Let’s address the counter-argument right off the bat. “This isn’t government overreach! Soda intake can be translated into real healthcare dollars, taken from you, the taxpayer, and given to fatso over there with his 64oz cola and a wicked case of die-a-beet-us! We’re saving you money!” Hey thanks! But no thanks. Do you mean to tell me that you’re 100% sure it was the soda that made this guy dependent on government healthcare programs, and not the six Baconators™ he had for lunch? Because if you don’t know, you should either be outlawing nothing, or outlawing everything. That’s the problem. “Well, it may not be the only thing, but it’s one of the things!” So is lack of exercise, I’m sure, but you can’t force the poor slob into a gym membership. Slippery slope. “Maybe it’ll encourage people to drink less of it!” You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Or: You can lead a guy to a smaller soda, but you can’t stop him from buying three of them.

Honestly, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I have a 12oz can of Diet Coke every 3 days or so. But the point is that on some sweltering Thursday in August, I might want a huge fountain Fresca with my football-sized barbacoa Chipotle burrito, and that oughta be my damn prerogative.

Let’s do some comparative analysis. Above, I have listed some fairly innocuous activities that people in our society choose to participate in on a daily basis. Applying the Bloombergian nanny thought process, we’ll examine why some of them should be outlawed.

• Smoking – EASY!
• Tattoos – You’ve got a tattoo on your neck, or below your shirt-line on your arm? No respectable company will ever hire you; you’ll be a social pariah and a burden on society as you add to the unemployment rolls.
• Unmarketable College Major – What, are you kidding me? You’re gonna major in photography, in this job market? I think not, young man. My tax dollars are not funding your weed habit.
  • [SIDEBAR: True story. I went to Spain in high school, and we asked our tour guide how she became a tour guide, and she said she was going to med school but the government told that year’s med school class that the state didn’t need any more surgeons, but that she should totes major in history instead. So she became a tour guide. I almost threw up in the Prado.]
• Shitty Reality TV – Dumbed-down programming that promotes a sedentary lifestyle filled with corn chips, TV dinners, and statements like, “Momma, when I grow up, I wanna be just like Bristol Palin,” shouted over the prattling of Tom Bergeron.

I suppose even I would be OK with getting rid of the last one, but the fact remains, that’s the wrong way to handle it. My guess is that roughly 30% of this country is fundamentally stupid. Make them smarter, and a lot of this stuff just goes away. Stop treating the symptoms, start treating the disease, and you’ve got yourself a great start. Or, continue treating the entire city like an overfed bedwetter, and watch it start acting that way. It is not the government’s responsibility to make sure Baby Huey gets his eight glasses of water, it’s his. This is what being an adult human is all about.

Well, all the ones available on Netflix, anyway. Still, that’s just a season shy of 300 episodes, and watching that much of anything is bound to leave its mark on you. You’re saying to yourself now, “Wow, what an impressive feat. Truly, this is a shining example of the kind of human achievement our generation ought to aspire to emulate.” And you’re righter than you know. It is so easy to watch this show passively; it’s visual elevator music. But pay attention, and you’ll find yourself wading nips deep in a pool of constitutionally questionable police work, and unrealistically deft lawyering.

It is revealed in one episode that partners Olivia Benson and Eliot Stabler have a clearance rate of something like 93%, and a conviction rate somewhere in the neighborhood of 86%. PRETTY TIDY. It’s probably got something to do with the countless times El and Liv give each other the glib did-you-hear-someone-call-for-help-in-there? excuse for busting into an apartment sans warrant. Classic. Admittedly, this is not as frequently used as the showy, yet effective, Eliot-throwing-a-guy-into-the-wall-of-the-interrogation-room move, which usually results in the suspect conceding, “Alright, alright! I was there that night, but I didn’t kill her!” or something.

These tactics usually at least get the intrepid detectives a talking-to from Capt. Cragen (“Detectives, my office!”), and sometimes leads to confessions getting thrown out via the defense’s ever present MOTION TO SUPPRESS. God, it never fails. Just when they think they’ve got the perv who diddled and stabbed whomever he diddled and stabbed this week, some slimeball attorney waltzes in with that little blue slip of paper and a smug grin. Oh, you thought you had this one all wrapped up, did you, A.D.A. Casey Novak? Well guess what: the knife with the suspect’s fingerprint, signature, and 4 types of government issued ID super glued to it is OUT! Time to rebuild the case in 12 hours by going back to the crime scene and discovering some mislabeled home movie containing a full video-diary style confession.

Do certain episodes stick out in my mind? Sure. Like the one where John Stamos is a “reproductive abuser,” and something like 25 women from two continents show up with all kids he made them have. Episodes like this are especially great because the actors have to do their best to pretend what’s happening isn’t wholly absurd. The writers have to work statistics into the dialogue without seeming clumsy and forced, but statistics are, by nature, clumsy and forced, so the result is predictably hilarious.

 “Wait, this guy did what? Seems pretty far-fetched.”

“Detective, did you know that well over 3% of all American women have been forced into childbirth by a member of the cast of Full House?”

“Sounds about right.”

Stuff like that. Then you’ve got that whole arc with Olivia’s long-lost brother, who, turns out, does share the illicit proclivities of their estranged father. This one is pretty great too, because it lets Benson be the loose cannon for a change. Driving to Jersey, going on unauthorized stakeouts, ignoring her caseload in favor of personal vendettas. Horning in on Eliot’s turf for a few episodes.

I will say this: nobody seethes like Eliot Stabler. I’ll describe his go-to angry face for you. He’s visibly upset about the situation at hand, but he’s a good guy at heart so he decides he’s over it and turns away. The guy he’s turning away from gets in one last parting shot, like, I don’t know, something about his wife. Stabler wheels around and gets way up in this dude’s personal hula-hoop. He speaks quickly and softly and you’re not sure if he’s angry or hoarse, but then you see it—there is a vein in his forehead that looks like someone glued a goddamn twizzler to his face. It is startling, to say the least.

Would I recommend watching every episode of Law and Order: SVU. No. I’m happy to do this kind of grunt work in the name of pop culture, but you should be doing something else. Watching every episode of Criminal Intent, probably. Or watching your microwave as you test which things are cool to microwave. Productive things.

It has been quite some time since the last post on this hallowed blog, and I’m sure you’ve all just been too broken up about it to go outside, or eat, or…whatever the kids are doing these days—work? (LOLNOPE). Anyway, in order to make things easier on myself (which, if I’m being honest, is my prime directive 100% of the time), I am switching up the format a bit. By “switching up,” I mean “fundamentally blowing apart.” This is a music blog, no more! I mean, it hasn’t been for like a year, but it won’t be in the future, either. Everything is fair game this time, and if I had to prognosticate, I’d say I’m mostly going to be yelling about things. Sorry?

Why am I doing this all of a sudden? The long story involves a whole lotta BS about springtime and renewal and emerging from a long, dark winter riddled with existential crises and bad poetry.

None of that happened, though.

The short answer is that WordPress is letting me use WordAds now, so I don’t necessarily need to be writing this nonsense for free. Click the ads. Click them.

Expect the rolling out of new content next week. In the meantime, here’s a gif because blogs with gifs are really in right now and I’m learning about gifs. What do you do, click it? Either way. Enjoy.

It took the better part of the weekend. It took roughly five full listens, a spirited, beer-fueled discussion with fellow enthusiasts, and some catalogue backtracking. But it finally happened: I love this album. The first listen is pure consumption. You knew they’d release something eventually, but they spring it on you five days in advance and you find yourself in oncoming traffic, with three years of desire rushing at you like an Academy bus. So you get through it once, retaining almost nothing, then dive right back in. This time you notice the ephemeral beauty of “Give up the Ghost,” and the undeniable funkiness of “Lotus Flower.” Once more through and you’ll probably find that “Bloom” starts to grow on you (PUN!!). Its not until you’ve fully digested each track that the implications of your actions start to creep up on you: you just spent nearly five hours of your weekend listening absorbedly to one album. Why would you do something like this? Because Radiohead can’t make an album without further entrenching themselves, safely and definitively, as the best in the world.

There has been a sort of trust germinating between Radiohead and their fans for years. It is this kind of trust that leads these stalwart fans to approach one impenetrable album after another with the same unflinching confidence. Miraculously, these often-dense masterworks come off free of pretention, allowing the band to avoid the label of Great Condescender, given to so many other post-modern artists across mediums. The King of Limbs is no different. It asks that you be present, but never really grabs you out of your seat. There are moments where you’ll be begging for a song to open up, but it never does—in fact, the album as a whole never really does. It is easily the most subdued work they have produced, surpassing even Amnesiac at times for its muted, understated beauty. In this way, it is also an exercise in restraint. In Rainbows, an album at once accessible and true to form, seemed to be taking the band in a direction of popular acceptance. It was guitar-heavy, upbeat and—dare I say—catchy. The King of Limbs resists all temptation to recreate that tableau, and makes good on Thom Yorke’s promise that the band wouldn’t dive back into the “creative hoo-ha of a long-play record.”

So what do we have here? The album is a good example of that old paradoxical relationship between the natural and the mechanical, but we are not surprised when it is able to find a balance between its living theme and its electronic execution. While I’ve long since given up on trying to decipher Thom Yorke’s cryptic pen, Limbs is addressing something undeniably organic. The best example of this is on “Morning Mr. Magpie.” The guitar is hushed and fluttering, as a bird’s wings, and the speaker calls out the avian creature by name. “Feral” has an almost sylvan feel to it, placing you in an echoing wood, surrounding you with whispering, disembodied voices, and deep, creeping tones. By the end of the (very short) record, you have the impression that it is nothing less than one living, breathing whole.

The length is something to mention as well. While the depth and density keep it from being what I would call accessible, the length keeps it at least approachable. It also seems to suggest that there may be a host of excess material left over from recording, which is exciting. At the Atoms for Peace show in NYC a while back, Thom played “The Daily Mail” (which, given the nature of this whole “newspaper album” business, seems only appropriate), and an untitled track, which he mentioned would be on this album. It is not. I sense quite a few B-sides at the very least.

In the spirit of the album, I’m keeping this review short and sweet. I’ve also found I’m much better at tearing down artists than I am at propping them up, so even this much is quite an effort. But I will say this: Radiohead is the only band capable of making this type of record. They are by no means beyond reproach, but they have earned enough respect and trust to be given the benefit of five or six listens before judgment. I’ve gone one-and-done with a few albums in the past, but when Radiohead says something, you listen.

I’m not going to pretend that this has never happened, but it has certainly not happened for many years. The nominees for Album of the Year have, for at least the past ten years, included one or two artists that deserved a nomination, and four others. One of those four others usually wins. Indulge me while I provide some Wikipedia-found evidence:

2010: Taylor Swift, Beyonce, The Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, and Dave Matthews Band are nominated. Taylor Swift wins.

2009: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Coldplay, Ne-Yo, Radiohead, and Lil Wayne are nominated. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss win. (Not an epic tragedy, but still not right.)

2008: Herbie Hancock, Foo Fighters, Vince Gill, Kanye West, and Amy Winehouse are nominated. Herbie Hancock wins.

The list goes on in this same fashion for a stretch. With the exception of Radiohead, I’m not certain that these artists definitely did have the best album of their Grammy year, but I can tell you with certainty that Taylor Swift and Herbie Hancock definitely did not. So while the Academy might not have been able to hit the nail squarely on the head with the nominations they had given, they had the opportunity to at least strike the board, instead of throwing the hammer through the window.

Let me give you a comparison. The Grammys are—supposed to be—to music what the Oscars are to movies, right? Well, if the Oscars were more like the Grammys, this year’s Best Picture nominees would look something like this: Country Strong, Just Go With It, Season of the Witch, Black Swan, and Piranha-3D. Black Swan probably shouldn’t win in a fair fight, but this isn’t a fair fight. It’s a frame-up. When you say the words “Album of the Year” or “Best Picture,” there is no post script; it doesn’t read, “Ablum of the Year…When given a choice of these five albums, as if no others were made in 2010,” because it leaves out any real competition. A list like that one is downright disrespectful, and it undermines the medium as a whole.

I’m really not trying to take anything away from Arcade Fire. The Canadian septet made an impressive album this past year. When I made a top-ten list in my head I think it ranked 5^th, because you wouldn’t know it from watching the Grammys, but this was an impressive year for music. The group of nominees this year should have made this a clear victory, but the way the night was going I was sure those neo-country frauds Lady Antebellum were going to sneak away with another trophy. So again, really not trying to take anything away from Arcade Fire, but they should know that they weren’t given a whole lot either.

Therein lies the quandary. When the contestant pool has become so diluted with fluff, does a win really mean anything? Like I said before, I had Arcade Fire ranked 5^th on my list, meaning that in my fantasy Grammys they would have been nominated, but would ultimately have lost. In that parallel universe they would have been underdogs, but the phrase, “Its an honor just to be nominated” would have meant something.

There has been some talk about how the Grammys may have become relevant once again, overnight, because this one award was given to a band that matters. If you are one of the few optimistic musicophiles touting this theory, think about something else. If Arcade Fire had lost, like so many of their predecessors, how meaningful would this award have been? I’m wagering a guess at, not at all.

But wait! Doesn’t the sheer fact of AF’s victory make the Grammy worth something? Not really. The Suburbs was a great album, but it came out the same year as a lot of other great albums. The Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences picked it, and none of those other albums. It is as if this happened by chance. It would have been essentially the same scenario if the Academy had nominated four pieces of rotten fruit, and Arcade Fire, and Arcade Fire won. Congratulations indeed.

I was going to write a conclusion paragraph here, summing up my argument and bringing everything full circle, but I came up with a better idea. Here’s a quick list of some classic missteps by the Academy, which illustrates its tradition of incompetence better than I ever could:

1967: Frank Sinatra’s A Man and His Music beats The Beatles’ Revolver

1969: Glen Campbell’s By the Time I Get to Phoenix beats both The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour and Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends

1970: Blood, Sweat, & Tears’ Blood, Sweat, & Tears beats The Beatles’ Abbey Road

1981: Christopher Cross’ Christopher Cross beats Pink Floyd’s The Wall

2001: Steely Dan’s Two Against Nature beats Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP and Radiohead’s Kid A

And, for the record, here is what my Album of the Year category would have looked like:

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening

Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left-Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

Titus Andronicus – The Monitor

Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – WINNER

As soon as the camera panned over to Christina—or, as one of my Twitter pals referred to her, “the Chubstina Aguilera robot”—America should have known it was in for a bumpy ride. I understand the girl has had a rough time of the past few months. She’s gotten divorced, Burlesque tanked, and she’s been all but removed from the limelight entirely. But the Super Bowl is about as national as the proverbial “national stage” gets; you think she could’ve run a comb through her hair? As for the singing of the anthem itself, X-tina wasn’t doing herself any favors. Even if I buy the excuse that she was “caught up in the moment,” she’s gotta know that putting her voice through the 500m Hurdles isn’t the key to keeping focus.

This performance is just one of many such performances that turn the Anthem into a display of lung capacity rather than one of patriotism. Online betting parlors offered an over/under bet on the length of the song’s final crescendo-ed, “brave.” (Smart money bet the over on eight seconds and won. I clocked a ten-second “brave” myself). We have come to expect this, for better or worse, but its been annoying me for some time now. I’m not knocking the entire vocal style necessarily; I don’t very much care for it, but I don’t listen to it, so problem solved. However, unless you are America herself, this particular song isn’t really about you. So when these artists rear back and howl the (wrong) lyrics, it strikes me not as a tribute to the nation, but as an attention-starved diva gasping for breath.

Just as a matter of comparison, if you want to hear someone get a patriotic song right, you don’t have to look too far back. Tony Bennett did a pretty great job with “God Bless America” during the World Series. No frills, no skipped verses, just a class act doing his thing. Not to mention, the guy is 84, and he can still fill a stadium with that honey he calls a voice.

Now, onto the other debacle. The Black Eyes Peas are a disgrace. I could stop there; that’s the gist of my argument. But allow me to self-indulge. The Black Eyed Peas do one thing really well: they pump out singles, all of which are power-hour soundtrack fodder. These singles don’t require much of the listener’s attention, which is good. If they did, somebody might have realized what Grade-A manure they are. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking; any given Z-100 listener is more likely to hear one and say, “OMG, they’re soooo right! Tonight is gonna be a good night!”

As if being miserable weren’t enough, these clowns have six goddamn Grammys. SIX. Some of the award-worthy gems include the single, “Don’t Phunk With My Heart” and that perennial classic, “My Humps,” not to mention an Album of the Year nomination for The E.N.D. I literally cannot imagine a single human being who firmly believes that The E.N.D. was actually the best album made in 2010. I try to conjure an image of what that sort of person might look like if it existed, and my mind cannot render its form; this must be what its like to see God.

Last night’s performance—or really any live performance of theirs—ought to have been a revelation for most. The problem is, the Super Bowl’s core audience already knows how worthless the Black Eyed Peas are. Either that, or they don’t know them at all, which is just as good. Last night, they amounted to little more than the latest in a long line of terrible halftime shows (Bruce and Tom Petty excluded). There’s a classic Lewis Black bit about watching the halftime show during Super Bowl XXXV, in which he refers to N’Sync, Aerosmith and Britney Spears as the “Trifecta from Hell.” He’s not wrong, but I get the feeling he’d admit that The Black Eyed Peas, Usher and Slash came pretty close.

The circumstances surrounding this album’s release ought to have most of the world feeling more like proud parents than adoring fans. Kanye West’s triumphant embrace of social media has allowed 1.6 million people the opportunity to view the awkward meeting, courting, wooing, conception, gestation and birth processes surrounding his latest creation. It’s the type of spectacle that makes one wonder whether the same circumstances would have shed a more favorable light on an oft misunderstood 808’s and Heartbreak. West’s exploits, Twitter account or no, are becoming exceedingly difficult to ignore. Being exposed to all of that content is of course overwhelming—and few things on Earth are more polarizing than this guy’s persona—but it is exactly that type of intimacy that we are exposed to on this album. When it comes to the content of the record itself, much of it does play out like a sort of dreamscape; beautiful, dark and twisted are all accounted for, and West fills in the blanks with lilting synths, disembodied voices and some disappointing Jay-Z verses. If not for the latter (and, of course, for Sir Lucious Left Foot), we’d be looking at rap album of the year.

We’ll start with the beautiful. The album opener sets things off with a sort of challenge, asking, “Can we get much higher?” Half self-affirmation, half dare, this track opens the door to the rest of the fantasy. Move one down on the track list and we find Kanye questioning his role at the top. “What’s a black Beatle, anyway, a fuckin’ roach? / I guess that’s why they got me sittin’ in fuckin’ coach.” And while I doubt highly that Kanye goddamn West is left wanting for any measure of decadence, he does raise a valid question about his celebrity. In a hip-hop landscape where all it takes to be the “greatest rapper alive” is saying so, can we be sure of any real genius when we see it? And if so, how do we treat it?

A couple tracks later and we can tell how Kanye thinks he’s being treated; we’ll move to twisted. Even if you despise Kanye, if you think he’s the worst thing to happen to America since your political figure of choice, you still need to listen to “Monster.” Not least because its an awesome track, but because Kanye is not what makes it awesome. If you want, just listen to the Justin Vernon intro, the Rick Ross prologue, then skip to 3:35 and hold your breath. Nicki Minaj jacks this track from ‘Ye and Jay and makes them look like snot-nosed kids (or in Jay’s case, truly, a 40 year old man). Minaj is what Lil’ Kim was supposed to be, what people thought she would be; Minaj is just as hard, but she’s all-around tighter, and doesn’t have to rely on sex being her only tool in the bag. On this track she’s got a hard-line to ODB, channeling his patented growl and mock-soulful vibrato. Rap is a boys club to be sure, but this chick can hang.

As I mentioned earlier, this album is marred by a couple things, and both of them are Jay-Z verses. Either this is another instance of him phoning it in—which has become all too common—or, more likely, Jay is kind of losing his edge. When all you rap about is what a vet you are and how these young up-and-comers have no respect, you start sounding like a vet alright, but like, from Vietnam. Are these really the only tricks he has left? Sounds like it, unless you count the Dark Knight quote he throws in there on “So Appalled,” completely out of context. He might still be the greatest rapper alive, but its because he’s still alive, not because he’s still rapping. He ought to thank Kanye and Weezy for not burying him.

But enough about the old guy and the young lady, let’s talk about ‘Ye. The high points on this album are staggering, and the low points are few and far between. While the subject matter is familiar, he never ceases to find new ways of framing it. In the wake of 808’s, we find Kanye doing his fair share of “singing” here too, but in a decidedly un-autotuned tone. This juxtaposed with Rihanna’s blatant, liberal use of this tool on “All of the Lights” brings out the truly bare state of Kanye’s emotions. This is of course supplemental to the lyrical demands: “Turn up the lights in here, baby. / Extra bright, I want ya’ll to see this.” Trust us, we do.

The album on a whole is an aural portrait of one rapper’s mind. At times stripped down (“Runaway,” “Gorgeous”) and at times bursting forth with raging bombast (“All of the Lights,” “Monster”). It once again reinforces what we’ve long suspected about Kanye West. He is consistently one step ahead of all of us. When he puts out new music it is truly new, but we listen like its exactly what we expected. We expect innovation from him, and that’s what we receive. The revelations we get from one listen are sure to be bolstered by countless revisits. This one is a classic, ladies and gentlemen.

7. “With A Little Help From My Friends” — Joe Cocker (The Beatles)

Yes, the soundtrack to the adolescence of Kevin Arnold is one of the very few Beatles covers worth listening to.

6. “Hard to Handle” — The Black Crowes (Otis Redding)

Even though they rarely play this live anymore it brought them a great deal of popularity, and it is a fitting homage to the Otis Redding classic.

5. “These Days” — Nico/Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne wrote it, Nico recorded it, Browne covered that. Both are great, here’s Nico.

4. “Hurt” — Johnny Cash (Nine Inch Nails)

Trent Reznor: “That song isn’t mine anymore…”

3. “Feelin’ Good” — My Brightest Diamond (The Roar of the Greasepaint–The Smell of the Crowd)

This song has been covered so many times, its like the Broadway version of “Halleluja.” I’ve just got a serious soft-spot for Shara Worden’s voice.

2. “Landslide” — Smashing Pumpkins (Stevie Nicks)

Nothing at all wrong with Stevie Nicks, but Billy Corgan’s signature whine is eerily familiar.

1. “Picture” — Robin Pecknold and Joanna Newsom (Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow)

This is everything a cover should be. Makes you wonder if you actually might love this song.

7 Losers:

7. “California Girls” — David Lee Roth (The Beach Boys)

What do you do when you get kicked out of your band? Cover someone else’s.

6. “Blue Monday” — Orgy (New Order)

Hey guys! Remember Orgy? No? Well they covered New Order and then did nothing else.

5. “Faith” — Limp Bizkit (George Michael)

I’m usually a fan of ironic covers, but I’m not willing to admit that Fred Durst knows what irony is. He thought this was sweet.

4. “Lovesong” — 311 (The Cure)

Good to see them get some renewed popularity, and all they needed to do was rob this heartbreaking Cure classic of its emotion and urgency. Nice job, fellas.

3. “Boys of Summer” — The Ataris (Don Henley)

They did this, then the frontman wore a “Who the Fuck is Don Henley?” t-shirt on stage. So punk, right?….right, guys?

2. “Ruby Soho” — Vampire Weekend (Rancid)

This is unfortunate. A rushed, slipshod cover of a probable influence.

1. “Under Pressure” — My Chemical Romance and The Used (Queen and David Bowie)

This is just…I can’t…I don’t…

I usually don’t do this, because I usually don’t care what the television craze of the moment is. American Idol is largely irrelevant, Jersey Shore has become a parody of itself, but Glee… Glee continues to commit egregious musical crimes on a weekly basis. I will be the first to admit that I remain a bit ignorant about things like characters, plot, storyline, etc. But I’m not concerned with those things. This show could have the most compelling of those traditional TV components, but that wouldn’t even begin to make up for the terrible things this show has done to music.

What has Glee done, exactly? Excellent question. Glee has taken a handful of classic songs—from Broadway to The Beatles and everywhere in between—out of the hands of the artists that created them (or, in the case of Broadway classics, the actors who made them famous), and put them in the hands of amateurs. This isn’t even the worst of it. These amateurs, then, proceed to butcher these classics, and the viewing public eats them up. The youngest fans of this show plod on in willful ignorance of the original songs in a grand display of disrespect.

The most disrespectful? The list is extensive, but I’ll highlight some winners. The first rule of being in a cover band is, if you can help it, LEAVE QUEEN ALONE. I don’t care who you think you are, you can’t touch Freddie, so leave it alone. Not only did they go there, they did the unthinkable: “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Its this kind of recklessness on the part of the writers and producers that is really frightening. You can’t really blame the actors for doing what they’re told, but I think I’ve got a right to be angry.

Here’s one of my favorites. In this past week’s episode, a character’s father is in the hospital, and he decides to sing a song which he feels sums up his relationship with said father. He sings “I Want to Hold Your Hand”….wait for it…from Across the Universe. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a cover of a cover. And I’m sure that, as we speak, there are glee clubs and a cappella groups across America gearing up for their 4^th generation renditions. If the first rule of covering is DON’T TOUCH QUEEN, the second is surely DON’T CHANGE THE BEATLES. There are few things that we as humans can be sure of in this world: the bread will always land peanut-butter-side down, Katy Perry is a whore, and when The Beatles did it, they did it right. There is nothing you can do to improve upon what often borders on perfection, so if you must cover it, barely cover it.

Here’s my last observation. This show has apparently never shied away from Broadway, which given its general model, makes sense. The show is set up much like a Broadway musical, only with none of its original music (so Rock of Ages, if you will). But there is at least one song that I have to call shenanigans on. Its “And I Am Telling You” from Dreamgirls. Most people are familiar with the film version, which is actually totally fine. Jennifer Hudson leaves it all out there when she takes on this monster show-stealing number, which is exactly what the song calls for, so kudos to her. But you seriously need to watch this performance from the 1982 Tony Awards by Jennifer Holiday. If the hairs on the back of your neck don’t stand up, check your pulse. Then, once you’ve been thoroughly floored, give a listen to the performance given by whichever Glee cast member threw her hat into the ring. Its silly, it really is. But regardless, this is the version that will be blasting from the car stereos of every 16-year-old-learner’s-permit-having “Gleek” you pass on their way to school. They are being deprived of some true greatness here, and that’s Glee’s real crime.