What's The Point?

Long-View - Mercury So how was that for a blogging vacation? I wish I could say that it was because I was also actually vacationing from work, but no such luck. Just been a terribly busy and tiring week which has left me little energy to put towards writing. I have a lot to say about the shows last weekend and I promise to get to that soon. In the meantime, I felt compelled to write about this album... Ok, so I don't really think of my site as a "review" site. I usually only choose to write about albums that I really enjoy and I don't think of myself as overly critical of music... ok, maybe I am towards some obvious targets, but usually I'm pretty open to what artists are trying to do. Well, this post is a little different. There is only one purpose of me writing about this one: WARNING: AVOID THIS ALBUM AT ALL COSTS. There you go. I just had to issue the warning before any of you either actually buy it or even click the "Play Now" button in Rhapsody. It's crap. Total crap. What a waste of time for the musicians, engineers, producers, record company (yes even a waste of time for the likes of Sony), record stores, the printing company, the CD pressing company. I'm thinking about suing the band for the reckless use of plastic, aluminum and paper and for the impending overuse of the landfills. It's really that bad. Definitely at the top of my list for Worst Albums of 2005 and I can't imagine anything out-crapping this one. Sure, there's a lot more crappy music out there (i.e. Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Ashlee Simpson, Justin Guarini or however you spell his name, etc.) but I don't even listen to that stuff for it to make it onto any of my lists. This album is being pushed as an alternative album, the band is out of the UK (Manchester, even)... I should like it. And hey, I'm the guy who loves Keane even though many reviewers toss it aside as fluff... If you do like this music, let me tell you what else you like: Dawson's Creek (or any other cheesy teenager show that plays sappy bad music behind the last scene where someone ends up realize how difficult, yet beautiful life can be... and yes, I know that it is no longer on the air and it has been replaced by the O.C., but I can't knock a show that puts out such good soundtracks, even if they do miss their target audience), Applebee's, Light Beer (or maybe Mike's Hard Lemonade), the Gap, Hondas (or maybe even Saturns)... I think you know what I'm getting out. Nondescript, sappy for the sake of being sappy, extremely derivative and boring. It's almost offensive that they named their album "Mercury," the name of one of the many great American Music Club releases... Pointless.