The Year Of The Bad Record

There's been a lot of albums that have come out in these first six months of the year, and a lot of those have been from artists I like; highly-anticipated stuff, if you will.

Yet, as I mentioned a second ago, we're six months into the year, and nothing has come out that I would recommend people go spend their money on. It's an all-around terrible year for music:

You've got The Smithereens, who put out their first new record in quite a while, and, turns out, it's a Beatles tribute record;

Saliva, possibly deciding their last album was too loud and angry, put out a record more along the lines of Winger, or possibly Nelson;

The Stooges put out their first record in ages, and prove that guys in their late 50s just can't bring the punk rock thunder;

Fall Out Boy put out an album that is, well, a Fall Out Boy album;

Trent Reznor cranked out, in record time (by Nine Inch Nails' standards, at least), Year Zero, a concept album that serves as little more than the payoff for the music world's version of The Lost Experience; (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, set aside about two hours and start clicking.)

Linkin Park, who had gotten nu-metal down to an artform, decided to switch gears entirely, and went with puss rock as their "nu" genre;

Maroon 5 released an album where all the songs sound exactly the same;

Chris Cornell had no problem breaking up a great band (Soundgarden) to record his first crappy solo record, and followed pattern by breaking up another (Audioslave) to record his next crappy solo record;

Even my beloved Queens of the Stone Age must have decided their music was getting too "normal," and decided to crank the weirdness (/unlistenability) factor way back up there.

And it only stands to get worse. I'm sure the new White Stripes album will be more obscure and obtuse than their previous one. Bon Jovi has forsaken its Jersey rocker ways and is putting out a country record. Kelly Clarkson, whose career appears to be disintegrating before our eyes, may or may not have a new album coming out. And the new-and-improved Smashing Pumpkins...well, we'll see about that one.

Just not a good year for music fans so far. There is one bright spot, though: Beyond, by the newly-reunited Dinosaur Jr. After being broken up for nearly 20 years and the name "Dinosaur Jr" having become synonymous with "J Mascis solo project," the original band got back together and put out one hell of a noisy record. J Mascis shows us that even though his hair went grey and he got really fat, he still knows how to rock.

I wish I could say the same for everyone else.