For those familiar with my petulant fumings over the paltry relics of a musical era long past, you should know that I usually do not bestow heaps of pointless praise on albums that are otherwise made to have us fawn and froth over. Greatest album ever made? Hardly. The fact that Rubber Soul -- itself a horrible musical truncheon smashed against my face -- begat this middling morass of musical muck utterly astounds me. Granted, I do like some of it -- but the production, the "influence", the cockamamy of bells and whistle melodies with or without harpsichord is of no consequence to me. I am undeterred by any particular zeitgeist -- in truth, not having been born even remotely close to this album only strengthens the fact that I can't get nostalgic with it. Did this sounds fresh and exciting, then? Most likely. But I don't listen to an album because of its importance, or its value, or the fact that it conjures up some pleasant memory -- I listen to it because I like it; and besides "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "God Only Knows," Sloop John B" and "Here Today," this album is fucking gobbidge. Just because the Mesopotamians invented the wheel doesn't make them the greatest civilization (especially now that we've made a ruin of it). D+
