seething bitterness. Lite FM radio will try to convince you that Fleetwood Mac put out nothing but variations on “Rhiannon” and “Landslide,” and such an assumption couldn’t be more wrong.

For one thing, the most popular incarnation of Fleetwood Mac had (and has) a secret weapon that no Lite FM act could touch, and his name is Lindsey Buckingham. This guy is seriously underrated in every respect – as a songwriter, a guitarist and a producer, he’s pretty astonishing. Just check out most of the similarly underrated and ignored Tusk album and you’ll see what I mean. Lindsey owns that show, and his carefully crafted chaos was unjustly reviled as bloated and excessive. By today’s standards, it’s fairly tame, and at 68 minutes, it’s not even all that long.

No, if you want to talk bloated and excessive, you need to hear the new Fleetwood Mac album, Say You Will. This thing has 18 songs that cover 76 minutes, and even though it’s this incarnation’s first album together (sans Christine McVie) in 16 years, the album has a bit too much of a good thing. It’s a shame, because what’s good here is outstanding.

It’s helpful to think of Say You Will as two albums jammed together, or played on shuffle. Roughly half of these songs were originally slated for Buckingham’s aborted fourth solo album, titled Gift of Screws, which should give you some indication of the tone. The other half are Stevie Nicks songs, and although all of them are decent, Nicks hasn’t noticeably changed her style in decades. The result is a bit of a mish-mash, and the album feels like a collection of songs rather than a cohesive piece. (Tusk, for all its supposed excess, flows beautifully.)

So not only is some editing needed here, but the random quality of the album makes it easier to jettison some dead weight. If it were up to me, though, we’d be hearing Gift of Screws, since Buckingham’s songs are all standouts. “What’s the World Coming To” opens the record on a Byrds-ish note, featuring the jauntiest reading of the title phrase in recent memory, but soon we’re off to the races. “Murrow Turning Over in His Grave” is a powerhouse, and Buckingham does things with a guitar in the second half that would send his Lite FM fans screaming. “Red Rover” is a tricky finger-picked piece that sounds impossible to play, and “Come” is the most dynamic thing here, slipping from reverbed acoustic to slamming electric and another amazing solo.

Buckingham’s production really deserves special mention. It’s incredibly precise and clean, yet fully human and organic as well. Say You Will flits from full-sounding chamber pop to unaccompanied acoustic to screaming ’70s rock solos, and each sound is perfect in and of itself. That the songs don’t mesh well is unfortunate – Buckingham worked so hard to make each song as good as possible, but failed to provide a through-line for the album.

There really aren’t any bad songs on Say You Will, though there are a few blandly pleasant ones. In total, though, it’s an exhausting listen – there’s just too much here, in too random a pattern, to properly absorb. It’s good to hear this band again, especially when they recapture the classic sound only this group of musicians makes, but I wish Say You Will didn’t sound like they treated it as the last record they’ll ever make. Although, considering how long Buckingham takes to get things up to his exacting standards, it very well might be their swan song, especially since it ends with two songs whose titles contain the word “goodbye.”

If Say You Will turns out to be the last album Buckingham, Nicks, Fleetwood and McVie make together, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go out. The band has remained true to itself, releasing an album of songs only they could have made this way, and they refused to pepper it with hit singles. (Strongest of all in that vein may be Nicks’ luminous title track, however.) Taken in small pieces, it’s a good album, but swallowed whole, it’s just too much. If they decide to do this again in another 16 years, they should learn from this and rein in their prolific tendencies. Or make two albums. But if they’re going to do that, they should probably just stick with their solo careers.

* * * * *

I’m having trouble with this week’s Buffy, mostly because the story didn’t move in any of the ways I thought it would after last week’s emotional wringer. I’m disappointed in the boneheadedly literal chosen one metaphor as well, though on second viewing, there’s a lot that I admire about the episode. Still, with only two to go before the end, don’t you think it’s time the writers start letting us in on some things? The longer they draw out these mysteries, the more I’m convinced they just don’t have good answers for us.

But Angel‘s season finale was amazing, perfectly setting up either the end or a new beginning for Buffy‘s still-unrenewed little brother. I’m particularly impressed at how Tim Minear (writer and director) gave us an overwhelmingly positive and emotional episode that cleverly disguised the fact that the bad guys just utterly won. Astounding. I hope Buffy‘s finale is that good.

Anyway, next week, some of the ones I mentioned last week. For sure.

See you in line Tuesday morning.