T4 Motherf*cker

WOP! this one's for you.
bitches.

AN INTRODUCTION...TO THE SHITTIEST ALBUMS OF ALL-TIME

PRELUDE TO AN INTRODUCTION, Part One

Hey everyone -

I mentioned in my last post that I'm turning over a new leaf as far as blogging. With that in mind, I wanted to introduce my first guest writer, as well as their new weekly column.

As far as what I can tell you about this person...it's not much. I've only met them once and (he? she?) insisted on meeting at 3am on the docks by the East River. (He? She?) was wearing a pantyhose mask, trenchcoat and continually asked if I was wearing a wire. Despite his/her paranoia, we shook hands and made the verbal agreement that led to this feature.

Before I knew it, this mysterious figure quickly began making their way back into the night. "But you didn't even tell me your name," I cried out. In the distance, the masked creature turned their head back ever so slightly. "The Masked Blogger," they whispered and then disappeared into the shadows.

AN INTRODUCTION
What does it take to create the Shittiest Album of All Time? I could sit hear and rattle off hundreds of merely shitty, awful - hell, downright soul-crushing albums all day long. But that would be a little cheap. Just like the Hollywood blockbuster, top 40-ready crap will continue to roll off of the assembly line with the same amount of care as your average, shittily-made American car. As long as cynical corporate execs live - there will always American Idol, Clear Channel Radio, T-Pain and Rihanna. As a wise man once said, "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

And don't get me wrong, I would love to go after those people. Besides the potential entertainment value involved, there is the fact that I'm an extremely angry person. Every chance I get to unload a bitter, immature rant and spew my poisonous bile onto the world at large (or conversely, the two people reading this blog)- that's one less chance I will walk into the United States Post Office wearing only a jock strap and toting an AK-47.

But that would be intellectually dishonest. I'm believe that to create something truly awful, there must be a substantial amount of talent and ambition involved. What I'm interested in is the point where that talent and ambition go wrong. I mean horribly, horribly wrong. Potentially career-ending wrong. Like "oops, sorry we dropped those two atomic bombs on you" wrong.

And with that in mind: let's set some ground rules. Please behold the The Somewhat Arbitrary and Purposefully Vague Ground Rules that it takes to qualify as one of the Shittiest Albums of All-Time. An album or artist must meet no less than one of the following criteria to earn a spot in the annals of this esteemed Spot of Blog.


1) The artist must have, at one time, demonstrated greatness, very-goodness, or very strong promise. This includes anyone from an artist who bears the legendary status to a young band who recorded a good debut.
2) It must be an album that is universally considered great from a critical standpoint.
3) An album that is not necessarily considered great, or even good, but sold very, very well.
4) No artist is above creating one of The Shittiest Albums of All-Time

Stayed tuned for the first post.

-The Masked Blogger

I HAVE TURNED...

...A NEW LEAF. Proverbially speaking, seeing as how I am speaking about BLOGGING. I'm setting some goddamn priorities, man. Like, updates on THE REG. And guest writers, and uh...who the hell am I kidding. Lets listen to Jeff Healey. Goosebumps, motherf*cker. Goosebumps.

RA RA RA Ray Charles is here to school you, again!

People, you know how today's music sucks? etc etc. Well, thank god there are reissues so we can spend our hard earned dollars on stuff that looks new, but isn't really. Enter Concord Records and their ambitious exploitation reissue program of the Ray Charles catalog. An old favorite hit stores at the beginning of the month and is raising eyebrows (again). I wish the world would be a simpler place, instead of revolting Iranians (as in, the verb) and Craigslist Killers, they only had soda fountains and comic books to keep themselves occupied back then. And this album, of course. And boy did it start something. I heard it contributed to the civil rights struggle and made black people listen to garth brooks. Ha, just kidding about that last one. So, I offer for your discerning eyes the OLD cover art (cus it's awesome) and a place where you can spend what you would have otherwise supidly totally straight up sunk into the soda fountain with no benefit at all. So, there:

Old School!

buy the reissue here

Oh, and a shout out to my ol' buddies parents for taking me to a soda fountain this weekend for the first time and hence giving me something to write about. Bless!

Oh Sh*t, First Twitter Post

META TWITTER is the word of the week, kids! Who would have thunk, Fuse TV, MTV...everyone is doing it. Next step, I will follow suit by twittering about my cat's and goldfish's latest tweets. I shall call it the tweet menagerie. Oh good, I deserve a pat on the back for that one. On a side note, look what I found:

I fucking love the Boss. Now, if I could only follow his tweets. Along with those of The Decemberists, Bon Iver, Passion Pit, Grizzly Bear, MGMT and Portugal (OMG I think I just went to the bathroom in my pants a little (man, I'm bored with my own snark there, feel free to re-phrase and email better line to wabten@gmail.com, thanks)). It must be my lucky day BECAUSE I CAN - YES, I (WE) CAN - actually do exactly that.

Go here: http://fusefest.fuse.tv and enjoy!

It's kind of like sitting in front of the Fuse building! I suppose I'm the only one in the twitterspehere to have ever done that, but it's awesome. Except for the angry bums who think you're stealing their front row seats. Sheesh, get a lyphe.

Sometimes I have so much going on in my head I don't even know where to look. All I need is more tweets

Playing for Change Staying True To Their Word -

A COLLECTIVE GASP OF ANTICIPATION ESCAPES THE ENTIRE WORLD

So, I've mentioned this before but these cats WILL NOT stay down. True to their name, they're playing. Maybe not for pocket change anymore, but everywhere from the Glastonbury Festival (hook it up, yo) to some Pier somewhere. Awesome.

From the press release:

Playing For Change – Songs Around the World, the project has taken another leap forward. After a Top 10 debut on Billboard’s Pop Chart in the US and a strong start throughout Europe, including a top 20 chart position in Spain, the Playing For Change band has been confirmed to headline the Jazz/World stage at Glastonbury Festival in the UK on Saturday, June 27, one of the three major open air stages with a crowd capacity of approximately 25,000 people. Word of mouth spread among other Glastonbury acts that Playing For Change was confirmed on the bill and several musicians expressed interest in joining the band on stage. This resulted in Gabrialla Cilmi, Tinariwen, The Magic Numbers and Baba Maal confirmed to make guest appearances with the band at Glastonbury.

The band will then travel to Los Angeles for a performance at the opening night of this year’s Twilight Dance Series at the Santa Monica Pier. The concert is free and will run from 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM. The band is also set to perform on NBC's The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien on Thursday, July 9, 2009. Hailing from New Orleans to Johannesburg via Europe and the Congo, the band consists of some of the incredible musicians who are featured in the smash hit YouTube video “Stand By Me” which has become the #1 rated YouTube video of all time with over 20 million views.

Pay up, sukas!

International Man of Mystery - At Least He Sounds Like It

Nicole Conte, who I don't think is related to Paolo Conte , is cool - like, in the truest meaning of the word. As you can clearly see from the album cover, he is a little confused as to why the album is called Rituals (just kidding, he probably picked the name). He also looks substantially older than I thought, but who's counting? In any case, I am a sucker for his beats. It's a just correct amount of cheese and awesome. If Nicola is being sarcastic, I can't tell, yet. And I've listened to other records of his too. Who still (seriously) makes music like this? THE ITALIANS, that's who! God bless 'em. I don't even like cocktails, but right now, as this CD is on, I want to be walking along the ocean in the south of France with an ice cold one in my hand and some dark haired Mediterranean beauty on my arm. Shit, one can dream, right? I mean, musically it's not absolutely mind blowing, but given the right circumstances (late at night and/or Sunday morning, preferably involving a cigarette somewhere) this album is a perfect fit. SOMEONE CHILL MY CHAMPAGNE! and I do mean CHAMPAGNE! Not the sparkling white wine you low life's drink! GARCON!!!!!...and put this CD on too. Listen in if you dare. zzzzzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzz

Seriously, I have bought like 4 of the last 5 CDs by Italians I came across. Weird.