I’m a little late this week, I know. I’ve been covering sports, of all things, for the local paper all week, and it’s taken a bit more research time than I thought. I’ve never covered a baseball game before in my life, but I did my level best, using as much subterfuge as possible, to convince the sports editor that I’m a stone pro. Of course, that was before I wrote my stories – he’s probably figured it out by now.

I’m contemplating whether to take next week off, too, for my impending 31st, since I’ll be celebrating all weekend with my good friends Gary and Lee, but the new Oasis and Levellers albums are out Tuesday, so… probably not. If I keep this up, I’ll have banked enough columns to take all of December off, though. Wouldn’t that be something?

* * * * *

I suppose I’m a child of the ‘80s, but musically, I came of age in the ‘90s.

I started buying my own music at 15, in 1989. In high school, I rediscovered the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Queen, and built up a decent base of knowledge to build from. I bought records from bands who were big in the ‘80s, like R.E.M. and the Cure, but I didn’t start obsessively purchasing new music until I was 17 or so. Most of the things I bought in those first few tentative years were new releases by tried and true bands, like Metallica and Megadeth. (Really. At that time, they were tried and true bands, I swear.)

I can clearly remember one of the first new, ‘90s bands that I fell in love with, and it’ll probably surprise some of you. It was Soundgarden. I bought Badmotorfinger in 1991, fully expecting a metal album, but what I got was a slow, sludgy, Zeppelin-esque display of musical strength. The circular riff at the end of “Rusty Cage” blew my little teenage mind, and “Outshined” knocked me out with its building melodies. Plus, it rocked really hard, which was kind of a prerequisite for angry young me. (This was, I should note, a year before Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes, which rewrote my whole musical world.)

I got into Nirvana (somewhat) and Alice in Chains and Mudhoney and Pearl Jam later – the first Seattle band that sparked my interest was Soundgarden, and I still think they were the best of the lot. They were the most ambitious, with their dissonance and head-spinning time signatures, and very little seemed out of their reach. The riff for “Spoonman” is one of the classic rock bludgeons of all time, and the melodies were never left by the wayside. Even their Beatles moment, “Black Hole Sun,” was excellent. And that voice… Chris Cornell could sing anything and I’d listen.

It took a while longer for me to appreciate Rage Against the Machine. I’ve never been a rap fan – I’m too much of a melody addict – and Rage’s thudding, simple riffs and screaming vitriol just got old pretty quickly over the course of an album. But I stuck with them, and soon caught on to the secret – they weren’t a rock band rapping, they were a rap band with guitars. Tom Morello remains one of the most underrated sonic architects in rock, able to twist his tone into a seemingly endless array of unrecognizable shapes. All that got a little lost when Zach de la Rocha was shouting over it, but after a while, the percussive beauty of the whole thing hit me.

Rage will eventually be considered one of the most important bands of the ‘90s, and not just for perfecting the rap-rock thing. They were politically motivated, socially conscious and explosive. We really need a band like Rage these days, in the age of Darth Bush and his Evil Empire, but alas, they broke up shortly after the turn of the century. Ditto Soundgarden, who will never be revered the way Rage will, but who rode the first wave of Seattle mania to its fullest artistic potential. They didn’t even survive the ‘90s, fading when grunge did.

But you can’t keep a good musician down for long, and Cornell, Morello, Brad Wilk and Tom Commerford are very good musicians. With de la Rocha off making his solo record, the three Ragers hooked up with Cornell in 2002, and subsequently picked the worst band name in recent memory, Audioslave. And all four, um, Audioslaves swore that it wasn’t a side project, that it was a full-fledged band.

They were right, of course. The problem is, Audioslave is not nearly as interesting a band as either of the participants’ previous groups. The self-titled debut was good, but somewhat awkward, as Cornell and the Rage boys tried to figure out how to fit around each other. On paper, it shouldn’t have worked at all – Cornell is relentlessly melodic, and Rage was entirely percussive. Audioslave was a feeling-out process, scaling back the core elements of both sides of their sound.

On their just-released second album, Out of Exile, the band has tried to build from that foundation. They definitely sound more confident and comfortable this time out, locking into grooves instead of forcing their way in. The album starts strong, and Morello comes up with another powerhouse riff for the title track, one that lodges itself in your brain. Cornell’s voice is excellent, too, as usual, hitting those high notes with aplomb, and Morello’s unconventional guitar work is on display – check out the faux synthesizer arpeggios in “Your Time Has Come.”

The problem, though, remains that the sum of these parts isn’t as great as it could be. Where Soundgarden’s Superunknown was a rock record with prog-like time signatures and Sonic Youth-style dissonant arrangements, and Rage’s The Battle of Los Angeles was a rock record with rap grooves, fascinating sounds and social relevance, Out of Exile is just a rock record. Occasionally, they hit on something powerful, as they do on the second half of “#1 Zero,” but mostly the album is bland and frustratingly average.

It may not be fair to compare Audioslave with its members’ prior endeavors, but the problem here is that these guys aren’t playing to their strengths. Morello, Commerford and Wilk specialize in punishing, 4/4 bulldozer riffs, delivered with enough power to level mountains. Cornell writes tricky, atmospheric melodies that float and dive, and he’s never met a simple riff he couldn’t complicate. Audioslave finds the foursome compromising left and right – the Ragers have softened up to meet Cornell’s melodies, and Cornell has dumbed down his writing to fit the band’s lock-step assault. I’m sure they were hoping that the result would be worth it, but it’s not.

The best moments, musically, on Out of Exile come when the Rage trio sounds most like Rage, which they do only sparingly. Morello’s textures are always interesting, but the songs they grace are often middling affairs, like “Doesn’t Remind Me” and “Man or Animal.” Final track “The Curse” is so slow and simple that it’s almost immediately forgettable, and there’s very little I can say about first single “Be Yourself” that would be constructive.

Neither side of Audioslave is able to shine under this arrangement – Cornell can’t write his melodic wonders, and the Rage boys can’t kick as much ass as they’re able to. I’ve heard that live, they’re amazing, but I’ve also heard that they fill the set with old Rage and Soundgarden songs. They’d have to – the songs under the Audioslave banner so far have been surprisingly weak. I was forgiving of the first record, since the quartet was just getting its feet wet. But now I’m inclined to give Audioslave one more album before declaring it a failed experiment.

* * * * *

Soul Coughing was another percussive ‘90s band, albeit one that never got as much attention as they should have.

Here was a band in which every element contributed to the groove, from the jazz bass to the odd samples. But the most potent weapon in their arsenal was always singer Mike (M.) Doughty. His voice is indescribable – kind of if John McCrea from Cake decided to become a full-time beat poet. Doughty has the ability to make hooks out of just repeated consonants – his “take the elevator to the mezzanine” from “Super Bon Bon” is a perfect example. It’s just spoken words, but it captures the ear.

Soul Coughing also didn’t survive the ‘90s, but Doughty has launched an under-the-radar solo career that couldn’t be farther from his old band. He’s just released Haughty Melodic, his first solo full-length, on Dave Matthews’ label ATO, and really – who knew the Allan Ginsberg of the alt-rock set had an album of sweet, wonderful songs like these in him? Doughty has abandoned the grooves of Soul Coughing and expanded on the acoustic melodicism of his debut EP, Skittish, and the result is one of the most rewarding surprises of the year so far.

It’s on ATO, and it’s mostly acoustic, but it would be a mistake to lump Haughty Melodic in with the Matthews style. This is a classic pop album, and Doughty has come up with at least half a dozen remarkable melodies to go with his usual grooves. “Unsingable Name,” especially, is one of the best songs of Doughty’s career, all twists and turns. It was produced by Dan Wilson, of Semisonic fame, and he brings his eclectic pop sensibility to the record, especially the five songs he co-wrote. The production is fantastic, with Doughty’s voice front and center the whole time.

And what a voice. Amazingly, I think I like him better as a singer than as a beat poet. His gift for consonant-happy lyrics that make no sense, but sound neat, is in evidence, especially on “Madeline and Nine” and “Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well.” On that song, he repeats the line, “The only way to beat it is to bat it down,” and it sounds so… cool in his snap-tongue voice. Elsewhere, Doughty gets soft and ballad-like, most notably on “White Lexus,” and his vocals really work – they’re simultaneously raspy and smooth.

But the upbeat, funky ones fare best here. “Busting Up a Starbucks” is a smash-and-grab of lyrical dexterity – at one point he references the “sisters from Sister Sister,” and he spits out the line “the force that’s forcing you to feel” before crashing into the title phrase. Great, great stuff, and the backing groove is huge and chunky. It’s not all cultural wordplay, though – Doughty gets sentimental on “Your Misfortune” (“I can be the right reminder in the meantime, throwing out the lifeline”) and turns in a straight-ahead gospel number on “His Truth is Marching On.” (Well, one that includes the line “I’m fucking starved for love,” so it may not get a lot of play in churches…)

All in all, Haughty Melodic is pretty terrific. Doughty can sell even the simplest material – check out the spherical “I Hear the Bells” for an example – so it’s gratifying that he’s decided to push himself, and write some great pop songs. Doughty isn’t hiding his strengths here, he’s building on them, reshaping them into something new. I hope this is just the first in a long line of solo records from him, and that they only get better from here. He deserves to get out of the ‘90s alive.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

You know, Weezer notwithstanding, this is turning into a great year for new music.

Here’s what I mean. My favorite band in the world, the Choir, released their best album in 15 years last month. You would think it would be all I’d want to listen to, but I haven’t spun it in two weeks. I’ve had so much other great stuff occupying my player, all of which deserves consideration and praise in this column, that I haven’t found the time for re-listening to anything I’ve already reviewed.

To that end, this is my second column of this week. The other one goes on and on about Star Wars, and you can access it through the archive if you want to read it. I just can’t get any further behind the new stuff, especially considering the next few weeks will bring Audioslave, Girlyman, Coldplay, Dream Theater, the Levellers, the Foo Fighters and, as if all that weren’t enough, Eric Johnson’s first album in seven years. And, oh yeah, Billy Corgan, Michael Penn, Dredg, Fountains of Wayne, and on and on. So I can’t skip a week.

It’s especially important to me to pound this column out this week, since all three of the albums I’m reviewing are strong candidates for the top 10 list. I’ve seriously heard more great music in the past three weeks than I have in the previous four months. Here’s what I’m talking about:

* * * * *

I dig double albums.

They make me wish I’d grown up in the age of vinyl. I love the idea of a record in chapters, two sides to each platter, requiring one to physically get up and flip it over. I love the idea of an artist planning his or her record with that in mind – a space between the first and second sides, a different tone, a final song on side one that hangs in the air and makes you want to hear side two. And double albums? Man, four sides. What could be better than that? Musical ideas so huge and rich that they need two whole records to hold them.

Of course, I know that a double album doesn’t mean an abundance of good ideas. If you suck, making a double record only means that you suck for twice as long. Still, I get a charge out of any artist deciding that the single-disc format is too small, that he/she has a story to tell that just needs the extra space. With the advent of compact discs, many of the double albums of old now fit onto a single CD, and in the case of something like Tommy or Zen Arcade or Tusk, I think that’s kind of a shame.

Naturally, the CD has given even more ambitious artists the ability to stretch out even farther. What would have taken three vinyl records back in the day now fits comfortably on two CDs, and what most people call double albums now are really triples. This only raises the stakes – does your concept really need two hours? Really? – and, of course, only excites me more when someone takes advantage of it. It takes a certain amount of hubris to say, “Here are my 30 tracks, take them or leave them, but I needed to release them all.” I love that kind of ambition and arrogance.

The format changes have certainly called into question the definition of a double album. Take, for instance, Ryan Adams, who is marketing his latest, Cold Roses, as a double. In the days of vinyl, he’d have been right – Roses is 76 minutes long, and would take up four sides. It would easily fit onto one CD, however, so his decision to release it on two has to be considered an aesthetic one. The choice becomes clear when you check out the packaging – he’s designed Roses as a miniature vinyl mockup, with cardboard sleeves and raised front and back cover artwork. Even the CD labels look like records.

If you’re expecting something that sounds like the ‘70s, well, you’d be right. Roses is credited to Adams and his band, the Cardinals, and it sounds like an old-time session, like a great rock band recorded live. It’s a nostalgia trip in more ways than one, since it represents Adams’ return to his Whiskeytown sound, all pedal steels and sweet melodies. After the crushing thud of Rock N Roll and the moody drift of Love is Hell, hearing Adams get back to the business of writing great country-rock songs again is invigorating.

And these are great songs, all 18 of them. Cold Roses is Adams’ first top-to-bottom excellent album since Gold, his most consistent solo effort, and rather than sounding like a retreat, it plays like a joyous homecoming. For the first time in years, his prodigious gift for melody never fails him. Just the opener, “Magnolia Mountain,” has more ideas in its five minutes than Rock N Roll and Demolition put together. The band is tight and emotional throughout, especially guitarist Cindy Cashdollar, who also harmonizes with Adams on most of the tracks. She’s not quite Caitlin Cary, but she adds an element that’s been missing since Whiskeytown broke up.

Unlike most double albums, which peter out by the fourth side, Cold Roses stays enthralling throughout. In fact, some of the loveliest songs, like “Blossom,” are at the record’s end, and its closer, “Friends,” is gorgeous. Adams cranks up the amps here and there, most notably on “Beautiful Sorta,” but for most of this album he spins one beautiful ballad after another, and his voice drips with feeling. This is absolutely the album his fans have been waiting for, whether they’ve been waiting since Gold, or Heartbreaker, or even Strangers Almanac.

Ever the prolific little bee, Adams plans two more albums this year, with the tentative titles of Jacksonville City Nights and 29. It’s entirely possible that his lack of quality control has shoved the awful stuff onto the latter two discs, and we can only wait and see. It’s a little scary, though, because Cold Roses has not one spotty moment. It’s his best work in a long time, and even if he louses it up with substandard work before Christmas, this album will still be among the best things you’ll hear this year.

But is it a double album? I’m not sure it qualifies in the digital age, but at least Adams didn’t split the discs over two separate releases. No, that’s the unfortunate tactic System of a Down has taken with their new records, Mezmerize and Hypnotize. Each is projected to run about 35 minutes, and both would fit onto one CD nicely, but they’ve split the tunes into two releases, one now and one in October, the better to get your money twice. If there’s an artistic reason for this, I won’t complain as much, but it feels kind of greedy, and considering the fierce political bent of this band, that’s surprising.

What’s not surprising, though, is that Mezmerize is terrific. (A quick aside: surely such a smart band knows that they misspelled “mesmerize,” right?) System is a heavy prog band, like the Mars Volta, but they never waste your time with 10-minute guitar solos or noise sculptures. Every System album starts with a bang, does the watusi all over your ass, and leaves without bothering to clean up. In a way, the brevity of Mezmerize works in its favor – it’s the fastest, most explosive, most head-spinning record this band has done. It hits like a bullet, and half an hour later, you’re on the floor, trying to catch your breath.

No disrespect to the rest of the band, but this is guitarist Daron Malakian’s album. He wrote pretty much all the music here, and it takes from such disparate sources as Frank Zappa, Slayer, Faith No More, the Clash and, in some of the vocal sections, even Brian Wilson, but it always sounds like System. Very few bands can be this heavy and still switch styles on a dime like System can, mixing in reggae on “Radio/Video” and new wave on “Lost in Hollywood,” and still hitting the old-school thrash on “Cigaro.” Musically, they have very few peers.

Still, the most potent weapon in their arsenal may be vocalist Serj Tankian. He has such complete control over so many different voices that if this rock thing doesn’t pan out, he could have a successful career voicing cartoons. Well, maybe evil cartoons. On Mezmerize he pulls out all the stops, ranting and barking and all-out screaming like a banshee on fire, but he also waxes melodic and subtle here and there. This album, unlike most metal records, is full of powerful, memorable melodies. If not for the last track, “Lost in Hollywood,” on which Malakian gets a case of Noel Gallagher Disease and takes the lead vocal, it would be the perfect System album.

The band’s liberal politics are in full force here, too. Lead single “B.Y.O.B.” (which stands for “Bring Your Own Bombs”) wonders why presidents don’t fight wars themselves instead of sending the poor, while “Cigaro” muses on the, ahem, masculine reasons for wars in the first place. “Violent Pornography” takes on the brainwashing of television, smacking down both the violent programming and the advertisements that support it. And “Sad Statue” imagines the statue of liberty wiping away tears, thinking about the current administration. “What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering,” Tankian asks, and he has no answer.

While I do wish Mezmerize/Hypnotize had been released all at once, whether on one disc or two, this first installment has all but guaranteed that I will pony up the cash for part two. Yeah, they hooked me, but they did it by being a relentlessly original and fascinating band. They are the future of metal. If the members of Metallica can listen to Mezmerize and still think of themselves as in any way relevant, then they’re deluded.

Still, I can’t quite bring myself to call either Mezmerize or Cold Roses a double album, since by the modern definition, they would fit on single discs. No, when I think double album these days, I’m thinking of a wildly ambitious work that can’t be contained to one CD. The trick, the challenge, is to maintain the quality over more than an hour and a half. If you can do that, then you’ve earned my respect. Precious few double album attempts these days manage a consistency of vision and craft. That’s what I’m looking for – the ability to match one’s ambition with skill and artisty.

And honestly, I never thought I’d find something like that from the Eels. There was always something about this band that I liked, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I bought Beautiful Freak on the strength of “Novocaine for the Soul,” but found the rest of the record lacking. I bought Eels mastermind Mark Everett’s solo records, A Man Called E and Broken Toy Shop, and while they were pleasant, they didn’t do too much for me. But I did stick around for the next Eels record, and damn, am I glad I did.

Rarely has an artist come into his own as quickly and fully as E did on Electro-Shock Blues. A searing, quirky, heartfelt portrait of living with death, the album was recorded in the aftermath of Everett’s sister’s suicide and his mother’s death from cancer. The record was even more bizarre than its predecessor, and the whole thing had the feel of an autobiographical indie comic, sketchy and deeply moving. E hasn’t topped it since, although he’s made some corkers, especially Souljacker. The focus has been lacking, though, and some of the latter Everett records have felt a little tossed off.

Well, it turns out that E has been working behind the scenes for four years (!) on an album called Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, so in a way, everything since Daisies of the Galaxy has been a side project. That (ahem) revelation certainly raises expectation for the real deal, and it delivers. This is the ultimate Eels album, a return to the Electro-Shock Blues template, and a true double album – 33 heartbreaking songs in 93 minutes. It’s a beautiful homemade epic, just as rickety and grandiose as E’s best stuff always is, with no filler and a superb sense of flow.

Blinking Lights is a loosely arranged story of one man’s life, from birth through painful adolescence, through love and bitterness, and finally to hopeful old age, regrets and all. It is an album that only E could have made, so personal is the writing and so unorthodox is the sound. Everett crafts his magical lullabies with gently strummed acoustics, vintage keyboards, toned percussion and toy pianos, and yet somehow these simple little structures attain a grandeur that’s inexplicable. Blinking Lights is small and personal, yet sounds important and vast.

These are some of E’s best songs, too, especially the ballads, held together by his gruff, weary voice. They work on their own, but when placed in context, they achieve much more. Only E could write an affecting ballad called “Whatever Happened to Soy Bomb,” and use the metaphor to comment on the ephemeral nature of life and time. That’s the kind of album this is – silly, yet deep and powerful. Like the best works, it takes you on a journey, and by the time E is contentedly sighing the sweet melody to “The Stars Shine in the Sky Tonight,” you feel he’s earned this grace.

There are too many highlights here to mention, most of them simple little ditties that add to the overall picture. E has composed a theme for the album that appears throughout, further unifying the proceedings, and he makes room for cameos by Peter Buck and Tom Waits. But this is his show, and it’s his best since Electro-Shock. It’s not quite as surprising as that record was, and doesn’t pack the same punch, but Blinking Lights is a delightfully sad masterpiece. And like the best double albums, it wraps you up in its storytelling spell, and it’s over before you know it.

I’m not sure what Everett can do to top this. Blinking Lights is the culmination of his singular style, an emotionally naked pop utopia made of broken parts. For such an ambitious project, this album often feels like it would fall apart on contact, and it’s that dichotomy, that otherworldly sensibility, that gives E his charm and his magic. This is not just one of the best double albums of the past few years, but one of the best albums, period.

And with that, I’m off to see Star Wars again.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So. Star Wars is over.

I’ve just returned from the midnight showing of Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. I’m going to refrain from making pompous pronouncements like “The circle is now complete,” or anything like that, even though that’s kind of how I’m feeling. My childhood is officially over – Star Wars was the last of the things I loved when I was six to finish up, and it’s fitting that George Lucas has ended this huge, grand experiment with the saga’s most adult installment. This time, shattered innocence was the point, and while I have issues with the film (like I have with all Star Wars movies), both my inner six-year-old and my outer 30-year-old are satisfied.

I find that I’m not interested in being a Lucas apologist this time out – if you need me to tell you that Star Wars is important, then nothing will convince you. This is a saga that reverberates in the hearts of its fans, to a degree that non-fans (and even casual fans) sometimes find bizarre. If you’re in on it, it’s huge, mythical even. If you’re not, it’s just another loud, flashy summer movie with bad dialogue and wooden acting. I can’t tell you why Star Wars means as much to me as it does.

And it must mean as much to a lot of people, because you can read gripe after gripe about how Lucas has raped the series with the last two films, and yet I guarantee you Revenge of the Sith will be the top movie in the country for the next couple of weeks. The theater I went to this morning showed Sith on five screens, and sold ‘em all out. People care about these movies, and many people (myself included) care enough to go see them again and again.

But just because I care and love these movies, doesn’t mean I think they’re great works of art. Star Wars is based on old adventure serials, like Flash Gordon, and is crafted in a very specific, iconic style. Inherent in that style is some cornball dialogue, some stiff acting, and some simplistic plotlines. Contrary to quite a lot of popular belief, the original trilogy (Episodes IV, V and VI) doesn’t transcend that style, either. They’re all pretty consistent – straightforward, flashy, stilted, kind of silly, and kind of clunky. Even the most successful of the six, The Empire Strikes Back, knocks on the door of greatness and then runs away, more often than not.

But if you buy into them, and let yourself get carried away by them, they breathe magic in a way that no effects-laden blockbusters that have come in their wake do. I think buying into them requires seeing them when you’re young, when your wide-eyed imagination is still able to be influenced. These films have a mythical grandeur, a beautifully romantic sweep, and now that all six are in place, the full scope of Lucas’ hopeful vision is clear. Star Wars is an epic about a very small thing – a son redeeming his father. The massive scale is all metaphor.

Lucas has always been writing for the trade, as the comic book fans say. Many derided Episode I – The Phantom Menace for its innocence and cartoony humor, and they dissed Episode VI – Return of the Jedi for the same reason. But the innocence was the whole point. Of course the good stuff comes in between, when hope disappears, death is imminent and heroes are lost. Both the Gungans and the Ewoks are childhood triumphant, and the cross-galactic celebration that ends Jedi drives that home. It’s simple, yes, but it’s also effective myth-making.

The original trilogy was all about coming out of the dark, and so naturally the prequel trilogy has been all about going into that same darkness. Revenge of the Sith is the final link, the descent into hell that sets the stage for Episode IV – A New Hope. This is the deepest, darkest, most affecting chapter of the saga, or at least, it is if you want it to be. But more than any other Star Wars film, this one is for the fans, the ones who have been following all along and are invested in the fates of Anakin Skywalker, Padme Amidala and their offspring. For the fans, this one is deeply felt and moving, the fulfillment of the legacy.

For everyone else, though, here is the secret to enjoying Revenge of the Sith:

Don’t giggle.

Not even a little. This is such an earnest, corny, irony-free movie that you have to be swept up in it for it to work. There’s a lot of great stuff in Sith, but this time, the movie revolves around George Lucas’ dialogue the way none of the others (except maybe parts of Return of the Jedi) have. These characters say things like “You’re breaking my heart” and “You underestimate my power” and “Now we will finish this” seriously, and they mean them, and it means something when they say them, but if you’re not invested in this saga, Sith may be the most unintentionally funny flick you’ve ever seen.

Things that don’t quite work: Well, there’s the dialogue, particularly any scene in which Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala have to act like they’re hopelessly in love. There’s Ian McDiarmid’s portrayal of the Emperor – he’s all slippery subtlety for the film’s first half, but when he takes on the familiar visage from Return of the Jedi, he becomes a cackling parody of evil. And then there’s Darth Vader’s first appearance, a moment so head-slappingly awful that even the diehards will laugh.

But the things that work, and there are many, bring this series to a close better than I could have hoped. The descent of Anakin, long theorized and imagined, is chillingly plausible, and the final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi packs a surprising emotional punch. Ewan McGregor is terrific as Obi-Wan, and though even he cannot make some of these lines sing, his sense of loss and betrayal is the heart of this movie. Hayden Christensen throws himself into the role of Anakin, and many of his scenes are affecting.

The film is relentlessly dark, as it should be, but I was knocked out by the places Lucas allowed these characters to go. This is the first Star Wars film that really hurts, and even if you’re expecting it, there are moments that will sucker-punch you. Even Yoda, completely computer-generated here, conveys a deep sadness, and you can completely understand his exile to Dagobah and his reluctance to train Luke in Episode V.

Yes, this film is political, showing how freedom can disintegrate when safety is threatened. Yes, this movie is also probably the most beautiful, stunning, heart-stopping CGI display ever seen – nothing I have ever witnessed looks like this film, and in that sense it is Lucas’ crowning achievement. But all that would mean nothing if Sith did not bring closure to the six-movie Star Wars saga in a satisfying way, if Lucas failed to make this film with all his heart.

I think he pulled it off. I was worried after Episode I, and I found that after Episode II I was most concerned with whether Lucas would be able to transform Anakin into Vader. I was so concerned, in fact, that I completely missed the altogether more difficult trick he performed – with Sith, he transformed Vader into Anakin. He redefined the original trilogy – you’ll never watch it the same way again. The stark black and white, good and bad of the original films is now muddied and infinitely more complex.

No sequence in the original is as altered by the prequels as the ending of Return of the Jedi, in which Luke redeems his father. There’s a scene in Sith that mirrors this one exactly, and knowing Anakin’s journey adds layers upon layers to Vader’s blank stare. What is he thinking of? Well, now I think we know, and it wraps the whole saga together in ways I did not expect. Star Wars has never hit me emotionally the way it does now. Vader was pure evil without his backstory. Anakin Skywalker, however, is misguided, lost, and somehow still redeemable, and that makes him a much more interesting, albeit tragic, figure.

For the first time in his scrappy little adventure series, Lucas has engaged my brain as much as my heart. I’m amazed that I’m saying this, but Revenge of the Sith makes Return of the Jedi a better movie. It adds focus and clarity to the story – it’s not about a band of rebels bringing down an empire, it’s about a father and his son. In the end, Anakin does bring balance to the Force, and even if you’ve seen the original trilogy a hundred times, that moment will never hit you the way it will after Sith. It’s all different, it’s all complete.

As I said, I can’t explain what this saga means to me, or why. But I’m grateful to George Lucas for sticking by it, for doing it the way he wanted to do it, and for giving it heart. Star Wars has consumed Lucas for longer than I have been alive, and now that it’s done (barring the inevitable re-releases and endless tinkering), I can see why he dedicated so much to it. If you’re able to accept its faults and its shortcomings, Star Wars is a remarkably beautiful and human story. And if you’re not, well, don’t worry. Revenge of the Sith is a film for the faithful, for the ones who have been on this ride all along, and if the other movies haven’t done it for you, then this one won’t either.

As for me, my friends and I have had this geeky little plan for a long time now. When all six films are available on DVD, we’re going to rent a large-screen television and watch the whole thing, back to front. I was worried about it before, but now I can’t wait. The finished Star Wars is better than I ever imagined it would be, and experiencing it with my best friends in the world seems like a terrific way to cap off my childhood. It’s all over, but just as I’ve grown up with Star Wars, so Star Wars has grown up with me, and with this final piece in place, I know it is a story I will continue to treasure.

See you in line Tuesday morning… and may the Force be with you.

So I was going to talk about the new double albums from Ryan Adams and the Eels this week, complete with the requisite raving and, no doubt, at least one “this will be in my top 10 list” pronouncement. And then I heard the new Weezer album, and hell, it’s been way too long since I’ve really lit into something, but this record deserves it. It’s absolute crap, and if I can, through my meager efforts here, keep just one person from laying down their hard-earned cash for this thing, then I’ll have done my job.

Honestly, I’ve never understood the big deal about Weezer. Somehow, the smirk-pop of their first two records has become, to many, genius-level brilliance. I don’t hear it. Weezer has always been a fun rock band, even when lead basket case Rivers Cuomo was wrestling with his own insecurities on Pinkerton. There wasn’t much to his work there besides “I’m so sad, and unlucky in love,” but I guess that spoke to his fans’ very souls. I don’t know, I’m grasping at straws. Pinkerton just ain’t that good.

There are, it seems, two types of Weezer fans – those who love Pinkerton, and those who dig the Green Album. I’m not even sure, at this point, which one Cuomo likes better – the commercial semi-failure of Pinkerton precipitated his five-year hiatus, and its subsequent lionization has loomed over his head like a guillotine blade ever since. The Green Album, the opening salvo of Weezer Mark Two, presented a different Cuomo entirely, with its 28 minutes of stupid melodic pop that refused to take itself seriously. It was the anti-Pinkerton, in a lot of ways, and I think Cuomo is better when he’s not trying to be the genius everyone seems to think he is.

So I’m a Green Album fan, which right away strips me of credibility to those on the other side of the aisle. Perhaps, they’re thinking, when I say the new Weezer album, Make Believe, is crap, I mean it’s not dumb-pop enough. Perhaps I mean it resembles Pinkerton, which many have intimated, and given that, perhaps I should buy it and see, they’re probably saying. To them, let me say this: Cuomo has delivered an album that, in the spirit of bipartisanship, both sides of this debate can hate equally. If you can listen to this whole thing and still believe Cuomo is anywhere close to brilliant, well, I’ll eat Brian Bell.

Who is Brian Bell, some of you may be asking, and that brings up a terrific point. While there are three other members of Weezer (and Bell is one of them), this band has always been the Rivers Cuomo show. He writes all the songs, provides the whole personality, and even sends the band into extended periods of downtime when he’s not feeling up to being a rock star. In a sense, the other guys get a good deal – they get to be in a hugely popular rock band, and still walk down the street anonymously, ‘cause no one’s paying attention to them. And, if the records suck, they can hide behind Cuomo, because it most certainly is all his fault.

And there’s a lot of blame to lay on Cuomo’s slumped shoulders for Make Believe. Start with the atrocious first single, “Beverly Hills.” Never mind that it pinches the guitar line from the chorus of “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” and never mind that it just repeats the same dumbass riff for its entire running time, the song itself is just stupid. If it’s meant to be ironic, I can’t tell. I’m too distracted by the godawful talk box solo, straight out of “Life’s Been Good to Me,” but not quite as cool. The gang vocals shouting “BEVERLY HILLS!!!” over and over, the sampled female voice DJ’d into every chorus, the asinine lyrics – it’s as if Cuomo took a class on crappy songwriting, and this was his final exam.

Wait, it gets worse. Apparently reversing his determined stance of the past few years, Cuomo has tried to make Pinkerton II here, “opening up” and “sharing his feelings” on most tracks. Thing is, he’s mistaken treacly sentiment and fourth-grade-level poetry for emotional content. He’s also failed to back up these amateur-hour words with music and melodies that may distract you from them, as he did on the Green Album. There are rare cases here where the lyrics ruin otherwise good songs, but for the most part, they’re on the same level. And that level is the basement.

Where to begin? “This is Such a Pity” is an obviously calculated attempt to cash in on the ‘80s new wave boom, so out of place is it with the rest of Weezer’s catalog, and it hinges on the line, “We should give all our love to each other, not this hate that destroys us.” Fine sentiments, Raffi, but couldn’t you come up with some less, shall we say, stupid way of putting it? “Peace” actually contains this couplet: “All these problems on my mind make it hard for me to think, there’s no way I can stop, my poor brain is gonna pop.” Rather than hide the last line’s ridiculous lapse, the band drops most of the music out at that point to emphasize it.

The album also suffers from a plague of power ballads, the curse of Styx and Journey and Air Supply. “Hold Me” fares pretty well, considering, but it’s still a lighters-in-the-air laugh riot – “Take me with you ‘cause I’m lonely” is the most insightful it gets. “We Are All on Drugs” sounds like the title to a pretty neat, funny song, doesn’t it? Wrong – it’s pretty much a straight-ahead Nancy Reagan cautionary tale. “My Best Friend” is probably the funniest thing here, with lyrics that pinch one of Queen’s worst songs – “You’re my best friend, and I love you, yes I do.” Seriously. Even Vanilla Ice picked a better Queen song to rip off. If you can get through “My Best Friend” without giggling, you’re a better man than I.

Is there anything worth listening to on here? Well, sort of. “Perfect Situation” is mediocre piano-pop, but it isn’t embarrassing. Same goes for “Pardon Me,” which hits upon one or two interesting lines – “I may not be a perfect soul, but I can learn self-control.” And “Haunt You Every Day,” the closer, is the best thing here, a power ballad that actually has some power. But that’s really it, and none of what I’ve mentioned approaches the work you’d expect from someone of Cuomo’s esteem. It takes a whole album of bland songs for him to tell us a) “I’m lonely” and b) “Don’t do drugs.”

Which brings me back to my original question. Why do people idolize Cuomo? His work has always been varying degrees of mediocre – Make Believe is his worst simply because his lousiest tendencies have all come to the fore at once, but they’ve always been there. I wouldn’t even care, but this band has the full force of the record company behind them, and goddamn “Beverly Hills” is everywhere, while genuinely good bands go unheralded. I’m trying to be as nice as I can, but I just don’t get why this band is considered worth investing time in.

I also don’t get why critics are willing to give Cuomo a pass. Is it because he’s an interesting person? Sure, he’s elevated quirky-shy oddness to an art form, and he’s fun to have around, but… four stars for this record? Seriously? That just adds fuel to the theory that all the big magazines are in the pocket of the record companies. I plan to use Make Believe as my benchmark for criticism – if you listen to this tripe, give it a good mark and use words like “straightforward” and “earnest” and “plaintive” to describe it, then I don’t even want to deal with you. Just be honest and call it crap.

In a way, this album is Cuomo’s “I’m a uniter, not a divider” speech. With this tedious, disastrous, unbelievably mediocre record, he’s given us something we can all rally against. Democrats and Republicans, pro-choicers and pro-lifers, Pinkerton lovers and Green Album fans, we can all join hands and hate the hell out of Make Believe. It is all the bad parts of all of their previous albums – no matter who you are, no matter what of theirs you’ve liked before, you’ll find something to despise here. It’s a big, thick, goopy mess, and what really bothers me about it is that if some unknown band came to Geffen Records and handed this in as their demo, they’d be laughed out of the building.

I implore you, don’t buy this record. If Cuomo’s attitude towards Pinkerton has taught us anything, it’s that if this album is enough of a commercial failure, he’ll go away and hide for another five years, at least. Perhaps another hiatus will recharge Cuomo’s batteries, perhaps not, I don’t care. All that matters is purging this shite from the airwaves for another half-decade. And in Cuomo’s absence, we can all make believe that Make Believe never happened, and each remember Weezer the way we want to remember them, be it Pinkerton or the Green Album or, hell, even not at all.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Bit of a ramble this time. With spoilers. Just warning you.

So I saw The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy this week. Twice.

Let me back up. For many, Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide books are just silly sci-fi romps, but for me they’ve always held a special place. I talked about my love for Adams’ writing in my eulogy for him, nearly four years ago. I first read the Hitchhiker’s books in fifth grade, and was awed by Adams’ twisting of language into new forms. He did this mostly for comedic effect, but the sentences he conjured made me think about words and word placement and emphasis and double meanings for the first time. I think every writer has that moment when the possibility of language opens up and unfolds, and for me it was the first few chapters of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Specifically, I remember marveling at the sequence in which Arthur Dent, everyman extraordinaire, and Ford Prefect, alien from somewhere in the vicinity of Betelguese, talk the man trying to raze Arthur’s house into lying down in front of the bulldozer, thus preventing the demolition, whilst Arthur and Ford pop down to the pub. It was a deft display of illogical logic, a tone-setter for the book. Plus, it was really funny, even for a fifth grader raised on poop jokes.

That bit is gone from the movie. Or rather, the basic framework of that scene remains, but the central idea is significantly altered – instead of using wit and wordplay to temporarily save Arthur’s house, in the film Ford distracts the construction workers with beer. It’s a lower-common-denominator kind of joke now, but it still sets the tone for what follows. Most of the wit in Hitchhiker’s has been replaced with slapstick, the complex jokes replaced with one-liners, the difficult interactions scrapped for narrative drive and romance. It’s been Hollywood-ized, sanitized for your protection.

The first time I saw the film, all I could think about was how little of Adams’ spirit and style had translated, despite his having written at least one draft of the screenplay. Sam Rockwell is not playing Zaphod, he’s playing some mad cowboy who calls himself Zaphod. The Infinite Improbability Drive doesn’t just change you into things over and over – that’s predictable, and therefore probable, which misses the whole point. Deep Thought does not watch cartoons. Marvin would never say, “I’m a robot, not a refrigerator.” Things like that kept nagging at me, and I couldn’t enjoy what was there on screen.

The second time, I tried to see it as a fun summer movie, and it worked much better for me. It’s still not a great movie, but it does have its charms, and its own funny bits. Roughly half of the film’s plot is new, with fascinating additions like the Point-of-View Gun, and while most of it could have been handled better than it was, it’s a diverting afternoon at the movies. Alan Rickman is perfect as the voice of Marvin, and Bill Nighy nails his bit role as Slartibartfast. The sequences on the Magrathea factory floor are brilliantly conceived as well. I can imagine Douglas Adams falling out of his chair at how beautiful they look.

And the truth is that the Hitchhiker’s story has changed dramatically in each of its incarnations. It started as a radio comedy, and later morphed into the books, a television series, a comic book, a stage show, and a computer game, all of which bear some, but not all, resemblance to the original. Change is the constant with Adams’ work, and if this light, fun movie gets more people to read the books, then that’s fantastic.

But here’s the thing that bothers me. The basic story of the Hitchhiker’s Guide is one that lends itself to weightless comedy pretty easily, and the movie makes a fluffy go at a feel-good sci-fi romance romp. All fine, except that misses the whole tone of Adams’ writing, which is a lot deeper and harsher than people credit it. Adams was a fatalist, his humor dark and depressing, if you stop to think about it. Again and again in the Hitchhiker’s books, the magical and unexplainable is shown to actually be coldly logical and oddly horrible. Just look at the meaning for life on Earth – Do we have a purpose? Yes. It’s to make pan-dimensional mice rich and famous. Life was better when we didn’t know that.

The movie is not fatalistic. The ending is happy – Arthur gets the girl, the Earth is rebuilt just as it was, and though no one learns the Ultimate Question, no one seems to care. The film’s last line seems to suggest that the filmmakers haven’t read the second book, so I wonder what they will think when they get to the end of Mostly Harmless (the fifth and last book) and see that Adams ended his saga coldly, logically, and finally, with a billion questions unanswered.

Which brings up an interesting topic (well, interesting to me) – at what point have you changed the meaning and tone of a concept like Hitchhiker’s Guide so that it no longer resembles the original? The film is quite obviously a Hitchhiker’s movie – we have Arthur and Ford and the Vogons and the destruction of Earth, and all the trappings that one would associate with the book, given a surface-level reading. But in a very real sense, it is not a Hitchhiker’s movie, because the very thing that the books are about is absent from the film. How much can one deviate from the basic idea and still deliver the goods?

Musicians struggle with this idea all the time. Established artists continually balance the desire to evolve with the need to maintain the recognizable core of their work. If you evolve too quickly, you lose your audience, but if you don’t evolve, you get bored and die, creatively speaking. For some artists, that’s not a concern – look at Frank Zappa’s insanely varied career, which jumped from ‘50s doo-wop to dissonant orchestral works to free jazz, album to album. But for some it’s a big deal. Imagine if the new Dave Matthews Band album sounded like Reign in Blood. Even if that’s what Dave really wanted to play, no one would go for it.

Take Nine Inch Nails as a for-instance. When Trent Reznor burst onto the scene in 1989, all fishnets and angst, he brought with him a new kind of industrial music. It can’t be overstated just how important Reznor’s personality and songwriting skill were to the impact of Pretty Hate Machine, as even a cursory jaunt through the scores of imitators that cropped up shortly thereafter will attest. Here was thinking, feeling, bleeding humanity dressed up in machines, a cold and abrasive shell housing a beating, broken heart.

What some seemed to miss was Reznor’s impeccable sonic craftsmanship – he has since dismissed Pretty Hate Machine as low-budget and tinny, and his later records prove him right. He’s been on a constant evolution since his debut, and considering he’s only managed four full-length albums in 16 years, such craft obviously takes time. 1994’s The Downward Spiral made him a star, despite its intense depth, narrative complexity, and experimental nature, and he took that as license to run with the ball.

But 1999’s double-disc opus The Fragile left a lot of fans in the dust. Here was a similar complexity and narrative thread, but here also was the most un-Nine Inch Nails material Reznor had yet released. Ambient instrumentals, marching band music, oceanic ballads, and real push and pull between the electronic and the organic sides of his sound, all wrapped up in impeccably labored-over sonic constructions that puzzle on first listen, but unfold over time. But that’s time that many fans didn’t want to put into this record, and despite a strong first-week showing, The Fragile fizzled.

Thing is, the album was amazing. I liked it for the very reason many hated it – it journeyed well beyond the accepted notions of Nine Inch Nails music. Reznor seemed to have answered his question about how far he could go without shedding his audience, however, and now he’s back with his most musically conservative record ever, With Teeth. And there’s no way that this isn’t a calculated, modulated, graphed-out attempt to regain the Downward Spiral and Pretty Hate Machine fans.

Given that cynical premise, though, the record is actually quite good. As a return to the “classic” Nine Inch Nails sound, it’s a sequel to the first half of Spiral, and had it been released in 1996, it probably would have capitalized on the success of that album. Reznor throws some curve balls – opener “All the Love in the World” is hushed, until it morphs into a disco-beat vocal collage, and “Beside You In Time” manages the neat trick of being a pulsing dirge. But mostly, we get big beats (courtesy of Dave Grohl), loud guitars, and screaming Trent, and if that’s what you’re looking for in your NIN, then you’ll love this.

I don’t love it, but that’s just because the artistic progression Reznor seemed to be on was a fascinating one for me. But then, what was he going to do – a quadruple album with 40-minute songs? Coming back to earth was the right thing, of course. It just shouldn’t have taken more than five years to make an album that sounds like 1994. The disc even closes with the next installment in the “Something I Can Never Have” / “Hurt” saga, “Right Where It Belongs,” and while it’s an affecting little ballad, I can’t help thinking that I’ve heard it before.

There’s another issue, too – Reznor delivered musically, coming up with some of his better melodies and riffs, but once again, it sounds like he scoured Livejournal for lyrical ideas. Stripped of the dramatic flow of his past two albums, Reznor’s words just sound like random bitching here. “The more I stay in here, the more I disappear.” “Feel the hollowness inside of your heart.” “I can feel me start to fade away.” And on and on. He got by with this stuff when he was telling stories, but I just don’t buy it in this first-person confessional sense anymore. Probably the only honest lyric on the record comes on “You Know What You Are,” when he screams, “You better take a good look ‘cause I’m full of shit.”

But NIN fans don’t care about all that. With Teeth is exactly what Reznor said it would be – 13 short, simple songs. The record is so skeletal that he even designed a minimalist package to go with it, the only liner notes being a production credit and a web address. This is Reznor’s back-to-basics effort, and he recaptures the core of his sound well. But he’s also come up with the first Nine Inch Nails album that doesn’t take us anywhere new. After a five-year absence, that’s a little disappointing.

Aimee Mann has the exact opposite problem. Her fourth album, Lost in Space, sounded so much like her third, Bachelor #2, and her work on the Magnolia soundtrack that many critics (including me) accused her of stagnation. Mann’s signature is the well-written sad ballad, and most of her songs are great in exactly the same ways. Even impeccable craft can get boring after a while if there’s no variation – I call that the Rush Principle – and Mann’s craft is always impeccable.

It’s hard not to see The Forgotten Arm, her fifth album, as an attempt to shake things up. Mann is a natural storyteller, having populated most of her songs with desperate characters clinging to each other, so a concept album seems a logical next step. The Forgotten Arm (the title is a boxing term for an unseen knockout punch) is the tale of a washed-up boxer named John, recently back from Vietnam, and the love of his life, named Caroline. The two of them split up, deal with life’s troubles (including John’s alcoholism), and get back together. You got it – it’s two more desperate characters clinging to each other.

Mann also hired guitarist Joe Henry to produce the record, and he gives it a rough, raw feel. This is perhaps the best-sounding Mann album since Whatever, especially when compared to the relatively chilly Lost in Space. The guitars positively crackle, and Mann’s voice is in fine form. Henry helped Mann rework her formula just enough that she sounds revitalized, even though she’s just doing what she does here.

And what she does is write great songs. If you ignore the story (which is easy to do), you’ll find another 12 sad, lovely numbers here that could belong to no one but Aimee Mann. The narrative forces two of the weaker songs to the front – “Dear John” is a slight opener with a decent hook, and “King of the Jailhouse” is just that much too slow that it becomes ponderous. But once you get past them, you’re in a stretch of songs (from track three to track eight) that very few living pop songwriters could match. Elvis Costello, Andy Partridge, maybe Neil Finn, and maybe Mann’s husband Michael Penn, but very few others.

And it’s not like the other songs suck, either. “That’s How I Knew the Story Would Break My Heart” is a lovely piano ballad that comes alive at the second chorus, and “I Can’t Help You Anymore” is another classic. Closer “Beautiful” is just that, even if it ends a little abruptly. But the meat of the album is in that killer three-to-eight stretch, which includes “Goodbye Caroline” and “Going Through the Motions,” two of Mann’s most compelling rockers. It also includes “Little Bombs,” one of the saddest tunes she has written, which centers on the line, “Life just kind of empties out.”

Lyrically, Mann is in familiar territory, but the story she is telling adds focus. “I’ll get a pen and make a list, and give you my analysis, but I can’t write this story with a happy ending,” she sings in “I Can’t Help You Anymore,” and she could be talking about her own work. “Beautiful,” the finale, is gloriously bittersweet, our two protagonists discovering that they’re not meant to be, but they will always love each other. “I wish you could see it too, how I see you,” she sings at the end, and there’s no more to say. Mann succeeds in painting an extended, heartbreaking portrait – so well, in fact, that Paul Thomas Anderson should film these songs.

The Forgotten Arm uses its concept and its punchier production to bring out the core of Aimee Mann’s appeal. She’s changed her modus operandi here just enough that you remember why you loved her work in the first place. While this record doesn’t quite have the 100% success rate of some of her earlier ones, it proves that she’s not in a holding pattern. If you were put off by the icy veneer of Lost in Space, this one is warmer and more immediate, but still wonderfully heartsick and sorrowful at its center. Capturing that is the difference between a great album and a great Aimee Mann album, and she’s managed to evolve without losing that spirit.

At the end of the year, I will not be surprised if I find out that I bought half of my Top 10 List in the last two weeks. I’ve already talked about the Choir, Aimee Mann and Ben Folds, and next week I’ll get to Ryan Adams and the Eels. And after that, Weezer, the Levellers, Audioslave, Girlyman and a bunch of others. No breaks in sight.

See you in line Tuesday morning.