Let’s just get this out of the way first: U2 is not now, and never has been, the best band in the world.

People love to bestow that honor on the Irish Fab Four, and it just ain’t true. But for a while there, in the early-to-mid-‘80s, they were perhaps the most important band in the world, and I think that counts for a lot. In a time when most acts strove for artificiality, U2 stood for something. A lot of things, actually – they were the most political and spiritual band to crack the top 40 during that bizarre decade, and their sincere belief that their music could physically change the world was refreshing. Sure, they got ridiculed for it, and they get ridiculed even now, but there’s a certain kind of bravery that comes with standing up on a world stage and singing a song like “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

The first U2 album I heard was Under a Blood Red Sky, their live document from 1983. (I’m not sure, but I think I borrowed it from Chris Callaway.) I was eleven. I had no idea about the politics behind “Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day,” and I was blissfully unaware of concepts like “earnest passion.” These songs just moved me. They sounded more real, more powerful, than anything I had heard. “New Year’s Day” especially – that one still gets me.

As a kid, I was full of passionate beliefs, most especially in the power of music, and I think I responded to that same sense of idealism in U2’s early work. Listening to War or The Unforgettable Fire, it’s obvious that the band strove to paint the sky with colors, most of them deep and foreboding, and worked overtime to change minds and move hearts. The first five U2 albums are what I have repeatedly referred to this year as big dreamer records. They are the work of a band who believed, fervently, that they could do anything, and one brave enough to put that belief out there.

I believe that the magic of U2 is their uncanny ability to make simplicity fascinating. If you diagram their songs, they are ridiculously easy. “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is three chords. “Bad” is two. To this day, one of their most moving numbers is still “With or Without You,” and that one repeats the same four bass notes for its entire running time. Their rhythm section sticks to straight time and eighth notes, for the most part, rarely displaying a sense of adventure. Nearly every song from the early albums is easy and anthemic.

And yet, they touch the soul like few bands ever have. When the boys in U2 are on their game, they bypass all that intellectual hooey and dive straight into the bloodstream. Take the aforementioned “With or Without You,” one of several huge hits from 1987’s The Joshua Tree. By the time the four-minute crescendo has reached its peak, Bono’s soaring voice and the Edge’s otherworldly guitar have enveloped you and carried you skyward with them. If the song were more complicated, even a little, it wouldn’t work as well. (And speaking of repetitive-yet-effective songs, one track later they’re assaulting you with “Bullet the Blue Sky.” Has there ever been a more ominous song? You can feel those fighter planes…)

I’m rhapsodizing the early work, because starting with 1991’s Achtung Baby, U2 stopped doing it for me. With a few exceptions per album (“Ultraviolet,” “Stay,” “Do You Feel Loved”), Bono and the boys decided to stay earthbound, to tinker with electronics and wield irony like a bludgeon. It’s been said that in the ‘80s, U2 was all about what they believed in, and in the ‘90s, they were about what they didn’t believe in. That’s as apt a description as I can conceive – ‘90s U2 albums were about excess and artificiality, and the huge tours matched that sentiment. Let it never be said that U2 does anything by halves, yet by the time of 1997’s Pop you could tell that this decade-long experiment was wearing on them. (And the less said about PopMart the better, I think…)

In most things, but most especially when it comes to music, I am a cynical idealist. I want to believe in music that can tear open the heavens, but nearly everything I hear these days is lazy and lifeless. I think a lot of music fans are like me – we want to be inspired. We want to love everything we hear. We want to rapturously embrace every CD we buy. We’re just so used to it not happening that we expect mediocrity. Thing is, in order to be inspired, we need artists who deal in inspiration. We need our musicians to believe in what they are doing, and why they are doing it.

For the entirety of the ‘90s, U2 fell short of that. With the exception of “One,” all of their big singles from that time period just whizzed right by me – “Mysterious Ways,” “Even Better Than the Real Thing,” “Lemon,” “Discotheque,” “Staring At the Sun,” etc. None of them made any impact on me, and the corresponding albums were bought and absorbed, but none of them affected me. There were glimpses here and there of the band they used to be, but they had lost their heretofore unswerving faith in the scope of their own creations. They had stopped painting the sky and started settling for billboards.

I have this theory about the younger generation of music fans. Many of them have only really known U2 as a lousy techno-pop band, and they don’t understand the loyalty and passion the band creates in its devotees. Every new U2 song they’ve ever heard has been second-rate. Younger listeners can’t quite fathom why their older counterparts keep buying new U2 stuff – they’re just like any other old band who used to be good, but aren’t anymore. And it’s true. We were just like fans of the Rolling Stones, who keep buying lousy new records hoping for that old spark that will never be rekindled. (Of course, Stones fans have been hanging on to hope for more than 30 years now…)

But we knew. If ever there was a band that would reward patience and faith, it’s U2.

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first heard “Beautiful Day,” the dazzling lead single from 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind. I was working in a record store, and I had only days to go before packing my stuff up and leaving Maine for good. The opening was disheartening, all synths and programmed beats, but then the chorus kicked in, and the Edge found his six-string again, and Bono sang his heart out for the first time in my adult life, and all was right with the world. The album followed suit – though it rarely reached the heights of “Beautiful Day,” it pulsed with revitalized strength. Upon repeated listens, I realized that I may have overrated it – it does fall to pieces in its final third – but I couldn’t mask my joy at hearing this band’s rebirth.

Turns out, it was just the warmup act.

Let me put this as plainly as I can. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2’s 11th album, is their best, most inspired, most inspiring work since The Joshua Tree. All the while sporting the band’s dumbest album title ever.

By now, you’re all sick of the first track, “Vertigo.” Because of the band’s controversial deal with Apple, the song has been hammered down America’s throats via that ubiquitous iPod ad. (Yes, he’s counting “one, two, three, fourteen” on purpose. Get over it.) Its annoying omnipresence doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s U2’s most rockin’ song in ages – it’s dumb, fun, blistering and superb. But if history has proven anything, it’s that you can’t trust the first single from a U2 album. Those looking to Pop for a whole album of “Discotheque” were disappointed, and similarly, if you want 11 quick rock songs like “Vertigo,” you won’t get them here.

Atomic Bomb is a surprisingly mellow affair, full to bursting with expansive anthems that finally – finally – make full use of the Edge’s spine-tingling guitar work again. “Miracle Drug” is a classic U2 song, made even more so by their re-use of the bass line from “With or Without You.” This one soars, taken skyward by Bono’s vocals and the gorgeous guitars. “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own” is similarly fantastic, a slow ballad about the recent death of Bono’s father. When it crashes into its stunning bridge section, it’s the most U2 moment I can remember hearing since high school.

“City of Blinding Lights” is the most standing-on-a-mountain-shouting-at-the-sky song here, and it’s a wonder. U2 have taken everything they’ve learned about pop craftsmanship during their decade of irony and adapted it to their old style masterfully. “City” finds the Edge spinning a web of guitar tones beneath a glorious piano melody, and just where you’d hope the chorus would come in and send it into orbit, it does. Nothing here lies still. Even an experiment like “Love and Peace or Else” explodes into one of the Edge’s most stabbing guitar breaks since “Bullet the Blue Sky,” and when they lock into a groove, as on “All Because of You,” the result will have you air-drumming furiously.

Best of all, unlike every album they’ve made since Joshua, Atomic Bomb steadfastly fails to disintegrate by its final tracks. “One Step Closer” is a little too subdued for this record, but “Original of the Species” kicks it back up with a great chorus, and closer “Yahweh” is a superb upbeat hymn. There is nothing skip-worthy on this disc. It’s all good.

My only issue with it is Bono’s lyrics, which lean towards trite more often than not. U2 long ago stopped trying to affect political change through their music, and the focus here (despite the title) is on love and loss. Occasionally, Bono will haul out a stinker like this: “Freedom has a scent like the top of a newborn baby’s head.” But when he digs deep into his own life, as on “Sometimes You Can’t Make It,” it’s heartrending. He’s the worst part of this foursome, and yet he’s crucial to their U2-ness. Just try imagining this album without his voice, his straining yet heartfelt delivery. I don’t know what it would sound like, but it wouldn’t be U2.

And this album, finally, sounds like U2. They have never been the best band in the world, but for a sad long while there it seemed like they believed they were, no matter what tripe they recorded. The attitude from the U2 camp lately can only be described as humility. They said it themselves, they’re reapplying for the job, asking for devotion again, and they know that you start with writing great songs and making great records. They’ve made a great one here. It’s not quite in league with their best stuff, and they might never hit those heights again. But hey, I never thought U2 would sound this energized, this powerful, this important again. For the first time in 17 years, they’ve moved me and captivated me again, and that’s more than I ever expected. They may not be the best, and they may not even be the most respected anymore, but they’ve done right by this fan. I love this record.

Welcome home, boys.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I just submitted my first writing-for-money work in two years.

It was a 400-word story for the local paper about the high school football team. Not the Great American Novel (or even the Great American Comic Book) by any means, but still. I wrote some words, I put them in order, I sent them to an editor, and in a week or so, I will get paid for it. For the first time in two years. Step one on a long road back, to be sure, but I can’t even tell you how good it feels to be semi-pro again.

Anyway, here’s some writing I did for no money:

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I finalized my Top 10 List this week.

Well, I say finalized, but I should say “finalized,” because it’s only the third week of November. Still, I looked at the album release list for December, then looked over my stack of hopefuls for this year’s list, and realized that (barring some miraculous surprise) nothing from the list has any prayer of making the stack. Seriously, the month sucks.

I have now heard the two wild card albums, both late-year releases from revered favorites, and while I’m allowing myself time to put them both in perspective, both have landed in the stack. I’ll get to U2’s new one next week, but I will say now that I think it’s their best record since 1988, and more of a return to form than All That You Can’t Leave Behind was.

But that’s next week. This is Rufus Wainwright’s week.

You may remember that Wainwright ascended to the top of last year’s hotly contested Top 10 List, just barely beating out the amazing Bruce Cockburn, on the strength of a stunning album called Want One. Since that time, Want One has only grown in my estimation, and I find myself agreeing with Elton John (who ever thought that would happen?) when he says that Wainwright may be the best songwriter in the world right now.

You may also remember that Want has a second half, recorded at the same time as the first but shelved because DreamWorks Records didn’t feel like releasing a double album. Want Two was supposed to come out at the start of 2004, but then Universal Music, the lumbering cannibalistic giant running wild through the media jungle, gobbled up DreamWorks and spit out most of its roster. But now, thanks to David Geffen’s other record company, the one named after him, the record has finally been delivered, more than a year after its brother was born.

The imagery is apt – these albums are certainly siblings, if not twins. There’s no doubt that both Wants came from the same sessions, and from the same glorious musical mind. But you know how siblings can be very different, even if they look exactly alike? Want Two is darker, moodier, mellower and deeper than Want One – where the first album was a near-perfect pop explosion with some operatic touches, the second is its mirror image, a series of operettas composed and played with pop sensibilities.

It makes sense, though – Wainwright is a classically trained pianist who grew up as much in the world of Broadway and theater as he did in his famous parents’ folk circles. His music has always had elements of camp, of grandiosity, and it’s on the Want Two material that he lets those influences come to the fore. But coupled with that inherent pomp is a deep musical intuition. Wainwright has the soul of a composer, and the skills to match, and this album represents his most orchestrated work yet.

What we have here could be 12 songs from 12 different musicals, each with a different character at its core. Just about all of these songs would seem at home on the Broadway stage, sung by lovelorn misfits and beautiful mourners. Guitars appear on less than half the tracks – it’s mostly piano and strings and Wainwright’s delightfully odd voice. Is it a pop album? Yes, if you define pop the way Wainwright does, encompassing the likes of Irving Berlin and Gilbert and Sullivan. Simply put, if you’re looking for songs like “California” and “I Don’t Know What It Is” and “Beautiful Child,” well, they’re not here.

What is here? How about some of the most gorgeous music this guy has ever made. Opener “Agnus Dei” sets the tone – it’s a lengthy orchestrated dirge, all in Latin, with some lovely violin work. “The One You Love” is the only pop song here, but it refuses to be straightforward, dipping into odd times and cool piano bridges. “Crumb By Crumb” is almost a shuffle, with lovely, silly lyrics and an insanely catchy ascending melody.

The stretch of songs from track three to track 10 is the most sustained set of moody ballads Wainwright has yet produced. The whole thing is practically hook-free, but from the first strains of “Peach Trees” you’re immersed in it. “Little Sister,” flirting as it does with incestuous sexual yearning, is pretty much as campy as it gets… until you hit “Gay Messiah,” which belongs in an alternate universe reading of Jesus Christ Superstar. (As you may have guessed, this is an album that would make the moralists in the red states see… well, red.) “Hometown Waltz,” about wanting to torch one’s place of birth, is played for laughs and heartbreak, the cousin of Want One’s “Vibrate.”

But when things get deeper, Wainwright shines. He plays the part of a smitten young student in “The Art Teacher,” a romantic ballad that turns tragic by its conclusion. He probes the role of pain in relationships in the tense, sweeping “Waiting For a Dream,” on which he sings, “You are not my lover and you never will be, ‘cause you’ve never done anything to hurt me.” Best of all, though, he gently mourns the passing of Jeff Buckley on “Memphis Skyline,” the most subdued and haunting song here.

Wainwright’s only misstep is the closer, “Old Whore’s Diet,” which stretches its pulsing beat and its one melody out for nine minutes. He brings in a guest vocalist, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons, and it just… doesn’t work. The song’s structure mimics Want One’s opener, “Oh What a World,” but it goes on too long and wears out its welcome long before the impressive finish.

The production, once again by Marius de Vries, is perfect. It would have been sadly easy to let these songs slip all the way into camp with overblown arrangements, but Team Wainwright pulls off the balancing act again. (They get help this time from one Van Dyke Parks, who seems to be everywhere this year…) Even something as flamboyant as “Little Sister” avoids silliness through its careful score, and when the tone downshifts for something like “Memphis Skyline,” the production is breathtaking.

Despite this album’s obvious wonders, though, it is a much more difficult work, and I find myself wishing that Want hadn’t been broken up into two releases. I get the sense that Wainwright and de Vries crafted Want One and then assembled Want Two out of what was left, so perfect is the former record. Had Wainwright mixed his pop and his pomp more thoroughly, both albums would have been amazing. As it is, though, they are two distinct journeys, inviting comparison, and Want One wins it.

It would be a mistake to think of Want Two as a collection of cast-offs, however. These songs are just as worthy of release, even if cumulatively their effect is less. A disjointed Rufus Wainwright album is still better than most artists’ finest work, of course, and it seems petty to complain about a record with 11 fantastic tracks. If Wainwright himself hadn’t set the bar so high with Want One, I would be praising this no end. It’s best to think of this album as part two, as a second act that isn’t meant to stand alone, and if you listen to Want in its entirety, the scope of Wainwright’s vision is impressive. It’s just too bad it wasn’t released that way.

Still, nothing wrong with the silver medal, and if you have both albums, you can play them back to back and pretend the record company never messed with it. And then you can watch the excellent live DVD that comes with Want Two. And then you can play the albums again. Rufus Wainwright is on the short list of songwriters that I will follow until one of us dies, and if his next project brings together all of the disparate influences that make up Want into a cohesive whole, it will be downright incredible.

Next week, dismantling an atomic bomb with U2. This is my 200th column, by the way, and the usual thanks for supporting and reading my work are in order. I truly appreciate it.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I promise, no politics this time. Honest.

Okay, just one little bit. Leave it to The Onion to get this election exactly right.

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I had an interesting morning on the treadmill.

I know that is exactly the kind of sentence that is usually followed by a story that is not at all interesting, but bear with me. I lost roughly 40 pounds in 2003, and gained roughly 20 of it back in 2004, and I have to be in a wedding in less than a month (Hey Gary, hey Lee!), so… treadmill. This morning I decided on VH-1 for my exercise entertainment – that channel has very capably slipped into its role as MTV for old people, by the way – and caught up on the pop landscape.

First up was Gwen Stefani’s debut solo single, “What You Waiting For.” And honestly, all I could think was, “I don’t know about you, Gwen, but I’m waiting for a chorus.” She never delivered one. The video, by the by, concerns a company that cures writer’s block, and considering that this song sounds like the product of an idea shortage, she should probably get her money back.

From the inexplicable corner of my mind department, I absolutely love Switchfoot’s “Dare You to Move.” Don’t know why – it’s just the kind of mid-tempo alterna-pop I usually can’t stand, but something clicks here. I can’t understand it, but the song makes me want to sing along every time I hear it. I can’t intellectually tell you the difference between this and most Matchbox 20 or Collective Soul songs, so don’t ask, but this one just does it for me.

Then came John Mellencamp’s new video for “Walk Tall.” The song is Mellencamp on autopilot, and to tell you the truth, I can’t even remember it, but the video is mesmerizing. It stars 4’6” actor Peter Dinklage (from The Station Agent and Elf, among other films) and takes place in an alternate deep south where racism doesn’t exist, but the same level of racial hatred is reserved for short people. It’s a lot better than it sounds, and it’s beautifully shot, and its final act is jolting. One of the best conceptual videos I have seen in ages.

Quick update – I have been informed that it’s not Peter Dinklage at all, but Poncho Moler who appears in the Walk Tall video. Thanks to Christine Herndon for bringing this to my attention, and apologies to Peter and Poncho.

Most interestingly, I caught Sarah McLachlan’s “World on Fire.” If you haven’t heard about this clip, here’s the story: McLachlan was given $150,000 to make a video. She actually spent $15 on the video (so she says), using a single camera and stock footage. The rest of the money was sent to charitable causes in the third world, and the video details where it all went. (She set up a webpage to document it as well here.)

I think this is all well and good, despite the obvious soapboxing, but I do have one little problem with it: now that she’s made this statement, McLachlan can’t make any more $150,000 videos. If she does (and she will – her label will likely only allow a stunt like this once), she’s guilty of the same excesses and lack of caring of which her video accuses others. Now that she’s opened these floodgates, she’s ripe for criticism every time she mounts a huge tour, or takes three years crafting an album. Because of this video, we’ll be thinking of how much each of her future promotional endeavors costs, and the snarkier among us will probably figure out how much relief she is not sending to the needy.

Here’s the thing. I think this is a great gesture, a terrific way to help out, and if she had just donated the cash and turned in a cheap $15 video, that would have been fine. The implicit message of the clip, however, is that everyone who spends extravagantly on music videos (or any artistic project) is not doing enough to help the poor. This is true, of course – I can’t help thinking of all the money thrown away on crap like The Day After Tomorrow, for instance – but now that she’s made this point, she has to live it. Otherwise, the statement is hopelessly diminished. And that’s why entertainers don’t make statements like that very often.

Still, great video.

The last chunk of my workout was accompanied by MTV2’s Rock Countdown, since by that time I needed a jolt of adrenalin. I didn’t get it. What I did get was a slab of sad, same-sounding videos from the likes of Good Charlotte, the Used, Jay-Z and Linkin Park (Look! Rap and rock together! Why didn’t someone think of this before?), and Yellowcard. Okay, Yellowcard gets points for their violin player, but the same demerits for lazy songwriting. The whole sequence of videos was ungodly boring, and served to make me feel incredibly old.

I can scarcely believe I have become the type of music fan that is more at home on VH-1 than on MTV, but there you go. I don’t think it’s a matter of being unable to identify with the seething teenage anger that permeates the newer stuff, though – I’m still pretty angry a lot of the time, and the Cure’s Disintegration aside, I never really looked to music for personal identification anyway. No, I really think the songwriting has just gotten worse since the ‘80s, when even pop fluff was well-constructed and usually unique. Modern pop and rock just blends together in a sludgy pool of blandness, for the most part.

As if to test my theory that bands from the ‘80s were just better songwriters, we’re seeing a virtual renaissance of reunion projects these days. Bands who hit the charts two decades ago are burying the hatchet and dropping new discs left and right, and you know what? Call me ancient, biased and subjective all you want, but mostly, these records are just better than the works of their modern counterparts.

Take Duran Duran, for example. During their early-‘80s heyday, Duran was constantly accused of plasticity, of shallow fakery, despite the fact that they could outplay most of the folks they outsold. In contrast to the hollowed-out puppets topping the pop charts these days – hello, Ashlee Simpson! – Duran Duran was a band, with real songs and genuine musicianship. Ignore “Rio” and hear “The Chauffer,” skip “Girls on Film” and check out “Tel Aviv.” These guys knew how to write and play.

Hell, they still do. It would be tempting to call Astronaut, their new album, a comeback record, but Duran Duran never went away. They’ve consistently released an album every two or three years since 1981, and while some have been hit or miss, most are terrific, and none evidence the shallowness with which they’ve been associated. If Astronaut is a comeback, it arrives just a decade after their last comeback, fueled by an extraordinary single called “Ordinary World,” and if viewed as a whole, their output starts to look like a bold and idiosyncratic career, as opposed to a few stabs at pop stardom.

Astronaut is indisputably a reunion album, though – it marks the first time since 1983 that Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes and all three Taylors (Andy, John and Roger) have been in the same studio together. If you’re expecting a return to the bass-heavy synth-pop of Rio, though, forget it. This is a much more satisfying record than that. It hearkens back to ‘93’s Wedding Album, and even ‘90’s Liberty, and while it unfortunately leaves the psychedelic touches of Medazzaland and Pop Trash behind, it delivers a nifty pop record with hooks and depth.

Leadoff track “(Reach Up For the) Sunrise” is certainly a classic Duran Duran single, with its sky-high melody, and songs like “Taste the Summer” and the big beat “Want You More” are crafted for radio play. (Or at least, late-‘80s radio play.) And “Bedroom Toys” fulfills their apparently contractually obligated one-per-album embarrassment. But the real meat of the album lies in the lovely guitar ballads that grace its second half. “Finest Hour” is the kind of song that just can’t be written by pop twits with no instrumental skill, and the seven-minute “Still Breathing” ends the disc on a melancholy, melodic note.

This is not the best Duran Duran album – there’s an emphasis here on production craft, sometimes over songcraft, and Le Bon’s voice has been compressed and processed a bit much. Still, it’s a fine pop record, and further proof that the Durans have always been more than their image. I, for one, am hoping for another blissful fade from popularity, another decade of quirky, nifty albums, and a third comeback in 2015.

It would be difficult to characterize American Music Club’s reunion as a comeback, since they never cracked the charts to begin with. Still, for six albums and nearly 10 years, they were critically lauded, and they made some great music. Their peak, arguably, was 1991’s Everclear, but every record of theirs is worth hearing.

And they’re important for another reason – AMC launched the career of Mark Eitzel, their charismatically sad lead singer. Eitzel is the quintessential hard-luck hero in the bowler hat, and his solo career has been one long melancholy high. Given that Eitzel’s last two solo records, Music for Courage and Confidence and The Ugly American, contained no new songs – one had covers, the other re-arrangements – fans of Eitzel’s gift for storytelling have been waiting for three years to hear new material from him.

But few expected that new material would come in the form of a new American Music Club record, and fewer still could have predicted that the album would be excellent. Love Songs for Patriots is AMC’s first record in 10 years, but it picks right up where they left off. Still, the hallmark of Eitzel’s solo work has been unpredictability – a jazz ballad here, a techno-mope there, a stellar rock tune over there – so the thought of him returning to AMC’s relatively standard instrumentation didn’t inspire excitement either. But surprise – Eitzel stepped up with a great batch of songs, and the band found new ways to accentuate them.

No one does hangdog like Mark Eitzel. On this record, he even makes a phrase like “I’ve been so lucky” sound worthy of pity. Love Songs for Patriots is louder and more energetic than anything Eitzel has done away from the band, with guitarist Vudi’s swirling walls of feedback, but most will still find it slow and depressing. I find it captivating – this is the kind of record that casts a spell on its environment. It takes its time, slowly unspooling, but when you arrive at an emotional catharsis like the chorus of “Home,” it’s genuinely powerful.

Who knows whether this is a new beginning or a final bow-out for American Music Club, but I certainly wouldn’t mind hearing a new one of these every two years or so. Love Songs for Patriots is a reunion record done right, a great example of musicians growing apart and then fitting back together beautifully.

They can’t all be like that, though. Sometimes when the musicians grow apart artistically and then try to make the puzzle pieces fit again, the result is a new hybrid that probably should have been called something else. That’s the case with the new Camper Van Beethoven album, but hell, if I had one of the three or four best band names in history, I’d want to use it, too. They came up with another winning pun for the album title, too: New Roman Times.

Unless you’re a fan, you probably only remember Camper Van Beethoven for their hit, a cover of Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men.” If that seems an odd choice for a cover, then you really don’t remember Camper Van. Their five studio albums are all nearly random in their glorious quirkiness, from the anything-can-be-ska instrumentals of Telephone Free Landslide Victory to the near-prog stylings of their self-titled record to the moody fragility of “All Her Favorite Fruit” on their swan song, 1989’s Key Lime Pie. Camper Van Beethoven never did what anyone might expect.

So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that their first album in 15 years is this fascinating mess. New Roman Times is a 67-minute political rock opera about the making of a suicide bomber. Its 20 tracks veer from psychedelia to country to prog and even to disco. It’s just as all-over-the-place as their first few records, tied together by a newly found weight and pretension. This is an exhausting listen, even with such early Camper-style gems as “Militia Song” sprinkled in. And it isn’t very much fun – the playfulness that used to be a CVB hallmark is all but gone.

If you’re wondering why, I have one word for you: Cracker. In the decade and a half since Key Lime Pie, leader David Lowery found (and lost) success with his other band, and the ‘70s rock that Lowery grew to embrace is all over this album. It is the loudest, most abrasive CVB disc, and in fact it often sounds like late-period Cracker with a violin. Sometimes the synthesis works, and sometimes it leads to repetitive fuzziness with little else to direct it.

So it sounds nothing like the other CVB albums, but that doesn’t mean it should have stayed on the shelf. When New Roman Times works, it’s terrific, especially on instrumentals like “Discotheque CVB” and “The Poppies of Balmorhea.” It’s obvious that this album is intended to be listened to back to front, but what the concept ties together, the random nature of the music rips apart. You’ll find yourself jumping styles too often to consider this a unified work, but that doesn’t render the enjoyable parts less enjoyable. In fact, by the time of the story’s distasteful conclusion, you’ll probably have decided to ignore it anyway.

Lowery and company clearly worked hard on New Roman Times, and it stands as the CVB album with the widest reach. But if you remember Camper Van Beethoven from the ‘80s as that goofy “Take the Skinheads Bowling” band, you’re in for a surprise here, and I can’t guarantee it will be a pleasant one. But take the time to dig into this album, and it will reward you. If this is the start of a new CVB renaissance, then bring it on, because if New Roman Times proves anything, it’s that this is a band without borders. You never know what you’re going to get next.

But you know it will be better than anything on MTV.

* * * * *

Well, that was a stream of consciousness. Anyway, I have been so wrapped up in the election that I forgot to congratulate the Boston Red Sox on their first World Series victory in 86 years. Needless to say, this is the biggest event to hit Boston in decades, and as an expat Bostonian, I couldn’t be happier. The series itself was anticlimactic after our near-miraculous trouncing of the hated New York Yankees, but the victory is sweet, and best of all, Red Sox fans never have to hear that damn “1918” chant again.

Good job, guys. At least I got one of the two pictures I wanted.

Next week, Rufus Wainwright, and then U2 and Eminem.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I know I promised music reviews this time, but I just can’t.

I have put aside the purpose of this column several times to report on personal or political issues, and I have to do it again. I woke up Wednesday morning in a different country than the one I thought I went to bed in on Tuesday night, and where I expected to find rage I am only finding confusion within myself. I am unhappy with the results of the election, and that certainly qualifies as one of the year’s biggest understatements. But more than that, I am perplexed as to the actual nature of America, and terrified by a question I keep repeating: has it always been like this?

Here’s what I think we’ve just done.

President George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and squeaked by in the electoral college by just over 500 votes. Regardless of the deep division in this country evidenced by that vote, he interpreted his win as a mandate from God, and promptly stopped listening to any opposing viewpoints. He cut taxes, increased spending, took us from the largest surplus in years to the largest deficit in history, and responded to the terrorist attacks on September 11 by completely rewriting our core worldview.

In a post-9/11 world, according to George Bush, it is perfectly American to attack a country without cause, because we think they may, someday, become a threat. America was attacked by Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, but rather than commit our troops to tracking him down, Bush proposed a wider, more encompassing war on terror itself. That war began with invading Iraq, presumably because of Saddam Hussein’s storehouse of weapons and imminent plans to use them against “freedom-loving people.”

We know now that this was never true, that our intelligence was either faulty or fabricated. We know that more than 1000 U.S. troops have died in Iraq because Bush, expecting an easy victory, did not plan for an occupation, and has no clear picture of how we’re going to withdraw. We also know that no matter how many troops die, no matter how much it seems the violent Iraq opposition forces want us out of their country, Bush will continue to say that things are going well, that all is proceeding according to plan, and that every day over there is a great day for freedom.

In his rush to war, Bush brushed aside the United Nations, choosing instead to build a coalition of his own and attack Iraq before the U.N. weapons inspections could be completed. Bush’s arrogance in this matter (and others, including the Kyoto Treaty, which every other nation signed but us) has alienated the rest of the world, and the citizens of many other countries consider the United States not the paragon of liberty and justice that we teach our children we are, but an empire-hungry giant with a crazed, illiterate cowboy for a leader.

Domestically, Bush’s new post-9/11 mindset allowed him to see it as perfectly American to crush civil liberties, the better to ward off terrorism. The Patriot Act alone is worth twenty columns this size, so counter is it to the very spirit of the country it purports to protect. Holding American citizens without due process, and without charge or evidence, just because the government decides it can is unconstitutional. (So is cracking down on “smut” sold to adults, a personal pet project of Attorney General John Ashcroft.) Discussions have already been held regarding Patriot Act II, a proposed permanent extension of the original Patriot Act that would increase the government’s powers even further.

Essentially, whether it comes to the multiple justifications for the war in Iraq (four and counting), the economy (which will not be improved by cutting taxes on the rich), education (left in the cold to fund defense spending and the war on terror), our personal freedoms (which the administration says they are not eroding even as they erode them), the environment (pushed aside as not even a legitimate concern in the face of huge corporate profits) or the very Constitution of the United States (the second amendment of which seems to be the only part they are not determined to dismantle), this administration has lied again and again. There is not one single thing George W. Bush has done while in office that he did not make worse simply by touching it.

The rest of the world has been watching this with a mix of horror and shame. But for the most part, people have been giving the average American citizens a break, because they believed the leftist spokespeople when they said that most Americans do not agree with Bush. They saw the results of the 2000 election and believed the popular vote – more people wanted Gore in office than Bush. And so they waited for 2004, trusting that Americans were just and fair-minded people who would only tolerate being led about by Tex and his oil cronies until they could vote him out.

In case you haven’t heard, that isn’t what we did.

Voters turned out in record numbers on Tuesday – more than 100 million of them, or more than one-third of the country’s population. And 59 million of them voted for Bush. Unlike the 2000 election, Bush clearly and cleanly won not only the electoral vote – 274 to 252 – but the popular one as well, by more than three million votes. Not only that, but voters handed the Republicans the Senate and the House of Representatives, too, so the administration should have no trouble getting through most of its initiatives over the next four years. Additionally, at least one Supreme Court seat is opening up soon, with as many as three possibly becoming vacant, and with a Republican Congress, Bush will undoubtedly stack the court in favor of the hardline conservative viewpoint.

Essentially, anything he wants over the next four years, he should be able to get.

So here’s what we’ve just told the rest of the world. We’ve said that 51 percent of our country – more popular votes than any president in history, by the way – has looked at the above list of crimes and misdemeanors and said, “We’re good with all that.” We’ve said that 59 million voters believe that Bush’s America – a nation of religious and moral crusaders led by liars and profiteers – fits their vision of this country just fine. This is where we want to go.

I am stunned by this. The results of this election leave very little room for doubt – this is where the majority of Americans want to go. We cannot blame hanging chads, low voter turnout or Ralph Nader this time. We held a fair, democratic election, and the people have spoken. They want the guy who talks to God and rushes to war without a plan. They want the guy who lies over and over again, to the country and the world, and then preaches moral values.

Moral values – there’s the crux of it. The primary issues that brought conservative voters out in droves concerned moral values. You can see that reflected in the referendums – eleven states proposed banning gay marriage, and all eleven voted to do so. I have yet to hear a rational reason behind disallowing gay marriage. The closest I have heard casts it as a difference of origin – where you come down on this issue depends on whether you see marriage as a religious institution with some governmental elements, or a governmental institution with some religious elements. Gay marriage is no big deal for the latter people, but a complete redefinition for the former.

That still doesn’t explain the belief that God disapproves of gay unions (or of gay people in general), though. It’s an article of faith for the religious – either that, or they really are as scared of gay sex as they seem to be. (‘Cause it’s icky, don’t you know, and contagious, like a cold. Gay teachers could, just by breathing on them, turn your kids gay. Fact!) What’s always fascinating about the religious right is that God seems to uniformly disapprove of whatever they dislike.

Voting for a lying warmonger because he likes Jesus more than his opponent does is something the rest of the world, God bless ‘em, is probably not going to understand. Whether or not the Bush voters agree with (or even understand) the direction he and his administration have taken this country, they have validated that direction in the eyes of the world. And it’s only going to get worse – Bush considers his vote a mandate. “I’ve earned political capital, and I’m going to spend it,” he said yesterday. “I’ve got the will of the people at my back.”

The thought that keeps me up at night is this: what if he’s right? What if all my moral-values-Jesus-voters-who-don’t-get-it posturing is a sham? What if 59 million people actually do see what’s been happening over the last four years, and fully endorse it? What if Bush’s America is actually America, and progressive-minded liberal thinkers are really the minority? None of that fits with my view of this country, but what if my view is wrong?

I’ve thought about that again and again these last couple of days, and I think I finally have my answer: the hell with it. And here I want to talk to the Kerry voters: we may not be able to see our vision of America right now, but we won’t get any further down the path of progressive change by lying down and giving up. Bush is going to steamroller his agenda through, but not without a fight. And no one can stop any of us from living the way we think Americans should live. At the moment, we still have a First Amendment, which guarantees our right to speak out against anything, at any time. And until they declare us enemy combatants and lock us away, I think we should, as often as we can.

We may be in the minority in America right now, but we can change that. It won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

I hope the results of this election haven’t permanently soured the record number of young and first-time voters that came out on Tuesday. This is democracy – sometimes it works in your favor, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes it gives you a clearer picture of what you’re up against. Is the country really this conservative? Sadly, it seems so… for now. We Kerry supporters have a fundamental difference of opinion with Bush voters over the nature and direction of the United States of America. Our president actively detests many of the hard-won principles of this nation, preaching its unassailable goodness to the rest of the world while holding it at gunpoint. Even if we win in 2008, it will be a long, hard climb back from the reactionary, fundamentalist pit in which Bush has left us.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t do it.

Don’t give up. Get to work.

See you in line Tuesday morning.