I got an email from my old roommate and good friend Gary Porro today, asking me for a favor.

Gary and I have talked or emailed an average of once a day since 1992, and he’s never asked for anything as far as I can remember. Well, he did ask me to dress up in a tux and go to his wedding, but that’s forgivable. And I refused to dance, so I got the last laugh. Anyway, Gary lives and works in Boston, and he has a passion for old buildings and good movies, and it just so happens that his request deals with all three. I’ll let him have the floor:

“I hope you don’t mind me asking for a favor.

It seems the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square is in danger of closing down. The Brattle is one of the few places left in the Boston area that is still showing independent films. They are running a fund raising drive to attempt to raise the $400,000 they need to stay in business. I was wondering if you might not mind throwing out a link to their campaign in your next column?

I figure between your Boston area readers and general film lovers it might do some good. Here’s the link.

Thanks, G.”

I’ve never been to the Brattle myself, but I’m all for preserving independent theaters, especially those with historical significance. They’re apparently trying to turn the theater from a nearly-bankrupt for-profit business to a stable non-profit, and though I have no idea how that’s going to work, the idea of a home-grown movie house that chooses its films based on quality alone is something of a rare treasure. Anyway, check this out for yourself, and if you feel so inclined, there are donation links on their page.

* * * * *

At this point, calling the Fiery Furnaces eccentric is like calling Karl Rove a little dishonest.

The Furnaces are, without doubt, the strangest and most interesting new band in years – as prolific and ambitious as Frank Zappa, and as raw and indie as Spoon. It’s becoming obvious that the Furnaces are on a fast burn out of our solar system, and they don’t care if you can keep up or not. They are self-indulgent, to be sure, but brilliant enough to back it up, and delightfully weird enough to remain entertaining all the while.

Their first album, Gallowsbird’s Bark, was barely a hint of their capabilities – bluesy and simplistic, crudely recorded, fun yet forgettable. They seemed to know it, too – while some bands wait until their fifth or sixth album to unveil their 80-minute concept record, the Furnaces dumped Blueberry Boat on us less than a year after their debut. An enormous work, full of 10-minute garage-prog workouts and glorious inanities, Blueberry Boat left many a Gallowsbird’s fan in the dust. Its twisting structures and mix-and-match arrangements were the very personification of restlessness. I loved it.

Those who couldn’t stick with Blueberry Boat through the numerous listens required to hear how all the disparate parts coalesced should probably avoid the third Furnaces full-length, Rehearsing My Choir. It is, believe it or not, weirder, in both concept and execution, and will sound to impatient listeners like a random experiment gone horribly awry. This is the album on which the Fiery Ones abandon all connection to traditional song structure and the rules of pop records. But those who navigated Boat’s twisting waters will find much to love here.

The Fiery Furnaces are Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, siblings with an uncommon bond, and while everything they do is a family affair, Choir is more so – the equivalent of a tattered scrapbook of memories set to music. It’s a radio play of sorts, and it stars the Friedbergers’ grandmother, 82-year-old Olga Sarantos. Choir is a collection of stories, narrated by Sarantos in her odd, husky voice while her grandchildren play off-kilter, endlessly shifting accompaniments. It’s a tribute and a reminiscence, and it includes not an ounce of treacly sentiment, yet manages to be strangely moving all the same.

You might expect a level of disconnect here, perhaps Sarantos recording her stories separately while the Friedbergers score them, and you’d be wrong. Sarantos is a full participant, obviously vibing on the alien music Matthew and Eleanor laid down. These songs were written for this piece, and they wouldn’t work without Sarantos. Often, she will voice her present-day thoughts, while Eleanor plays the part of her younger self, and the conversations between the two are surprisingly funny.

I’ve honestly never heard anything like this record. It’s divided into 11 tracks, but it needn’t be – it’s one hour-long piece, and certain themes tied to certain emotions keep resurfacing throughout. If you’re not paying attention to the track numbers on your CD player, you’ll miss the transitions, so smooth is the whole thing. It sounds like the Friedbergers tried to write a programmatic symphony and then record it for 60 bucks, but the ramshackle quality is deceptive, and almost certainly intentional. These pieces are amazingly complicated, even though the arrangements often consist of little more than a piano or an organ.

And the stories! The album opens with Sarantos hopping a train to return to her lost love, and ends with her arriving at his funeral. In between, we get to hear anecdotes and memories of her life in Chicago, stories about donut shop owners who treated bullet wounds with blackberry filling, and about confrontations with the Arch-Bishop, and about finding and keeping love. Everything is told in a circular fashion, like distant memory itself, and it takes a few listens to get the timelines worked out.

The album’s centerpiece, if there is one, is the nine-minute “Seven Silver Curses,” a tale unto itself about Sarantos’ quest to hex her competition and win her husband’s love. There’s an album’s worth of ideas in this one song alone, volleying from heartfelt to hilarious. This song, and all of Rehearsing My Choir, perfectly balances the sentimental and the silly, turning what could have been a maudlin and uninteresting family slideshow into an engaging, even beautiful, poetic meditation on age and change. Because it’s so funny and strange, it cuts deeper.

Choir ends with a song whose title you’ll have heard several times in earlier tracks: “Does It Remind You of When.” And even here, the story of her husband’s funeral, the balance remains – Sarantos complains about the broken upright piano, the parking, and the construction noise before ruminating on her lost relatives and loves: “And I thought of them in the cold hard ground, I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now…” The music, meanwhile, brings back old themes, pulling this brilliant patchwork together. It ends up a sad celebration, a blissful melancholy.

Rehearsing My Choir is perhaps the Furnaces’ most insular recording, demanding much – some may say too much – of the listener. But to my mind, it is also their most universal. I wish I had a document like this of my grandmother’s life, narrated in her voice, but it’s too late – my mother’s mother is gone, my father’s mother cannot remember stories like these. Choir is an album for anyone who longs to hold on to the past, even as they watch it slip away. It’s more of a movie than a pop record, one with a large, open heart beneath its quick cuts and jagged focus.

Word is that the Furnaces have already completed their fourth album, Bitter Tea, and it’s scheduled for release early next year. It’s reportedly more traditional than Choir, which is a shame – the Friedbergers have staked out an ambitious and wondrous flight path with their last couple of records, and I would love to see what strange planet they end up orbiting. They are like no other band I know. Many of the negative reviews of Choir plead for a return to the danceable rock of Gallowsbird’s Bark, as if anything that’s not catchy and in 4/4 time isn’t worth pursuing. Speaking just for myself, I like to be challenged by excellence, and the Furnaces’ music is definitely challenging, and just as definitely excellent.

* * * * *

The Furnaces also contributed to one of this month’s most fascinating projects. It’s called This Bird Has Flown, and it’s a track-by-track tribute to the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, which turns 40 this year.

It’s an interesting choice. Though roundly referred to as a masterpiece, Rubber Soul is a transitional record, a halfway point between the infectious pop of the early records and the revolutionary sounds of Revolver. It contains some amazing songs, but it’s often a tentative thing – perhaps the best album ever from any other band, but a B+ record from the Fab Four.

And as you may expect, the reverence many feel for these songs has informed most of the cover versions. The Donnas, for example, turn in a version of “Drive My Car” that’s pretty much identical, like they found the 1965 master tapes and just sang over them. Dar Williams does a nice folk-rock version of “You Won’t See Me,” and Rhett Miller adds his twangy resonance to “Girl.” While it is neat to hear someone other than John or Paul sing some of these tunes, the Beatles are the most covered band in pop music history, so adding nothing new feels like a wasted opportunity.

But on the other hand, what can be added to these songs? “Nowhere Man” is already perfect, and Low just performs it, with their usual minimalism. Same with Ben Lee’s acoustic take on “In My Life,” perhaps the album’s prettiest number – he omits the harpsichord interlude, but otherwise, it’s a straight cover. And I have to admit, when I heard what Ben Harper had done to “Michelle,” all reggae beats, I cringed. Maybe note-for-note is the way to go.

But no, the most interesting numbers here are the ones that go for broke. It may be down to the fact that I’ve heard Rubber Soul something like 700 times, but I enjoyed Ted Leo’s clipped, hyper take on “I’m Looking Through You,” and Nellie McKay’s jazzy pirouette through “If I Needed Someone.” I didn’t even mind the Cowboy Junkies flipping the genders on their creepy “Run For Your Life,” a version which emphasizes the menace inherent in the song. The aforementioned Furnaces try on “Norwegian Wood,” playing it in their usual style – by which I mean they turn it into a low-budget-sounding prog workout, Eleanor harmonizing with herself before Matthew sucks the song into a black hole. It’s awesome.

Most impressive here is Sufjan Stevens (of course), who I believe picked “What Goes On” purposely. Ringo’s token number is generally considered the weakest link on Rubber Soul, and Stevens must have known that no one would care if he desecrated it. With that in mind, he tossed everything but the lyrics, and came up with a huge mini-opera, all strings and horns and a riff from “Achilles’ Last Stand.” It sounds like a b-side to Illinois, which is a good thing. Stevens is the only one here who showed me something new, even if he had to junk all but the most tenuous connections to the original recording to do it.

And there’s the question about tribute records – should they remain reverent, or give artists a chance to stretch out and reinvent? When it comes to the Beatles, that reverence is almost a given, so it’s surprising and kind of cool to hear someone like Stevens step so outside an obvious influence. I already have Rubber Soul – it’s imprinted on my memory, never to be erased – so why would I need another version of it? These are great songs, no question, and I credit This Bird Has Flown for providing a nice mix of the straight covers and the rewrites.

I expect that balance will be harder to maintain if Razor and Tie Records decides to keep going with this series – what would a tribute to the White Album sound like? Will Stevens turn in a seven-minute full-orchestra remake of “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” – but I am fascinated by the prospect. This Bird Has Flown is worth hearing, if for nothing else than as a testament to the enduring beauty of these songs. How many of this year’s most popular records will still be pored over, covered and toasted 40 years from now? My bet is none.

* * * * *

In the coming weeks, we have Trey Anastasio, Neal Morse, the long-awaited return of Kate Bush, the other half of System of a Down’s album, and the third and final Ryan Adams album of the year. The top 10 list is taking shape, and it’s a good one this year.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

No one asked me for a dollar.

Not one person.

So I am left to discuss Serenity without the input of those who hated it. The box office totals are in for what will likely be the full run of the film in most theaters, and they’re not great – $22.3 million in three weeks. Flightplan, an infinitely worse film, has more than tripled that in the same time frame. A History of Violence, perhaps the most unintentionally funny movie I have seen since Battlefield Earth, has made more money, despite a smaller profile and a narrower release.

Some of this is understandable. Serenity stars no one famous, and was written and directed by a guy best known for a television show about vampires. The posters were crap, the trailers decent but not extraordinary, and the marketing push seemed to center around word of mouth. It’s also kind of an unknown proposition for Joe Public, whereas Jodie Foster on a plane with terrorists is like comfort food. You know that her angry, ass-kicking mom will prevail, and that shit will blow up and the innocent kid will be saved.

As it turns out, Serenity wasn’t even comfort food for its most ardent fans, which may be auteur Joss Whedon’s most unfortunate decision. There are events in this film that irrevocably change the makeup and dynamic of Firefly, the television show on which it is based, and some of those changes are like knives to the heart of fans. Whedon has long been a proponent of choosing the story over the audience, and the same contingent that wished season six of Buffy had never been made will reject a few of the more dramatic moments in Serenity. But Whedon was right to choose this story, and to bring these characters to these places.

Here is what makes me sad about Serenity and its lackluster box office performance. I see a lot of movies, and I know when I’ve encountered one that will not appeal to the masses. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for example, is a brilliant film, but not a fun night out at the theater. Same with I Heart Huckabees, which took a terrific cast of stars like Dustin Hoffman and Jude Law and Naomi Watts and filled their mouths with existential philosophy and nonsense. I adored the movie for that very reason, but I can easily understand why it wasn’t a smash success.

I don’t get that sense with Serenity. I am definitely a Whedon acolyte, so take this for what it’s worth, but I can’t imagine such a fun, funny, thrilling little adventure movie as this one not connecting with anyone who went to see it, at least on some level. It’s Star Wars from Han Solo’s point of view, it’s Indiana Jones in space. There is nothing over-intellectual or tedious about it. You don’t even have to have seen the television show – it catches you right up and drops you into the action with everything you need to know. It’s six-guns and swordfights and crackling dialogue. It is a great night out at the movies.

So why did it fail? It is perhaps presumptuous to consider $22.3 million in three weeks a failure, of course, but Serenity did not do as well as expected, considering the hard-and-fast love the core fans have for Whedon and the characters. And that right there might be the problem, as much as I hate to admit it. The most devoted of fans, the Browncoats (named after the rebel army in the TV series), have been talking up this movie and lavishing it with praise for a year now. Even Ender’s Game author Orson Scott Card got into the act by proclaiming Serenity the best science fiction movie ever.

I fear, fellow fans, that we may have loved this movie to death.

People don’t like to feel as if they’re on the outside of an exclusive club, and the Browncoats give that impression. People also don’t like hype, and the passion Firefly fans have for the show and the film can sound like hot air after a while. Same with Radiohead fans, always jabbering on about how their band is more brilliant. Or Marillion fans like me – how many new converts do you think I’ve made to that cause? Pretty much none. I love them too dearly, and I go on and on. People I know will not even give that band a try because I’ve built them up so much.

Those who saw Serenity based on the gasping pronouncements of Whedon fans were probably expecting a reality-altering masterpiece, and when they got a fun little space adventure, they were likely left to wonder what the big deal was. Don’t get me wrong, I think Serenity is a fantastic fun little space adventure, but I can imagine the bewilderment. For better or for worse, Joss Whedon has developed a passionately loyal and vocal fanbase, one that is willing to support him even when he stabs them through the heart, and that kind of near-worship just turns people off.

But for the life of me, I don’t know what could have been done differently. I have seen Serenity three times now. I honestly love it more than any other science fiction film that isn’t Star Wars, and for sheer craftsmanship, I think it’s better than all six chapters of Lucas’ tale. I can’t imagine not sharing that experience with people, and urging them to try it. It’s not an exclusive club – I want Whedon and his endeavors to be worldwide successes. I want people to watch Buffy, to watch Firefly, and to revel in them like I do.

In the final analysis, we Firefly fans came out of this pretty well, I think. We got our canceled television series rescued from obscurity, and got the big-screen season finale that we wanted. We got to visit with these terrific characters one more time, and watch a great writer and director work at the peak of his powers. Whedon, as well, got to bring back his Firefly crew for one more go-round, and he lavished each scene with palpable love. It’s a wonderful, welcoming movie, and I wish more of you could have seen it.

At the film’s conclusion, Captain Malcolm Reynolds gives a small speech about his ship, and his crew, which he considers family. With classic Whedon subtext, it quickly becomes obvious that he’s talking about Firefly and its fans – “Love keeps her up when she ought to fall down.” The existence of Serenity is owed almost entirely to the love of the fans, and if that same love kept some people away from a great little movie, well, so be it. I hope no one feels ashamed for expressing the joy that Firefly brought them, whatever the outcome at the box office.

“You can know all the math in the ‘verse,” Reynolds tells young River, “but take a boat in the air you don’t love, she ain’t keeping up, just as sure as the turning of worlds.”

Thanks to Joss Whedon and all the fans, for loving this boat enough to keep her in the air.

* * * * *

Other movies I have seen recently:

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is bloody brilliant. Beyond just the sheer technical skill required to make an 85-minute claymation feature, the movie is sharply written, and really funny. I’m amazed at the expressiveness director Nick Park gets out of his simply-rendered main characters, especially considering that one of them doesn’t speak at all. The film is full of clever moments, chuckle-worthy dialogue and mind-blowing clay figure action, all molded by hand and shot frame by frame – 32 shots per second, 1920 per minute, and roughly 163,200 in all. That it looks effortless is just testament to Park’s genius.

Wallace and Gromit is also preceded by a 10-minute short written by my friend Mike Lachance. It stars the penguins from Madagascar, and details their zany attempts to buy a Christmas present for their fellow zoo-mate. It’s a lot of fun – “Shiitake mushroom!” was my favorite line, of course – but for me, the best part was seeing Mike’s name in big letters on the screen during the credits. I let out a little cheer, I must confess… Good show, Mike.

Corpse Bride is not as good. It’s underbaked, half-hearted and feels like someone took The Nightmare Before Christmas and photocopied it on an old, broken-down Xerox machine. If Nightmare was the out-of-the-box genius debut album, this is the disappointing follow-up, made more so by the obvious use of computer animation in places. Even the songs sound like weak knock-offs. It may not be fair to contrast this film with its obviously superior antecedent, but it invites the comparison with every frame.

A History of Violence, as I mentioned, is laugh-out-loud funny. I don’t understand the glowing reviews for this one, honestly. My theory is that David Cronenberg shot one day’s worth of scenes, saw they were terrible, discovered he hadn’t the money to re-shoot them, and decided to make the rest of the film godawful to match. I cracked up more than once, though I tried to do so silently, and I found the final sequence, in which Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello stare at each other over a table, interminable. Not because it was too long, although it was, but because I was struggling to hold in peals of laughter, which finally escaped once the credits began rolling. Seriously, the worst movie I have seen in a long, long time.

And here is where I part company with the critical community once again, because I thought Elizabethtown was just about the best movie I have seen this year. I see films most often to get other perspectives, but no director I know of captures my experience and my emotional reaction as well as Cameron Crowe does. His movies think and feel like I do. Elizabethtown is perhaps his most personal effort, a loving tribute to his deceased father, and a paean to random chance. Every minute of it is warm and beautiful.

It’s getting savaged by critics, of course, and I think I know why. One of the first things they teach you in a screenwriting class is conflict. Your main character must want something, and someone must stand in his or her way. There must be dramatic conflict for a movie to work, they will tell you. Elizabethtown is two hours and 20 minutes long, and has no conflict. It is entirely made up of people deciding that they like each other. And it is never boring, never trite, never in need of some artificial conflict to propel it forward. It is a movie you bask in, a good-hearted collection of sunrise moments that fill your soul. There is nothing cynical or hard-edged about it, but if you want a movie to lift you up and make you love life, this is the one.

Thanks to my movie buddy Jody Bane. We spent nearly 12 hours in a theater on Sunday, watching everything discussed above. It’s remarkable to find someone equally excited at the prospect of a whole day of movies, so merci, and congrats on the new job.

* * * * *

I suppose I should include a music review before signing off for the week, hmmm?

Perhaps it’s fitting, given the subtle nature of their work, that I keep forgetting to mention Elbow. They’re a band I return to again and again, and find new things each time, but when it comes to shouting their name from the rooftops, well, I keep neglecting them. I let their fantastic 2001 debut, Asleep in the Back, slide by with nary a mention, and gave their even better 2003 follow-up, Cast of Thousands, a quick review and nothing else.

And perhaps that’s because each Elbow album has taken me some time to unfold and enjoy. They have often required a complete re-writing of the way I enjoy music. I usually listen to the structure first, the chords and the melody, but Elbow cares little for that. Some of their best songs are incredibly simple, and slow, and dirge-like. Quite often they will reduce the instrumentation to a drum, or an organ, or a finger-picked guitar, and let it ride on waves of atmosphere.

No, Elbow cares about feeling, and about getting the vibe right. Each of their songs is carefully constructed, and given a few listens, they welcome you with open arms. Some may say they need to wake up – their tempos are almost always drowsy, and lead singer Guy Garvey has a hangdog voice that compliments his I-can’t-be-bothered-to-shave appearance. But Elbow are not depressing. Their songs are full of hope, and often so minimal that even the slightest change in melody or rhythm sounds like light breaking through the clouds.

Their new one, Leaders of the Free World, changes a few things, but overall the band’s sense of beauty is intact. It would be tough for Elbow to make a Difficult Third Record more difficult than their debut, so they didn’t even try – Leaders is perhaps their most accessible and immediate album, a definite shift from the abstract soundscapes that made up much of Cast of Thousands. Opener “Station Approach” recalls “Any Day Now,” from the debut, but halfway through, the electric guitars kick in, and Elbow wakes up.

“Picky Bugger” is the album’s one miscalculation, stretching Guy Garvey’s falsetto into painful territory, but they’re right back on the horse with “Forget Myself,” their most lively single yet. If this is your first Elbow song, you may want to know that what sounds mid-tempo from anyone else is actually akin to thrash metal from this band, and as rocking as this song is, the title track does it one better. “Leaders of the Free World” is a six-minute powerhouse that takes aim at (who else) George W. “Passing the gun from father to feckless son,” Garvey sings, before noting that the “leaders of the free world are just little boys throwing stones, and it’s easy to ignore until they’re knocking on the door of your homes.”

This level of ire is totally unexpected from Garvey, and the band steps up, backing him with some of their most fiery fretwork. Enjoy it, though, because that’s the last you’ll hear of Elbow the rock band on this record. The best stuff here, as usual, is of the slower and more delicate variety. Sandwiched between the rockers is “The Stops,” a lovely, classic Elbow ballad, and the entire second half of the album is acoustic and beautiful.

Even so, the usual Elbow sonic landscapes are all but missing, replaced with a more concrete, human sound. It’s jarring at first, even though it makes for a quicker assessment of the proceedings. Leaders is the most grounded Elbow album yet, the focus on melody instead of ambience, and to their credit, the band has responded with their most hummable and gorgeous songs. The tempo picks back up somewhat for the vaguely Radiohead-ish “Mexican Standoff,” but the album concludes on a graceful note with three of the prettiest songs in the band’s catalog.

The final song, “Great Expectations,” is arresting, a perfectly lilting serenade to marriage with an undercurrent of bitterness. Those familiar with the band may expect a fairly static reading of this song, but surprisingly, it builds and builds over its five minutes. Garvey sometimes gets a bad rap in the British press for his half-mumbled vocals, but here is all the evidence anyone needs that he is an amazing singer. He wrings so much emotion from his lovely tenor here that one wonders where he’s been hiding this talent. It’s almost a shame when the pretty yet unexceptional minute-long coda “Puncture Repair” wafts in to close the record.

So Leaders is very good, a definite change for Elbow, and perhaps their best chance at gaining an American audience. The question is, why won’t you find this album in your local record store? Because you won’t. I had to contact my old friends at Bull Moose Music in Maine to snag a copy of both this and the new Grandaddy EP. And after much research, I’ve discovered that V2, the U.S. label for both artists, has cancelled stateside distribution, fearing low sales. They pressed the discs, and allowed one distributor to have some copies, which is why a few stores across the country (and a few online outlets) have them. But for all intents and purposes, the domestic version of Leaders of the Free World was not released.

This is sad. It’s not that the album isn’t worth the import price, because it is, but the band obviously knocked themselves out to make the most inviting album of their career. Granted, it’s not Coldplay inviting, nor should it be, but for those curious about Elbow and wishing for a good starting point, well, Leaders is it. And now I can’t recommend it as casually as I would if you could just walk down to Best Buy and pick it up. The same seems to have happened with the new Starsailor, On the Outside, and the new Robbie Williams, Intensive Care, though I doubt I would pimp those as heavily as Elbow’s record, just based on past experience.

So V2 has, in effect, made it even easier to forget Elbow, to let them slide from your consciousness. That’s a shame, because Leaders of the Free World is a good record, one that you’ll be glad you tracked down. It’s worth pulling out all the stops, because the band sure did.

* * * * *

Next week, the Fiery Furnaces and their grandmother. How… odd.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So. Should be a short one this week.

I am running on fumes, writing full time (finally!), and getting very little sleep. Just one record, and I’m out. The coming weeks will see new ones by the Fiery Furnaces (and their grandmother, which is weird and yet oddly brilliant), Trey Anastasio, Wilco, Neal Morse, Kate Bush (after 12 years!), System of a Down and OutKast, among others. I still have about 15 new albums from the likes of Elbow, Supergrass, Roger Waters and Mark Eitzel sitting here waiting to be spun and dissected. I’ve picked one, and left the rest as a towering monument to my poor time management skills.

A quick note – my Serenity offer is still good, until next week. So far, no one (well, no one not named Mike Lachance) has taken me up on it, which may be a testament to the weakness of the consolation prize. Anyway, the deal is, go see Serenity. If you like it, congratulations. If you hate it, tell me why in an email and I will send you a dollar. And maybe an extra bribe of some kind. I’m really just interested to find out why the box office for this really cool movie is so pitifully low. The offer holds until I post next week’s column, on or around October 19.

* * * * *

I want to get this out of the way right up front. I do not hate Franz Ferdinand.

Some people have the impression that I despise them, which I figure can only come from the fact that I haven’t drowned them in drool and proclaimed them the greatest musical gods ever to walk the earth. I don’t hate them. My review of their first album was, to my mind, suitably complimentary – I called the record fun, danceable fluff.

Time has deepened my appreciation of Franz Ferdinand and their debut, though, and as I say this, I am ducking behind my desk so as to deflect the “we-told-you-so” stares from the hipper-than-thou internet cognoscenti. When I first heard the album, my impressions were colored by the overwhelming avalanche of hype the British press had heaped upon it, the breathless “Holy Crap!” pronouncements of total frigging genius. It’s kind of the same thing I suspect has happened with Serenity, actually – so many raving fans have deemed it the best science fiction film ever that the fun little adventure flick it actually is has been obscured. There’s nothing wrong with Franz Ferdinand, but they’re not redefining music for a new era.

And they know it, too. Just listen to their second effort, You Could Have It So Much Better, to hear what I mean. For a band so often considered the cutting edge, Franz have made a curiously conservative sophomore disc. In my review of the debut, I likened them to Morrissey’s disco band, and that comparison still stands. In fact, just about everything I said last time still holds, because this new one is practically a carbon copy of the first.

Franz have defined their sound by now, and it’s no longer all that novel. They play danceable guitar-pop with disco club overtones and sneering, faux-arrogant lyrics and vocals. They are the ultimate glam parody band, except they play it straight, and they write good songs. Singer Alex Kapranos has one of those voices that makes you want to punch him, especially when he hits the “you’re so lucky” refrains in “Do You Want To,” the first single from the new record. “I’m gonna make somebody love me,” he sings, “and now I know that it’s you.” And they say romance is dead. Jesus.

But part of my problem with Franz, and why I don’t connect with them in any significant way, is that they’re so utterly fake. They’re a show band, a flashy fun-time sex bomb act, an experiment in façade-building. Kapranos takes from a long and fruitful tradition of coy enigmas, and while some people may find unraveling the layers to find the chewy center an enjoyable pastime, I just don’t have the patience. It’s fairly obvious that the Franzers have carefully crafted both their sound and their image, and while I quite like and respect the former, I’m indifferent to the latter.

It’s the flurry of myth surrounding Franz Ferdinand that inflates them from decent party band to global fascination, and I couldn’t care less about any of it. I’m just here for the music.

And the music is pretty good, once again. Kapranos and Nick McCarthy are terrific guitarists, diving and ducking around each other while they parry with knives. The early XTC influences are a little more pronounced this time, with a few more reggae beats and a bunch of spunky melodies. Opener “The Fallen” finds the band tossing off a couple of really good riffs in the beginning, as if rummaging around for the best one, and when they find it, they truly lock in. Short, sharp tunes like “This Boy” and “Evil and a Heathen” are classic Franz, all slashing and preening. There’s nothing on You Could Have It So Much Better that sounds half-assed or hacked out.

But it sounds the same as the first album, pretty much exactly. It even slips into moderate tedium in its second half, just like the debut – Franz milk their one good trick over and over, and in the course of a 41-minute album, it gets tiring. Thankfully, they seem to realize this as well, and they’ve included a couple of songs that do find them stretching. In fact, one of them is the best reason I can give you to buy this album and not the first one, if you could only pick up one.

That song is “Eleanor Put Your Boots On,” a love poem from Kapranos to Eleanor Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces. (Isn’t indie-cool love cute?) Rather than just write a Franz Ferdinand song for her, though, Kapranos and the band have turned in their best approximation of her band’s sound. “Eleanor” is a ramshackle acoustic lullaby, with perhaps the finest melody on either Franz album, and its lyrics and vocal delivery actually approach (gasp) sincerity. I’m not sure what it says about me that my favorite Franz Ferdinand song is the one that sounds nothing at all like them, but there you are.

My second-favorite Franz song is “Fade Together,” the eerie penultimate track, again all acoustic guitars and pianos. Kapranos doesn’t exactly have an acoustic-ballad voice, but here he effectively slips into a delightful falsetto for the chorus, one of the best on the record. It would have made an effective conclusion – sequencing the dub-inflected throwaway “Outsiders” last is such a blunder that I’m surprised it wasn’t voted down.

And I suppose the fact that I’m even noticing the track order on a Franz Ferdinand album is progress. Last time out, they did their one thing 11 times, and there wasn’t much you could say about one song that wouldn’t describe all of them. The original plan for You Could Have It So Much Better was to self-title the album again, and release it with the same cover art as the debut, tinted a different shade. Hopefully this speaks of self-awareness, because save for two tracks, this may as well be the same album. I like Franz, though, and I hope the bare hints of forward momentum here are not flukes, but the beginnings of artistic growth. As it is, the title they settled on is ironic – we could have it so much better, but this is more of the same.

Next week, Elbow.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m late.

You want to know how late I am? I am so late, I know that the Red Sox are done for the year. If today’s date as I write this bore any resemblance to the date at the top of the page, I would still have hope for a World Series repeat.

Alas, it’s not Boston’s year. They lost in three games to the Chicago White Sox, one of only two teams in baseball to have gone longer without a Series win – 88 years as of this season. The other team? The Chicago Cubs, who last won in 1908. So Chicago’s hurting, and they deserve it this year – they came to play, and they’ll probably win it all. I have noticed, though, that no one is crucifying Sox second baseman Tony Graffanino for pulling a Buckner in game two. It looked to my eyes like the same play ol’ Billy fumbled, and he had to live with the scorn of Red Sox Nation for nearly 20 years. What gives, Boston?

I have also seen Serenity, and it was everything I hoped it would be. I don’t want to gush about it, because I want you to see it, and if I go on and on, like everyone else on the web seems to be doing, it will only serve to turn you off. I just have to say that $10 million in its opening weekend is plain weak. Whedon just can’t catch a break. This Friday’s estimates are in, and Serenity took in less money than A History of Violence, which is playing on almost half as many screens. I don’t get it, people.

So here’s a deal. Go see Serenity this week. If you don’t like it, write me and tell me why, and I’ll send you a dollar. A crisp, one-dollar bill to anyone who honestly dislikes the film and takes the time to write me with their thoughts. This is more for me, so I can hear criticism of the film and perhaps some theories as to why people are staying away. (I didn’t want the consolation prize to be anything too valuable, because then people will write me and lie to obtain it. This is really just me paying $1 for good opinions – a tossed-off “I hated it, now where’s my buck?” email isn’t going to cut it.) This offer is open to anyone whose name isn’t Mike Lachance, and is good for two weeks, from now until I post the 10/19 column.

And if you’re checking out movies, the aforementioned Mike Lachance has his big-screen writing debut this weekend, with the Madagascar Penguins short that runs before the Wallace and Gromit movie. From the box office figures, many of you are seeing this movie anyway, which is good news. It looks fantastic, doesn’t it? Go see it, and let me know what you think of Mike’s short.

* * * * *

So in 1997 I went to the first Lilith Fair, in Mansfield, Mass.

The bill included Sarah McLachlan (of course), Fiona Apple, Tracy Chapman, the Cardigans, Juliana Hatfield, and numerous others. It was a good show, although I found the concept a little silly – all women performers, all the time. Except, you know, for most of the musicians on stage backing the women performers, who were men. As were three-fourths of the Cardigans, the same percentage as in the Smashing Pumpkins, although Corgan’s bunch didn’t get invited. I kept a running tally, and the number of male musicians outnumbered the female ones two to one.

What the Lilith Fair was really about, it seems to me, was the female perspective – women singing songs from their points of view. And that’s all good, but separating performers by gender instead of by talent is just a smokescreen. The stupid-ass music business barely promotes women who aren’t sex bombs of some sort, as if their looks had anything to do with their talent – and the Lilith Fair blithely followed along, inviting the likes of Dido and Christina Aguilera to the final tour in 1999. Is there anyone who cannot name 10 male artists with more talent than Christina Aguilera? It’s all just ridiculous.

The Lilith Fair wasn’t about female musicians, either, as much as it was about female pop stars, and about getting more women on the radio. At that, it was quite successful – McLachlan herself, at the height of the tour’s fame, mentioned that she knew of several male singer-songwriters who couldn’t get airplay, and there was no gender-specific movement to help them. The end result was a pinpoint focus on one pop style, and a general blanding out of female-driven music.

Which was a damn shame for someone like me, who only divides music into “good” and “not so good.” I wrote about my experience at the Lilith Fair, from the only perspective I had – that of a somewhat nerdy male – and I got attacked for that perspective. (One letter suggested I retitle my piece “I Endured Chicks Playing Bad Music.”) The gender-specific thing really misses the point, though – I don’t like Meredith Brooks because she’s no good, not because she’s a woman. On the other hand, I can’t think of very many songwriters I respect more than Aimee Mann, or (for a while, at least) Tori Amos. It’s about what you can do, not which set of genitals you have.

It is true, though, that women have a much tougher time in the musical marketplace than men do. The female equivalent, bodily speaking, of Blues Traveler’s John Popper would never have been signed, let alone score any hits on MTV. I’m talking about three Lilith alumni this week, and all of them are thin and attractive, and have used their looks to sell their records, in one way or another. Because that’s the way the game is played, unfortunately, and women who break from that double standard (like the members of Sleater-Kinney and the great PJ Harvey) are few and far between.

I think that’s why so many people are angry at Liz Phair. It goes beyond just not liking her more recent work. It’s seething, personal resentment, and it may be because, when she started out, Phair was one of those kick-the-doors-in, stereotype-smashing women songwriters. Her 1993 debut, Exile in Guyville, was a lo-fi vulgar-fest tinged with vulnerability, an honest and definitive statement. Who cares if it just wasn’t all that good? It provided a rallying point, a standard for the new crop of female indie-rockers to bear. It’s ragged and brutal and charming and everything that, in 1993, a woman wasn’t supposed to be.

Granted, Phair’s subsequent missteps make Guyville look like a work of genius. When she finally sold out with 2003’s Liz Phair, a glossy teen-pop catastrophe, the response was explosive and spiteful. It’s as if Phair had spit on every reviewer with a laptop, instead of just having made a bad record. I even took her to task for choosing airplay over songcraft, and I stand by that – Liz Phair is a terrible album, with no trace of the genuinely interesting writer lurking beneath. I don’t care that she pissed on her former image, though. The music is what’s important, and the music on Liz Phair was awful.

But come on, people. If the music is what’s important, then you have to give props to Somebody’s Miracle, Phair’s fifth album. It’s a pop record, of course – she’s never going back to hunching over a four-track and mumbling “fuck” 18 times a song – but it’s a good pop record, in the same way that her self-titled effort was a bad one. This one hits the spot, much like Kelly Clarkson’s latest does, and in many of the same ways. This is classic power pop stuff, with groovy choruses and full-yet-prickly production.

The lamest thing here is right up front – “Leap of Innocence” is a snore, and Phair can’t quite find the notes. But from there, this is actually pretty good. “Stars and Planets” is as power-poppy as anything Matthew Sweet has ever done, and the chorus and bridge of “Count on My Love” is a knockout. The U2 overtones of “Lazy Dreamer” actually work, and even when she slows things down, as on the spare and haunting “Table for One,” Phair scores. Nothing here is earth-shattering, and Somebody’s Miracle won’t galvanize a generation like Guyville did, but as a set of 14 pop songs, it’s sturdy and enjoyable. Which is all Phair wants it to be.

In retrospect, this looks like part of a strategy – release something so obviously execrable in 2003, and follow it in 2005 with something that isn’t half bad, so it looks like she’s climbed a mountain instead of rappelled down a little hill. But it’s becoming obvious that Liz Phair has reinvented herself, and as a pop songwriter, she deserves to be taken seriously, images and audiences aside. Somebody’s Miracle may not bubble and burst like her Guyville period, but it’s far from dead, and its best passages pulse with new life. If you like Juliana Hatfield, for example, there’s no reason you shouldn’t like this.

But some artists find reinvention a trickier task. Take Sheryl Crow, who has made a name as a dependable radio-pop hit factory. She released a greatest hits album in 2003, after only four records, and damn if the thing wasn’t actually full of hits. But now here’s Wildflower, her fifth album, and Crow suddenly wants to be respected as a mature songwriter. Originally intended as the “art” half of a two-CD release, Wildflower is a slow, sodden trip through ballad country, and while it has its moments, there’s an overwhelming blandness to the whole thing, one that’s indicative of her whole career.

For me, Crow’s ballads have always been her stronger material. Her last album, the craptastic light-rock C’mon C’mon, featured exactly one song I liked, the epic “Safe and Sound.” So you’d think an entire album of string sections and acoustic guitars would make me happy, but it doesn’t. The songs are oddly flat and uninspired, with a few exceptions, and the production is so samey-sounding that the whole thing mushes together like putty. Sad, forlorn putty.

There are a couple of winners here, like the one-two caress of “Chances Are” and the title track, and Crow does raise the tempos for “Lifetimes” and “Live it Up.” But overall, this is a wash, a Sarah McLachlan pastiche that misses the appeal of her best work, and drowns it in inoffensive strings and reverb. It’s the kind of album that takes three listens to absorb, because it’s all so unmemorable, and when you finally have a grasp on it, you realize that it wasn’t worth those three listens to begin with. Crow is a workhorse, a decent enough singer and performer whose greatest skill is giving her audience what they want. She had a chance to make a personal and affecting statement here, and she blew it.

Not so Fiona Apple, who stands as perhaps the only genuine artist of the lot this week. One wonders sometimes if Apple’s oddball antics and disdain for the mechanics of the biz are a pose, but then one hears her work, and all doubts are dispelled. She really is this strange and wonderful, and she really doesn’t care if you like it or not. While both Phair and Crow seem to put equal amounts of attention into their music and their status within the public consciousness, Apple makes loopy, heady records like her new Extraordinary Machine, which offers almost no ins for the radio-pop audience that embraced “Criminal.” Oh, and she took six years to get it together, an eternity in pop music time – you’d never see Sheryl Crow spend six years on an album.

There’s a story there, of course, and it’s that Machine is so nice, Apple made it twice. She scrapped the first set of takes, produced by her long-time cohort Jon Brion, and after a short break, started Version 2.0 with Mike Elizondo at the boards. In the meantime, the Brion sessions leaked, and some folks (actually, a lot of folks) assumed that Epic Records was sitting on them, refusing to release them. Apple now says it was all her, but what are we to make of Elizondo, a poppier producer who has worked with Sheryl Crow and Eminem?

Well, if the label shotgunned this marriage between Apple and Elizondo to smooth out and poppify Extraordinary Machine, they succeeded. His takes are much more accessible than Brion’s – the original versions of these songs are often beyond abstract, and yet strangely brilliant. Had Epic released the Brion tapes, Machine may have been the most difficult Difficult Third Album since OK Computer, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing. The first Machine is certainly more interesting, more layered, more fascinating than the new one, but I find I agree with Apple. It’s not finished.

Is the official version an improvement? In some ways. The songs are still delightful cabarets – Apple has always had a bit of Broadway about her, and these are her most theatrical songs. Brion dressed them up in orchestral clothes, turning ditties like “O’ Sailor” into huge outings, over which Apple’s distinctive voice was all but lost. The new “O’ Sailor” keeps the focus on the piano and vocals, and on the sweet melody. That’s Elizondo’s mission statement throughout – take out anything unnecessary, strip it all back and zoom in on Apple herself. The original Extraordinary Machine was a collaboration between artist and producer. The new one is a solo album, with the producer stepping back as much as possible.

The one new song bears that out. “Parting Gift” is just Apple and her piano, with no distractions. In a way, the Brion takes are all distractions, and while I certainly like some of them more than their official counterparts, I can understand wanting to go in another direction. “Not About Love,” for example, is a piano-and-strings excursion, serving as the opening shot on the Brion version. The new one is relegated to track 11, and it’s become a bare-bones, piano-bass-drums workout. It sounds like a completely different song. Or take “Used to Love Him.” It’s a cavalcade of martial drums and bells in Brion’s hands, and its new version, called “Tymps,” replaces all that with a clean electronic drum pattern. I hope it’s not heresy to say that I like the new version better – it brings out the gorgeous melody, the closest thing to a hook on the whole record.

Two of Brion’s productions have been preserved – the finger-plucked cartoon-ballad title track and the closing “Waltz (Better than Fine),” and their orchestral sweep does stick out. Otherwise, this is a crackling piano-pop album, in line with Apple’s previous work. The question is, was the change all Apple, or was it the label? The answer may help some decide if Apple belongs in the same league as Phair and Crow, with one ear towards working for the masses, or on another plane altogether, and we may never know. She’s calling the new Extraordinary Machine the real deal, and I guess it all depends on whether you think it’s an improvement over the first version.

But taken as the only version of these songs most people will ever hear, the album is sufficiently wonderful. I enjoy these process comparisons, but most people couldn’t care less – they will buy what’s in the stores, and Apple has delivered on her promise here. The songs are all left-field winners, the product of a distinctive voice, and under Elizondo’s care, it’s a voice that sits front and center, where we can better appreciate it.

I don’t care if Sheryl Crow ever makes another record, and while Liz Phair sounds like she’s on the right track, I can take or leave her. But six more years without a Fiona Apple album would be a shame. She’s a singular talent, the best thing to ever come out of the Lilith Fair era, and in retrospect, it seems silly to have lumped her in with that crowd to begin with. She doesn’t need a gender-specific touring movement to hitch her wagon to. Whichever Extraordinary Machine you listen to, with Apple at its center, you’re in for something that really is extraordinary.

Next week, Franz Ferdinand.

See you in line Tuesday morning.