I quit my stupid job this week.

Well, not quit so much as gave my notice, since my budget requires that I stick it out for another three weeks, but on December 19, I’m all done. This job has been an albatross about my neck since March, but it became unbearable only a few months ago when the 12-hour days kicked in. Since then, I’ve had only five days off – two for the Thanksgiving holiday, and three for a funeral. I just have so many other, better things I can do with my time, and thanks to the money I’ve saved, I have a nice six-month buffer to decide where to go next. It seems like I do this once a year now, right around this time, and the tradition continues…

I have, of course, had people I work with come up to me upon hearing the news and ask me why I would throw away such a “good job,” such a “great opportunity for a young guy.” And I don’t know how to answer that. This whole situation has had the unfortunate side effect of making me feel extremely old, and wasted, and useless, and I need to get out before those feelings go away, and I start to wonder myself why I would quit such a “good job.”

So three weeks, and I’m gone. That’s 21 days, or 252 hours. I can do that.

* * * * *

I owe Donnie Vie an apology.

A few months ago, the guys who run his website (www.donnievie.com) sent me downloads of Vie’s first solo album, Just Enough. I promised a review, but I figured I’d wait until the album was actually released, so that curious readers could check it out and buy it. And then things came up, and I didn’t get around to the review. I’ve just recently found out that the U.S. release has come and gone – the label that printed up the tiny run has sold out of them, twice. So instead of being too early, this column is too late. My apologies to Donnie and Keavin Wiggins, who sent me the album.

The tragedy of the puny print run on this side of the pond is that Just Enough is really good. Had this album been released by a better-known artist, it would be hailed as a sweet pop gem. As it is, almost no one is going to get to hear it – which is one reason Vie has set up his online club, to connect with potential fans who may not be able to pick up the CD.

I’d be willing to bet that very few of my readers are nodding their heads at the mention of the name Donnie Vie. For 15 years, Vie was one-half of the songwriting team behind Enuff Znuff, a criminally underrated and undeservedly obscure band that combined intelligent ’60s pop with pyrotechnic ’80s rock. That combination works a lot better than it sounds like it would. Vie and guitarist Chip Z’Nuff were a team in the Lennon/McCartney tradition, and few acts of the past 30 years have managed to come up with a consistent string of superb pop songs that rivals Enuff Znuff’s output. If you think I’m kidding, you haven’t heard them.

I’ve said this before, but the best way to describe Enuff Z’Nuff is as John Lennon’s glam-rock band. Vie and Z’Nuff have been great songwriters all along, but only recently did they make the transition into great record makers – the production finally started matching the quality of the songs on 1999’s Paraphernalia, EZN’s ninth album. The streak continued with 2001’s Ten and this year’s Welcome to Blue Island, both swell pop records. With the band starting to come into their own artistically, of course it was high time for the singer to leave.

And leave he did, forcing lead guitarist Monaco to take over lead vocal duties. Whether EZN can continue without half of their songwriting force remains to be seen, but they really shouldn’t keep calling it Enuff Z’Nuff. I hate to keep making Beatles analogies, but they’re par for the course with this band: calling a Vie-less Enuff Z’Nuff by that name would be like reuniting the Beatles without John and George. It won’t be the same.

The dissolution of the Vie/Z’Nuff partnership is tempered somewhat by Just Enough, which carries the EZN tradition into quieter and more pure pop areas. (The title references that dissolution effectively: puns usually give me a rash, but I liked this one.) I don’t have liner notes with my downloaded copy, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Vie’s first solo effort is indeed purely solo. The drums are all programmed (though not techno or cheeseball), and the backing vocals are all Vie, so it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to imagine him playing all the instruments.

And if that’s true, he should be quite proud of this record. The searing guitars are gone, but otherwise, there isn’t much separating this from the best of Enuff Z’Nuff’s work. Vie’s gift for melody never fails him here – he’s written 12 winning pop tunes that move and breathe, propelled most often by acoustic guitars. The production is sometimes thin, but the songs are unfailingly sweet and meaty, and Vie’s voice is in top form, recalling John Lennon in his prime.

The primary difference between this and some of EZN’s quieter work is Vie’s new sense of maturity. It’s like he’s angling for the respect he’s always deserved on this album, proving his worth as a songwriter track after track. Opener “Spider Web” details feelings of hopelessness, backed by a super melody reminiscent of “I’m Only Sleeping.” It never slips into melancholy, however – it’s a song about reaching through the haze, a common theme on Just Enough.

The hits just keep on coming, too. “Better Days” sounds like a classic, one that’s been on the radio forever. “I’ll Go On” is the most Beatlesque thing here, and it’s right on par with McCartney’s best stuff. “Wasting Time” is beautiful, despite a synth string section that galls a bit. “Alice in a Jam” is almost giddy in its poppy charms. Vie turns in his best vocal performance ever on “That’s What Love Is,” a terrific acoustic ballad. And who knows why the effervescent hit-in-the-making “Blowing Kisses in the Wind” is sequenced so late in the album, but it’s a delight.

It’s shameful that an album so full of life, and a songwriter so full of good ideas, can’t find a supportive U.S. label. I follow a lot of songwriters from band to band, from album to album, and Donnie Vie is one of only a handful that’s never let me down – I’ve never felt even a twinge of regret for buying anything he’s associated with. If you appreciate good pop music, you owe it to yourself to check out Vie’s work, both here and with Enuff Znuff.

The problem remains getting that work out to people, and Vie’s made great strides in that direction with his online club. The simple truth is that if record labels won’t invest the time and money into supporting a songwriter of this caliber, then they’re useless, and we as music fans ought to bypass them entirely and go right to the source. If you live in the U.S., www.donnievie.com is pretty much the only place to hear new tunes by Donnie, and if it works out for him, he might become one of the first to stop making traditional CDs entirely. I say more power to him, because it certainly isn’t a lack of talent that’s been keeping Vie from the spotlight. One listen to Just Enough will easily confirm that.

* * * * *

I finished the Top 10 List last week, and I’m set to run it on the last week of December, following my traditional Christmas break. The rest of the year is accounted for, with a bit of a surprise next week and reviews of Ryan Adams, Cerberus Shoal and the new Johnny Cash box set coming up. Happy Thanksgiving, all.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

This is my 150th column, signifying the end of year three.

No, no, no applause necessary. Just send money.

Anyway, the same boring old self-congratulation-and-thanks-to-everyone-reading-this gets tired after a while, I’m sure, but I still mean every word of the thank you part. This column has brought me in contact with some truly great people, especially recently, and without all of you, I’m just shouting into a vacuum. So thanks for letting me (hopefully) entertain you for three years. ‘Nuff said.

This is also the second column I wrote this week. The first is much more bloggy and emotional than this one, and I figured you’ve probably all had enough of that from me, so I immediately archived it. But it’s on the site, linked through the archive page, if you want to read it.

Anyway, when it comes to these anniversary columns, I always want to have something important or personally relevant, musically speaking, to discuss. It hardly ever works out that way, and usually I have to wrack my brain to come up with a fitting subject. Not so this time – my topic was handed to me by Sir Paul McCartney himself. What better way to cap the third year than by talking about the best band to ever walk the planet, the Beatles?

I can’t remember the first time I heard a Beatles song. Their work is such an integrated part of the cultural continuum that it feels, to me at least, like it’s always been in my life. I can remember the first Beatles album I bought, though: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, on cassette, when I was 15 years old. Talk about starting at the top – the album was a complete revelation for me, and it’s only deepened over time. I now own every Beatles album in at least two formats, and still rank them as the best band I’ve ever encountered, and Sgt. Pepper as the best album I’ve ever heard.

I give you this personal history of my experience with the band simply because there’s no point in rehashing the history of the group itself. The Fab Four have been discussed, dissected, lauded and deified for 40 years, and by many more eloquent and knowledgeable people than myself. It seems the consensus that the Beatles were the best band in the history of rock, the best songwriters in the history of pop, and the best record makers in the history of recorded sound. Their position as icons and deities, at least in the worlds of rock criticism and fandom, seems immutable.

As a f’rinstance, Rolling Stone has just published another of their asinine “500 Best Albums of All Time” list, featuring picks and contributions from all manner of literati. Sgt. Pepper came in at number one, of course, but Rubber Soul, Revolver and the White Album all cracked the top 10 as well. That means that according to Rolling Stone‘s experts (whatever that means), four guys are responsible for 40 percent of the 10 best albums ever made, and since those four records came out all in a row, that also means they accomplished this feat in less than four years.

Yeah, wow. And surely some of you are questioning this. Can it be possible that this band was that good? Is it even fathomable that with today’s technology and nearly 40 years of musical progress, we still haven’t managed to make a better album than one recorded analog on an 8-track and released in 1967? Should any band be raised up to such unattainable heights?

The question of the Beatles’ deification is at the center of Paul McCartney’s ongoing attempts to add to and “correct” the band’s legacy, begun with the expansive (and largely superfluous) Anthology project. But now he’s gone and messed with something sacred – one of the albums themselves. Just out is his “naked” version of Let It Be, the final Beatles record, and an album that landed at number 86 on the Rolling Stone list. And even though I try to temper my own tendency to idolize the Beatles, I can’t help feeling that this is like screwing with the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The story of the Let It Be sessions certainly lends itself to historical revisionism. Mere weeks after the White Album hit stores, the Fab Four reconvened with the idea of getting back to basics – writing some simple rock and roll, performing it live (for the first time in two years) and filming the process for a television special. They were even going to call the project Get Back. Well, the sessions ended in frustration, and the hundreds of tapes were given to producer Glyn Johns to see if an album could be culled from them.

Meanwhile, the boys regrouped for their last studio project, the comparatively lush and staid Abbey Road, and then promptly broke up. The Let It Be sessions were transmuted into an album by Johns and “boosted” in the studio by Phil Spector, who added strings and choirs to four songs. And when McCartney heard it, he hated it. And he went on hating it for 33 years.

So now, 23 years after John Lennon’s death and one year after George Harrison’s, we have Let It Be… Naked, McCartney’s retooled, de-Spectorized version, complete with a sticker that hails it as “the album as it was originally intended.” Which, of course, is a load of crap – the Let It Be album itself was never “intended,” really, and much of what has survived from those sessions only has because of Glyn Johns and his associates. Make no mistake, Naked is a bald-faced attempt at rewriting history.

In and of itself, that doesn’t make the album unnecessary. But to suggest that this release is meant to take the place of the original Let It Be is practically sacrilege, mostly because McCartney (who suggested the idea of the album and approved its release) has changed a number of things that didn’t need to be changed. If Naked had been Let It Be without Spector’s strings and choirs, that might have been interesting. Instead, the new version mucks with enough details to qualify as just another draft, not a definitive statement.

For example, the track order is all askew. Now, I know, the songs were originally arranged by Johns and Spector, and there’s no sacred text that says the album can’t open with “Get Back” instead of closing with it, but after 33 years, messing with the order just feels wrong. Naked plays like the original album on shuffle, for no good reason – nothing is improved by putting “For You Blue” third instead of eleventh, for instance.

Worse than that, though, is the new version’s lack of atmosphere. The original Let It Be is unique in the Beatles catalog because it sounds like the original intention – a document of a fun and loose recording session. The tracks are preceded and followed by studio chatter, most famously John Lennon’s rampant wiseassery. (“Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats…”) Additionally, the 1970 version featured a pair of “throwaways” in “Dig It” and “Maggie May,” each less than a minute long, but undeniably fun. Put simply, the original Let It Be is a whimsical, rollicking record full of personality.

All that is absent from the new one. The chatter is gone, the throwaway tracks are gone, and even some of the extended endings of songs are gone. In their place is a collection of studio tracks, with a slick feel that’s no different from any other Beatles record. It starts and ends without telling you anything interesting about the process that birthed it, and with recordings this stripped-down, the revelatory sense of fun is sorely missed.

What’s curious about the lack of atmosphere is the new version’s stated intention to strip away the studio gloss. Spector’s contributions to four songs are indeed gone, leaving bare bones recordings. The genesis of this plot arose from McCartney’s adverse reaction to Spector’s treatment of his “The Long and Winding Road,” which on Let It Be is stuffed full with strings and choral voices. Similar embellishments have been removed from “Across the Universe,” “I Me Mine” and “Let It Be.”

But here’s the thing: “The Long and Winding Road” sounds awful in this new incarnation. It sounds like a cheap demo of a skeleton of a song. The glorious countermelodies the string sections provided are just plain gone, with nothing in their place. It’s almost a lounge version, and it comes across as mawkish instead of desperately sad. On the original version, McCartney’s longing voice battled with the strings, creating emotional tension. On the new one, there’s none of that.

The only take I agree with is “Across the Universe,” just for its naked beauty, but even that is barely equal with the original version’s reverbed psychedelia. “Let It Be” is here in a different take entirely, I believe, with a completely different guitar solo that just sounds… wrong. It may be 33 years of the original version talking here, but Harrison’s solo is as much a part of this song as the chorus. I’d bet anyone even passingly familiar with “Let It Be” could hum at least part of the solo. It’s been learned and imitated by generations of budding guitarists. Changing it adds nothing but a strange sense of disconnection.

The Naked version also adds “Don’t Let Me Down,” a song that probably should have made the original record. But the song has been as readily available (on Past Masters Vol. 2) as the rest of the catalog, so simply squeezing it in here adds little.

The only improvement the new version makes, in fact, is in the sound. The fidelity and clarity has been improved measurably, and it leads one to wonder why the rest of the Beatles catalog still languishes in the land of analog hiss and hum. If they all could sound like this, then remaster away, Sir Paul. I can always buy the entire freaking catalog again…

Of course, the unabated deification of the band’s records leads to an interesting question: if the Naked version of Let It Be had been released in 1970 and the original one in 2003, would critics be decrying the addition of studio chatter and the removal of “Don’t Let Me Down”? Is it the canonical nature of the original mix that lends it an air of sacrosanct authenticity, or is it actually superior to the new version? Since we can’t remove ourselves from history, we’ll never know.

All I can tell you in this case is that I like the original version better, though I don’t regret hearing the new takes of these familiar tunes. Still, Naked only succeeds in being a curiosity, not a necessary addition to the canon, and certainly not a fitting replacement for Let It Be. Rather, it will get filed off to the side, apart from the 15 “real” CDs, along with the Anthology sets and the solo material. If McCartney intended to make me reach for this disc whenever I feel like listening to Let It Be, then I must disappoint him. If, however, he merely intended to provide a still-rabid fanbase with another scrap and make himself some cash, then he’s done it. And he’s got my cash, the bastard.

In the end, it all comes down to what isn’t there, and perhaps the most gutting omission is Lennon’s final smartass line: “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition.” What a perfect way to end both the album and the catalog, bringing it full circle and providing a neat laugh at the same time. Even if the sense of fun that glues together the original Let It Be is something of a revision of history itself, given the frustrating nature of the sessions, it’s exactly the way I’d want a band like the Beatles to go out. The original Let It Be is a bittersweet farewell, a last romp, a great rock and roll record that bubbles with life and joy. The new version? It’s just another bunch of songs, and that’s what separates the two.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

One of my co-workers died yesterday.

His name was Bryan Forrest, he wasn’t too much older than me, he had a wife and two kids, and he died of a sudden heart attack. And I don’t really know why, but I’m shaken to the core.

Bryan was a genial wiseass. He’d perfected the art of doing nothing at all, and he was never duplicitous about it. But he was so sly that everyone forgave him. Bryan was direct and honest – my first conversation with him revolved around Jesus and why I didn’t go to church. Mind you, this was not just our first real conversation, but the first time we’d ever spoken. And it put me off a bit, but I came to realize that’s just how Bryan was.

I didn’t know him well at all. News of his death hit the plant at 3:30 a.m., the time Bryan was to report for work, and scores of people were devastated, crying their eyes out. The company did an awkward 20-second moment of silence, and put up a form letter memo into which they’d obviously inserted his name. (From: Front Office Re: Loss of BRYAN FORREST.) And life just went on.

My last conversation with Bryan was about (what else) his amazing ability to avoid any kind of work for huge stretches of time. He told me, upon completion of my break, to get back to work, and I laughed at the irony. He spotted it too, and said, “Some things never change, do they?”

But some things change all the time, and lately they seem to be changing with increasing, frightening rapidity. We did a little discussing at work and found that no fewer than six of us had taken time off in the last month for funerals. Six of us. It’s starting to feel more and more like death is circling above, indiscriminately taking whomever it wants, and closing in.

And I probably wouldn’t feel this way if I hadn’t been one of the above-mentioned six. I took off for Massachusetts last week, however, because one of my best friends, Ray Tiberio, became the first of my close-knit circle to lose a parent.

I honestly don’t remember the first time I met Fred Tiberio, simply because his house has been a second home to me since high school. His family has become like my family over the years. There’s no getting around it – Fred Tiberio was a big, big guy. He was tall and wide, and his very presence could be imposing for those who didn’t know him. Once you did know him, however, it became obvious that his heart and spirit were at least as large as his form. Mr. T. let you know when you were family, and once that happened, he’d move the world for you if he could.

Mr. T. beat back cancer for the last eight years, suffered the loss of both kidneys and depended on dialysis three to four times a week. Still, he was always cheerful and ready with a kind greeting, and he remained remarkably funny, even up to the last time I saw him alive. It wasn’t the cancer that took him – it was a sudden brain aneurysm, and if you can tell me how that makes sense in a just world, I’d love to hear it.

As if that wasn’t more than enough death, Mike Ferrier, another close friend, lost his aunt that same week. She had been going in for a surgical procedure, and passed away before they could operate. I had never met her, but anything that affects my best friends in the world also deeply affects me, and I’m filled with an overpowering urge to help, to do whatever I can to ease whatever pain I’m able. And the entire time, I’m doomed to realize that it’s hopeless – there’s nothing I can do or say that will ever help fill the holes these people have left.

There was a stretch of time, the day of Mr. Tiberio’s funeral, in which Mike couldn’t reach his parents. He was under the impression that they would meet him at the church, but they never did, and they weren’t answering at home. And I swear, I was terrified, probably as much as Mike was. There has been so much death this year that a small, paranoid part of my brain insisted that I was in for more, that Mike was in for more, that this whole dismal year would never end.

It turned out to be a miscommunication, and the Ferriers were fine. But man, no one should have to feel like that. There shouldn’t be this strange black shroud over everything, these nagging feelings of hopelessness that twinge like tiny daggers every time someone doesn’t answer the phone, or doesn’t come directly to the door.

And hey, God, if you’re reading this, I’d really just like to say that you’ve made your point. We understand. You can take any of us at any time, and we’ll never know it’s coming. We get it.

Now knock it off. Please.

Services for Bryan are this weekend, but I don’t think I’m going. I haven’t been able to leave hugging-and-crying mode since Friday, and I’m spent. I need to recuperate, to make sense of everything that’s happening, and to talk to some friends and make sure they’re okay. And then I need to start hoping that 2004 is brighter, sweeter and greener than 2003, because frankly, this year has sucked beyond description. And I can’t wait to put it behind me.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

This one’s for Liz Balin.

Liz and I shared an apartment in Portland my final year there, and it was easily one of the most tumultuous years of my life. We’re talking massive, sweeping change, the effects of which I’m still feeling, in many ways. For roommates, Liz and I hardly saw each other, but since our initial bonds were all about music, I’d get into the habit of leaving recommended albums out on the kitchen counter, where I knew she’d see them and play them in the mornings.

We’re on opposite coasts now, and time is a precious commodity for both of us, so I don’t get to connect with Liz as much as I’d like. But she’s the only person I know who likes all three of this week’s review subjects. There are certain bands and musicians who are forever associated with certain people to me, and bring those people to mind no matter what songs I hear. These three make me think of Liz Balin, and how much I miss just hanging out and listening to music with her. If I were to talk about these albums to her personally, this is probably pretty close to what I’d say.

* * * * *

Whenever I mention Travis, I have to mention Joel Langston.

I’d like to think I’d have discovered Travis on my own, but as it happened, Joel turned Liz and me on to the British quartet at the same time, by loaning our household a copy of their great second album, The Man Who. The modern British pop renaissance was just starting, and Travis was one of those bands in line to be the next Radiohead (or at least the next Coldplay), if you believed the press.

And they did share one thing in common with Radiohead – an airy, spaced-out sound, courtesy of genius producer Nigel Godrich. The similarities ended there, however. While Thom Yorke’s boys were busy setting his futuristic paranoia to increasingly alien soundscapes, Travis remained the nice band next door, writing sweet love songs and hummable anthems of hope and sadness. In fact, their third album, The Invisible Band, was so damn nice and lightweight that it practically floated away before you could finish listening to it.

I didn’t consider that a flaw until just recently, mind you. Travis has just released 12 Memories, the dictionary definition of a defining album, and it casts the earlier ones into sharp relief. I’d often wondered just how much of the floaty Travis sound was the work of Godrich, and now that they’ve made an album without him, it turns out that the answer is all of it.

12 Memories is the sound of Travis waking up, and I had to hear it three times before I could wrap my mind around the idea that the “Why Does It Always Rain on Me” band could be capable of something this muscular. This album surges with life. It’s drowned in explosive electric guitars, yanked along by a breakneck (for Travis) pace that rarely subsides. It’s also the best thing they’ve made, a powerhouse that finally – finally – establishes a solid identity and carves out its own space.

Really, what they’ve done is become the anti-Coldplay, which is much more clever than it sounds. While most Brit-pop wannabes have taken their cues from Chris Martin and stripped away everything but piano and atmosphere, Travis has made a production, a huge, full, massive-sounding record that stands out by going the other way. Hearing nice guy Fran Healy curse and spit his way through “Peace the Fuck Out” is kind of unsettling, but in its own way just as invigorating as hearing the band crash their way through “Mid-Life Krysis” and “The Beautiful Occupation” as if their guitars were on fire.

Oh, and the songs are quite good, as well. “Quicksand” starts things off with a superb piano-driven melody, “Somewhere Else” delivers one of the year’s best guitar lines, and “Paperclips” stumbles and shuffles with a delightful drunkenness. Almost everything is amped up here – check out the thudding drum beat over the otherwise placid “Happy to Hang Around.” Through it all, Healy sings like never before, refusing to remain content with his pleasing warble and falsetto. He’s a revelation.

The final two memories disappoint somewhat, but only in comparison to what precedes them. “Walking Down the Hill” brings the atmosphere but forgets the soaring chorus melody this arrangement is crying for, and unlisted track “Some Sad Song” finally gives in to the Coldplay influence. Even if they fumbled the ending, though, Travis has delivered far beyond expectations on 12 Memories. This is the sound of a band who doesn’t want to be the next Radiohead anymore. They’re finally ready to start being the first Travis.

* * * * *

Leaving records on the counter for Liz was always a hit-or-miss proposition. One of the few times I hit big, though, was with Bitter, the textured third album from Meshell Ndegeocello. The album is a short, meandering ode to broken hearts and angry pain, delivered entirely with slow, folksy grooves. Ndegeocello has never done another one like it, before or since, and for my money, she’s never found a better setting for her husky, sultry voice.

That includes Comfort Woman, her just-released fifth album, though this one comes in a close second. Coming on the heels of last year’s Cookie, an hour-plus-long funk-rap-o-rama, Comfort Woman is a 39-minute space jam that shows off Ndegeocello at her most cosmic and most earthy. These 10 short songs set gorgeous, blissed-out keyboard and guitar lines over a dub base, and center on that deep, penetrating voice. Like Bitter, this is an album of love songs – it’s almost a counterpart, coming as it does from a place of wide-open optimism.

The problem with Comfort Woman is the same problem that has dogged Ndegeocello’s work all along – a lack of memorable melodies, and often, a lack of any melodies at all. It’s a shame that she doesn’t give her voice more to do, especially since it’s pretty captivating all by itself. She sticks to half-spoken wanderings and two-note phrases here, which I would pass off as in keeping with the hazy, druggy style of the disc if she didn’t do this all the time, no matter the milieu.

Regardless, Comfort Woman is a rewarding listen, in ways that Cookie was not. And like Bitter, which concluded with the cyclical “Grace,” this album ends with its best song: “Thankful” brings it all together, with its contented lyric, thumping drums and bass, and gently soaring guitar theme. It’s three minutes of bliss capping off an album that wanders hither and thither before hitting upon lucidity. At its worst, this record is a loose collection of jams with extemporaneous love lyrics superimposed. At its best, however, it’s as mind-expanding and trippy a ride as its author obviously intended.

* * * * *

I hope Liz doesn’t mind me revealing this, but I’ve never met a bigger Sting fan in my life.

The younger of you may not remember or believe this, but there was once a time when Sting was considered the epitome of cool. The early ’80s made a lot of ridiculously uncool people seem cool, but Sting was genuinely admired by just about everyone. The first three Police albums are unassailable, taking equally from punk, reggae and new wave to form a signature hybrid that just plain rocks. Even those last two albums, when the blinding light of fame illuminated every breath they took, hold up. They’re pretty… well, cool.

And then something weird happened. Sting launched a solo career, won a few Grammys, and turned into a weak pop star. And it gets worse – I’ve always considered Sting a punk-popper who’s just been masquerading as a frightfully mellow lite-FM guy, but in his new autobiography Broken Music, he asserts that it’s the reverse. If he’s to be believed, he’s always been a sappy balladeer, and for more than a decade, he was posing as cool.

This, of course, throws the whole notion of cool and uncool into upheaval, because when Sting was cool, he really was. If he’s being honest, and the whole time he was writing “Message in a Bottle” and “Walking on the Moon” he really wanted to be writing songs like “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying,” then he’s one hell of an actor. And I’ve seen Dune. Guy can’t act.

Sting has kept fans like myself and Liz hoping for a return to the former greatness for more than 10 years now, and it might be time to give up. I can remember Liz asking the clerk at Borders for Sting’s last album: “Do you have any copies of Brand New Probably Excruciating Day?” And man, was that one bad: “Is he rapping? In French? What the…?”

Well, guess what. The downward trend continues on Sacred Love, the winner for Worst Album Title of the Year. The Sting of 1981 would never have named an album Sacred Love. And he never would have written a series of songs this treacly and stupid. Sting has taken his cues from the successful dance mix of “Desert Rose” that made him so much money last year, and he’s added clubby beats to most of these tracks. “Send Your Love” is perhaps the best of the first batch, and even that wears after one chorus. I can’t even bring myself to discuss “Whenever I Say Your Name,” his duet with Mary J. Blige, except to say, “I smell Grammy!”

The album is nearly over before Sting provides the one gem you can usually count on from him. “This War” is a guitar-driven corker with typically unsubtle lyrics about the state of the world. He forgot, however, to list his own crappy album, and in fact the second half of his generally crappy solo career, among the various ills plaguing the human race. With each successive album, Sting seems to move further away from that brief moment when he was one of the coolest guys on earth, and I move closer to never listening to any of his work again. Sacred Love is a new low, a near-total disaster that lives down to its title.

And I’d bet that Liz Balin has already bought it and hated it.

Miss you, kid.

See you in line Tuesday morning.