ZZ Top - Recycler (1990)

As I've mentioned below, today is a twofer. But now that I'm about to savage this album, in ZZ Top linguistics and metaphors no less, today is less like a twofer and more like a coin, one side being heads, one side being tails. And so it should come as no surprise that this album falls squarely into the complete and utter ass-end of ZZ's electric boogie whomp originating with all those MTV videos with that dork getting the chicks. Funny title, Recycler. Like these guys wrote 300 songs in the early 80s in the same vein and this is the rotten shit-bespeckled end of it. Except it's 1990. And here is Recycler. Funny, eh? My question to Billy Gibbons, one of the sickest guitar gods to ever touch a stringed instrument, who could probably pull a lick from his dick if he could see past his beard -- what the FUCK were you thinking? This album is like slow aural death. It sounds like you air-brushed a pearl necklace onto some chick to make it look like you're awesome, but in reality the chick was never there and you're just passing off your porn spanking on the wall. Sure, you had sex years ago, and probably did some crazy shit. But I mean, really? I'm pretty strict about my grading system, but even though the standings can never truly reflect how much an A+ means or how bad an F really is, I can say this: this is one of the worst albums ever. If I wasn't such a completionist, I would delete it off my hard drive. I suggest you do so if you are without my neurotic quirks. Destroy this and all copies you come into contact with. Make sure to wear gloves for proper disposal and a condom for even greater protection. Hell, if you are the charitable type, go to what few music stores that still exist or order like ten copies of this online and fucking smash it to fucking bits. There. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

The Mars Volta - Octahedron (2009)

I apologize well in advance if this review resembles something I would spew in my Two Minutes Hate, but I've never been one to pull back on my punches, and I don't intend on doing so here. This album fucking sucks. (You can stop reading here if that's all you require.) If Bedlam In Goliath was considered their loudest and most bombastic, this album is their most quiet -- quiet as in I could take a fucking snooze, from stem to sternum, in Lake Baikal, Russia and this would not stir me from my peaceful sleep. Anyone take Ambien? After this album, I know by not knowing, in an approximate sort of way. To say that the album is terrible, really, isn't exactly fair, though -- it simply evokes nothing. It's drib drab dribber drubber drowl, a pocket of dark matter in the expanding nothingness we call our universe, worthy of not even the margin of space it now occupies in my small apartment. Oh, and the lyrics -- БОЖЕ МОЙ - the lyrics for these guys have always been -- how do I say it succinctly -- stupid, with two o's. Swathed amidst the innumerable layers of sound on their previous albums, it was harder to notice just how fucking juvenile and 7th grade the lyrics were, but now I am convinced that Cedric thinks he is a fucking warlock. Good luck to him. Personally, I always wanted to be a samurai, but that cuirass looks way too heavy for me and besides, can you imagine me with a sword? Hack hack hack. So have at it Volta fans. Eat this nu-progadelic like fistfuls of sloppy wet shit at a carnival cookout contest. Everyone else, give thanks that it ends quicker than anything else they've released. F

King Crimson - Three Of A Perfect Pair (1984)

I thought perhaps of writing a review in consideration of the holidays, but since I'm not technically writing this anywhere near Christmas and I'm becoming a bit weary of this business, I'm going to simply say nasty clever things about a band I actually like. Or try to. The man and his kingdom of poo will undoubtedly put up a spirited defense in my absence and so I will parry in advance by saying: duh!

Here's a bit of curlicue logic, so follow me: Fripp never intended to reform KC and had instead formed a band to be called Discipline, which resulted instead in Fripp realizing he had merely reformed KC and they thereunto released the excellent Discipline as KC, circa 1981. Discipline was a dizzying amalgam of tautly conceived tunes featuring lovely arpeggios, delicious bass blurblings and the odd vocal croonings of Adrian Belew. Ever drank powdered Gatorade? When I was in Iraq I used to mix powdered Gatorade into a water bottle particularly because I became disgusted with plain water. Well, sometimes I would be in the unenviable position of drinking most of it and having additional water available, but no extra powder. So what I would do is pour a little bit of water from one bottle into the one I had, hoping to get more bang for my buck. Invariably, it tasted a little less sweet, but was still more bearable than plain water. Still having no access to powder, I would pour just a touch more water into the bottle. The result of my gambling? Colored water. Yuck.

So if you want to listen to Three Of A Perfect Pair, you will be drinking colored water -- a thoroughly diluted mutation of an original with barely any trace of what tasted so good about it in the first place. I obviously won't go more into why Discipline was so good, because that's another review, but be aware that, as my additional aside, Beat (1982), is the equivalent of slightly less sweet admixture before it became ruined. There. F

Metallica - St. Anger (2003)

Today will be a twofer. First I will do an inevitable, completely unoriginal but personally necessary savaging of Metallica's St. Anger and then shift to their newest album, Death Magnetic, simply to contrast why they've sort of redeemed themselves and why they still suck. First things first.

St. Anger needs no explanation, really, for those familiar with it. It's possibly one of the worst albums ever, notwithstanding from whom and under what circumstances it came to be. Thankfully, as the new album will show, this album seems to have been their proverbial low point: whining, introspective (dare I say "emo") lyrics, Lars the Grouch banging his trash cans, weakly repetitive riffs in songs with no discernible melodies, themes, structure or anything resembling rational order. They tried to sound raw; they instead sounded raucous and unkempt. They tried to sound aggressive; they sounded like someone lit a bag of poop on their porch and ran. Long, unending and diffuse, this is the messiest, most awfully conceived, written or produced poseur of an album by any metal/rock/alternative band ever (except perhaps for Coldplay's two recent fetuses). Not owning it means one more slot on your CD rack, or the equivalent of roughly 70MB of free space on your hard drive, iPod, etc. I actually own it, but that's more because I'm a diseased OCD completionist. So hurrah to those of you who enjoy this kind of garbage. I certainly don't. And for those who seek to come to its defense -- shame on you; I won't even stoop to indulge you. F

Richard Ashcroft - Human Conditions (2002)

After reading Chuck's almost entirely deserved beating of Richard Ashcroft's Keys To The World, and since I just recently reviewed the Verve -- a much better musical outfit than Ashcroft could and will ever be -- I'm offering up his 2002 stinker, definitely the worst of his solo output, for slaughter. Problem is, it stinks so bad I'd rather just let the bathroom air out for awhile and take a stroll outside to pretend to puff some cancer sticks. Here, read this while I'm gone. Richard Ashcroft does; you should, too.

1. Wash and condition your hair. Blow your hair dry with a round brush to remove wave. Use a ceramic flat iron to straighten naturally curly hair. 2. Section off the hair on the top of your head. Make a part at each of the temples, to the back of the head. Clip the hair on the top or your head together so that no stray hairs hang down. 3. Use a rat tail comb to back comb the hair around the border of the part. Rat the hair in the back of the head as well as the sides. 4. Spray the back combed hair with aerosol hairspray to give extra support hair extensions. 5. Use dark hair extensions for light hair, or light hair extensions for dark hair. Clip the extensions into sections of back combed hair. 6. Unclip the hair on the top of the hair. Smooth the hair down over the hair extensions. Divide the bangs into two sections. Back comb the under section of hair and spray it. Clip hair extensions to the bang area. 7. Smooth the top layer of bangs over the extension. Run your fingers through the hair to smooth it. Spray the entire hairdo with a quick shot of aerosol spray.

This album makes me feel massive indifference towards everything. Poverty. War. Salmonella. Elections. Rock star hair. Whatever. It's hard to feel good about anything for most of this half bummed-out acid trip, half-Sting pretense of an endeavor when there really isn't anything to care about. Even the world's ugliest dog got more loving than this speckled bit of rot. "Check The Meaning," as close to a song as you can probably assess one to be, is the first track and the only thing resembling human decency that I can imagine Ashcroft envisioned for us to enjoy. I like it sometimes. He probably loves this album. Everything else -- is just like that middle paragraph you may or may not have suffered all the way through. F

Coldplay - Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends (2008)

Blinded by the need for universality, yet stung by the criticisms leveled at them as being unserious, Coldplay took their wannabe U2 rock to another level by enlisting sonic nutjob Brian Eno to give them musical depth. Problem is, Brian Eno is a mixed bag of pomegranate seeds, and he either inspires ambient genuflection or utter ennui. Add a Delacroix painting, a few hispanic-tinged ditties and a preponderance of Eno's insipid mood music and this record makes for an altogether fabulously fucked up listen -- perfect for an elevator. I thought X&Y was one of the most terrible things to be unleashed upon the human race, as I wrote here; but this is beyond words. Chris Martin, the King of Bland, sings less frequently, which means the band actually plays more -- and competent musicians Coldplay never were.

What I think is especially funny are the early reviews which cite this album's dense musical layers. Really? So that derivative Pet Sounds homage during "Viva La Vida" is supposed to be richly dense? I'm horrified at the presupposition that adding a multitude of sounds somehow makes music better. In fact, I would argue in Coldplay's case, that the layered sounds are there to hide their pedestrian musicianship -- particularly those strings. Adding strings for effect is a novel and quite fashionable way nowadays to offer a false illusion of depth. Bravo, Brian. Bravo, Coldplay. That mouthy English baritone sounds perfect over that Latin backbeat.

Ok, the songs (some of them anyway -- different as they seem, they still sound the same.) Here's a revelation: start with "Lovers In Japan" and listen to the first minute. Hear anything? I did. It was called "Where The Streets Have No Name." Maybe it was unconscious; I could care less. But Chris really just needs to kill himself already, because I think people prefer Bono. "42" sounds like a bad ELO practice session. Weary and wanderlust and looking for a trite ballad? "Lost." Not going to listen to the album except for the singles? "Viva La Vida" is an exceptionally marvelous product of pop confectioneering, replete with insistent hooks, anthemic choruses and an iPod video full of dazzling histrionics -- in short, shit.

I apologize for not getting out my Police review; I try not to stack the hate consecutively, but too many people are going to love this for the wrong reasons, and now I have my peace. F

Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy (1973)

With the imminent arrival of Valentine's Day, I'd like to switch things up a bit -- after all, have we truly forgotten the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre? No, I haven't the time to massacre seven albums to equal the number of victims, but perhaps -- hear me out -- I can do to one what I would do to seven. Especially if the album is a sacred cow in need of an overdue slaughter whose reputation is supremely undeserving. No, I wasn't there, I didn't get the T-shirt and my zeitgeist card expired a long time ago with my lack of nostalgia. Sorry, I really don't know my victim.

So without further ado, let's venture into the Houses Of The Holy and do some deplorable sacrilege! (Brief caveat: Zep's first four albums are just short of amazing; there, that's my penance rock gods.) I really can't describe how much I loathe this album; it's a complete distillation of all the things that could have went wrong on their previous albums but somehow didn't. Yet, here they are on full display, every popped cyst, abscess and oozing sebaceous gland: egregious imitative blues/reggae/funk pilferings, pointless noodling and guitar wankery, tepid percussion and bass performances, and the seemingly endless caterwauling from the Diocese of this filthy sermon himself, Roberto De Planta of West Bromwich.

What's to say? "The Song Remains The Same" sounds like a bad Zeppelin rip-off; "The Rain Song" is a lot of time I'll never get back; "No Quarter" makes me wish I had one for the jukebox. "D'Yer Mak'er" is atrocious. As soon it starts, I want to pop a brick into Plant's mouth and make him stop. Then, I want Mssr. Page to stop. Then I want John to sober up. Then -- and where is JPJ's mad bass thumping? What can I say, oh my brothers and sisters? -- you know those hypotheticals where people say, oh so-and-so can put out a horrible album and anyone would buy it? This is that album. "The Crunge" is the most awful thing I've ever heard in my life.  "Dancing Days" is a precursor for Plant's later solo material. "The Ocean" is my favorite track to highlight, not because it sucks (though it does), but because I feel like this song exemplifies the excess and pompous nature the band had transformed into. Sure, it sounds like Zep, but a different, more bloated version. All the refinements blurred; all the intricacies swept away in favor of flawless production and the fact that they just didn't have it anymore. The only saving grace to this abortive monstrosity is "Over The Hills And Far Away" -- which I dig and dig so much, perhaps just because it's the only thing on the album I like. Sorry Zep-heads, my purplish tie-dye is comfortable, but I throw it into the wash when listening to this garbage. F

Metallica - Reload (1997)

I usually don't do consecutive reviews of the same band, but I take exception here, simply because one scathing review is generally best followed by another -- think of it as a kind of musical criticism bukkake. Anyway, Reload is exactly that -- a reload of the same garbage you heard on Load, except that the songs are more or less outtakes and recycled versions of the same filth. If Load was a rotten discolored dog turd, Reload is that same turd but having been maliciously stepped on and scavenged by vultures for undigested corn droppings.

The first track, "Fuel," is enormously fantastic -- so fantastic that Metallica immediately decided to sell the rights to NASCAR for use during broadcasts. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that Danica Patrick got more people interested in racing; it was all because of "Fuel."

Beautiful, man, beautiful. Like McDonald's, I'm lovin' it. Like GEICO, you guys make it look so easy, a caveman could do it. Most importantly -- and this is perhaps the purest distillation of wisdom and individual verbal craft I can construct to bestow with marvelous munificence on your magnificent album -- where's the beef? An F for everything, you bastards.

Metallica - Load (1996)

This is the album that made me loathe everything thereunto that was Metallica, a burgeoning second-hand purveyor of sludgy blues and snarling billboard ballads à la James Hetfield, the replacement Robert Plant of the 1990s (except Hetfield prefers to growl instead of meow.) True, The Black Album was disappointing and inconsistent, but that album, so we believed at the time despite our premature tears, was their sophomore effort, the one where they experimented a bit, right? Well, no. See, if the name Metallica is, in a sense, wordplay on the word metal, certainly Load has become the dross atop it. Scum. Drivel. The ick from a syphilitic dick.

"Ain't My Bitch", the opening track, contains the lyric, "I've already heard this song before" -- and I couldn't agree more. Sure does sound like everything else and not like Metallica anymore, eh? Perhaps they were trying for Alice In Chains-Lite, or Creed with a smarmy snarl, or perchance just the first pioneering thrash outfit to incorporate twang into their tunes and completely lose the riffs? Nah, no self-respecting band would ever do that. I remember being in the car with my mother at the time of this album's release and "Until It Sleeps" came on the radio; and let me tell you something, when this woman -- who could have just two hours earlier screamed at me for raping her ears with "Hit The Lights" -- casually remarked that this song was actually pretty good, I knew that the Metallica I loved was dead and rotting with hundreds of thousands of hungry pop fleas encircling and eating up what newly marketable stink sound it was emanating.

I have little positive to say, other than "King Nothing" and "Hero Of The Day" provide brief glimpses of the former glory these Bay Area thrashers used to indulge in. This abortion of an album along with the subsequent release of its demented sister release, Reload, cemented Metallica's status as the ultimate Benedict Arnold's of the music business. Good luck assholes. I hope you choke on your own shit. F

Emerson, Lake And Palmer - Love Beach (1978)

Since I've made not one, but two references to this monstrosity of an album, it inherently deserves a more thorough explication. That said, one of the reasons I created this site was to keep some greenbacks in your pockets. I've clearly got your best interests at heart, no? (Such is the plight of those doomed to be senselessly altruistic; they never receive the true recognition they deserve.) Regardless, avoid this album. For those newbies out there and for those who've come to appreciate or despise their immodest quasi-classical compositions, ELP putting out Love Beach is to be avoided for its having none of those qualities. Sure, Greg Lake's ballads are present, but they're more for a hearty guffaw than for serious consideration as anything resembling decency.

True, the music tries to retain that twisted carnival atmosphere immortalized on Brain Salad Surgery, but that was due to a better reliance on minor scales, lyrics and a knack for just plain dark carnival music. This album feels like a happy tropical getaway gone awry, a goofy kind of exposé into the band's preternatural misgivings. The cover says it all! Oh for that which is wholly unholy, who cares to see Keith Emerson's virile man-hair? Because this album was completed due to contractual obligations, you should expect nothing more than the dross that it clearly is. Drink many a Mai Tai if you dare to brave this mess. An exemplary F!

Van Halen - OU812 (1988)

There's a lot of Van Halen going around; it's the end of summer and the last hurrahs with beer, barbecues and FM radio are everywhere. It's nice to hear the nastiness of "I'm The One" while at a stoplight or from your neighbor's backyard. Now, I'm not in a very good mood, and I love Van Halen (minus Hagar) without impunity, so I'm basically going to take the time to trash the most terrible album that Eddie has ever thought to commit a guitar track to -- OU812 -- the most un-Van Halen of all Van Halen records. This album is a waste of everything great about these guys. Listen to "The Full Bug" from Diver Down

and then to "Feels So Good" from this messy morass and you'll think you've got two different bands from two different eras.

The good? Well, "Finish What Ya Started," I must admit, is a pretty good song, but only because it's not annoying. Shame on Hagar for thinking we like such cantankerous caterwauling and especially, shame on Eddie and co. for thinking they needed Roth to be a successful band. Besides the insistent irritation offered by Hagar, the rest of the band seems lifeless as if they were ELP putting out Love Beach to fulfill contractual obligations. Speaking of ELP, I hate synths as filler or background or as some kind of supplemental accompaniment. But Keith Emerson rules. And Rick Wakeman rules -- because they transcended the potentially banal use of their instruments, like Max Roach did with percussion (rest in peace, man). This musical diarrhea doesn't deserve the keys it tries to embellish and should be promptly flushed into the cesspool with the other blasé buckets of musical filth produced from the 80s. Oh, and for the record, 5150 sucked, too, just not as much, but that's for later. This album merely built upon the exacting shittiness they were developing then. An F seems too nice.

Fantômas - Delìrium Còrdia (2004)

The only reason I still own this album is because Fantômas is an otherwise fantastic band. Not having it amidst their other worthwhile efforts is simply illogical. That said, it still sucks. Let me explain. I love Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, Tomahawk, etc. I love Mike Patton. MIKE PATTON IS GOD. Just kidding. But he can still sing, scat, screech, or rap with the rest of them; hell, when he does that rapturous polyphonic overlay of banshee-like widows with just a mic on Adult Themes For Voice, the man regularly averts the impossible and tells it to go fuck itself. Everything he touches turns to wackadoo. Lovely tottering brain-spewing wackadoo. This album, though, is either so beyond my mental faculties of apprehension and appreciation or it's just a terrible amalgamation of sound made manifest in pure concocted drivel and noise. The only positive thing I can say of this mess is that it's carefully concocted drivel and noise -- like an artist who chooses to paint his magnum opus on loose-leaf with crayons. The timbre of a dreary piano, muffled chanting, occasional aimless riffage and the most anti-climactic final eighteen minutes of nothing but old-school record crackling and silence. This is straight out of Brian Eno's head during a nightmare. Landscapes of wackadoo à la Patton. Oh, and Dave Lombardo generally rules, but he's entirely underused here. A meaningless A for effort; F for everything else.

Coldplay - X&Y (2005)

In 1978, in order to fulfill contractual obligations, Emerson, Lake and Palmer released Love Beach, a most heinous and disgusting example of musicianship. AC/DC's Fly On The Wall in 1985 didn't exactly inspire throngs of supporters, either. Even the mighty Sabbath released the less-than-mediocre Never Say Die! in 1978 as the swan song of Mr. Osbourne. Yet, time has since forgiven these indiscretions, these blasé and lax attempts by otherwise fantastic musicians. Some if this has to do with lowered expectations: ELP was some years off its Brain Salad Surgery glory days; Sabbath had already began to show a slight decline in quality; and AC/DC had already released its post-Back In Black letdown several years earlier.

With that, let me now begin with Coldplay's 2005 dirty bomb X&Y, our newly crowned perennial stinker. If Coldplay were a prostitute, this album is perhaps the equivalent of their having come back to gobble up the sloppy seconds. Factor in the fact that A Rush Of Blood To The Head was easily the equivalent of them breaking their proverbial hymen, and such antics make this all the more messier and bloodier an album. First off, what's there to review, since this album sounds oddly the same, no matter what track you're listening to? This is perfectly squandered drool, better left on your pillow than in your ear, which is precisely where Mr. Martin puts it. A wonder a man with so much passion for global politics and free trade could actually write something so insipid and crass and manage to still sell it -- which is, of course, what separates this album from the aforementioned others: its remarkable thrust into the limelight as the album of the ages and subsequent stepping stone for Coldplay to become the next U2. Ahem. Bono has great vocal range and chops; Chris Martin, at best, is able to project a nasally tinny of a falsetto, a more or less cheap imitation of his hero Thom Yorke. If Coldplay is now considered big, it's the big in the sense of a vacuum, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Millions of sold records does not a great album make; and this album is arguably one of the worst albums ever made, marketed and sold. Unfortunately for us, we'll probably never forget about it. A big fat F encrusted in platinum.