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In 1991, Metallica made a very obvious decision to sell out. They tossed aside the complex 8-minute songs that had, to that point, defined their sound. They abandoned the oft-mentioned band boycott of trite music videos and radio singles. And they hired Bon Jovi’s producer to help engineer the new direction of the band’s career. This from a group whose rhythm guitarist proudly scratched KILL BON JOVI into his axe.

The sellout worked — the self-titled “black album” had something like 7 singles with accompanying music videos. It even featured a love song — an enormous departure from the political and classic literature-inspired lyrics that preceded this period. And the thing sold millions. The band was never the same, and 1991 AAlgar walked away from the experience a little more cynical than he had been.

So now it’s seventeen years, 5 studio albums and a bass player later. Ask a kid born in the 80s about Metallica and they’ll tell you about a group that showed up on the radar in the early 90s, got heavy airplay on alternative stations and rocked at Lollapalooza. They probably wouldn’t know what to make of Death Magnetic any more than those of us who were there (more or less) from the beginning.

I guess this album is meant to be from an alternate universe where the black album never happened, because there’s a clear effort here to return to the old formula. Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, the band is just too far gone to make the old magic happen. Oh sure, it has the really long and noodly stuff like I used to love. It even has an instrumental as the penultimate track, followed by an extra-aggressive finale, which was the basic formula they used with Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All. But it just ain’t the same.

At first, I thought the problem might have been with me — that I’m just too far removed from “classic Metallica” to appreciate a return to the fundamentals. Or maybe I still take that adolescent betrayal personally and can’t look at them with the same eyes I did when I wore a mullet and a jean jacket. But I’ve had the thing on continuous play for a couple of weeks, hoping it’d grow on me (occasionally following one of those aforementioned classics to create a sense of aural continuity) and it’s not just me. It’s really not.

If anything, this feels like another cynical move on the band’s part — like they lost the hipster crowd that bought them their mansions and now, into their forties, they’re trying to reclaim their original audience. Maybe it was the loss of Cliff Burton all those years ago, but this just doesn’t feel like the same band that recorded Master of Puppets. Even worse, it doesn’t even feel as much like old school Metallica as, say, Beatallica.

Still, it’s better than St. Anger. But then… what isn’t?

Oh, and guys? Sequels to songs are lame. We really didn’t need “The Unforgiven III” any more than we needed “The Devil Goes Back to Georgia” or “Woomp, Addams Family, There It Is!”

There’s a song on this CD about digital encryption, and another about text adventure games, which only a tiny portion of us played and remember playing over 20 years ago. Talk about reaching out to your niche audiences.

Thing is, MC Frontalot makes you want to understand, if only to work out how incredibly clever he is. Intricate rhyme schemes, well constructed backing tracks (he’s moved far beyond the simple mixing of copyrighted hooks here, moving more into the realm of original music and even a fair amount of singing) and a love of geek culture that practically makes me feel like a jock are fast becoming Front’s signature elements.

Secrets from the Future is, in every measurable way, a leap forward from his first effort — from songs about creationism, Asperger’s syndrome, a famous comic book store and the above-mentioned, among others — it’s clear he intends to charge boldy forward, beyond the Star Wars and weed smoking references. Even the couple of short skits don’t feel like padding — they’re as funny the tenth time around as they were the first.

The only slight mistteps, in my opinion, are the two remakes from his first album — “I’m Gonna Be Your Man” just doesn’t feel right without that illegally procured Dr. Teeth sample. And while “Romantic Cheapskate” actually sounds the same (sporting new lyrics that work in a bit of a broader context), I’m sorta used to the original. Sorry, man. It’s your own fault for being so damn insidious.

The piece that really makes Secrets from the Future worth the price of admission is “I Hate Your Blog.” A simple encapsulation will not do this song credit. You owe it to yourself (and Front) to plunk down the $15 and check it out.

This album is available exclusively at MC Frontalot’s website.

Okay, by this point, They Might Be Giants are hardly a tough sell for me. They’ve been a favorite of mine since the mid-90s or so, and they’ve continued to impress the hell out of me, particularly over the last few years. The sheer volume of work produced by these two guys is nearly overwhelming — from the Venue Songs project of their 2004 tour (in which they wrote a new original song for each stop along the tour) to a 20+ minute podcast each month, not to mention regular new material on their website, MySpace page, and hired work for a vast assortment of media ventures, it’s nearly a full-time job just keeping up with it all.

You’d think, then, that they could simply throw a bunch of these peripheral works together and call it an album without giving the issue a second thought. But rather than the cop-out pastiche that it could be, The Else instead serves as an important reminder that the best rock albums aren’t just a collection of unrelated songs. Like several of their previous efforts (The Spine and John Henry come immediately to mind), The Else feels like a cohesive whole — like these specific songs needed to be put together in this specific order.

This is not to say that all the songs sound alike — far from it, actually. While there is a certain intangible force holding it all together, The Else traverses a pretty broad sonic and emotional spectrum in its all-too-short 38 minutes. The ever-present surreal wit is here as always, but there’s also a pervasive melancholy that hasn’t been prominent in a TMBG recording since the days of John Henry. I kinda dig that — melancholy feels like it’s worth more coming from guys who aren’t moping all the time.

The presence of the Dust Brothers as producers certainly doesn’t hurt either. Again, one hardly has to twist my arm to convince me to try anything produced by the guys who did Paul’s Boutique, Tenacious D’s first album and the soundtrack to Fight Club. And fortunately for all involved, the winning streak continues here.

An anectdote I picked up on a TMBG wiki pretty much sums up why I love this band so much. Presented by a radio show with a challenge to incorporate several nearly obsolete words, John Linnell penned one of The Else’s strongest entries, “Countrecoup.” They really are my nerd idols, and as long as they keep churning out material, I’ll be there with a smile on my face, rhythm in my soul and a question mark hovering directly over my head.

Finally, after years of avant garde screeching and squealing, Mike Patton has returned to using that amazing voice of his for actual singing. Mind you, I’m not one of those unrealistic fans that ineffectually demands things that are clearly never going to happen — Faith No More is long gone, and I’m pretty sure Mr. Bungle is too — but I’d at least like to hear the man sing if he’s going to continue releasing CDs.

I’m hesitant to even call what he’s done in the last 5-10 years “music.” His various solo projects and his work with the band Fantomas have been little more than extended noise-making sessions. And I don’t say this like an aging out-of-the-looper would call modern music “noise.” I mean that there are literally no lyrics, verses, choruses or really any notes being played in a manner that’s anything but disturbing. I’m no musicologist (is anybody? Is that even a word?), but I’m pretty sure there are no melodies or harmonies either. Patton treats his voice as just another instrument through most of these experiments, eschewing the need for coherent words of any kind for… well, as I said, screeching and squealing. It’s been a hard period to endure for those of us who, damn it, know he can do better. Thankfully, the wait is over.

Patton has described Peeping Tom as the type of pop music he’d like to hear when he turns on the radio. As he doesn’t apparently listen to modern pop music, this might present a problem. Except that I don’t either, so I really don’t know any better. And as a result, I rather like what I hear. For guys like me — lost on the island that music forgot — it’s utterly perfect.

Sure, my man-crush on Mike Patton probably helps me appreciate this admittedly disjointed collection of songs, but even when I try to look at it objectively, I can’t deny that there’s some pretty solid material here. Each track is a collaboration (none, I should note, with anybody I’ve actually heard of, but that doesn’t really mean anything), so we get a pretty broad range of sound, from hip-hop to sultry female-voiced jazz. Followers of Patton’s more mainstream efforts should have no trouble jumping from one damn thing to the next in this fashion. The rest of you should learn to accept and embrace it, because the man is absolutely right: this is how pop music should be.

I hate to write such a vague review, but I’m really at a loss to describe it in more specific terms. It’s well-written, somewhat complex without being especially deep, and catchy. In short, it’s what I’ve been waiting for since FNM’s 1998 Album of the Year and Mr. Bungle’s 1999 California. It’s clearly neither of those bands, but then, it’s not the late nineties anymore, no matter how much I wish it were. Patton says there’s more Peeping Tom on the way. I look forward to it.

If you’d come to me a few years ago and said the name “Frank Zappa,” the first thing that would have come to my mind would be “novelty artist.” For whatever reason, I had long filed Zappa away with guys like Weird Al — comedic musicians who depended on the goofiness of their content and probably couldn’t stand on their own, musically. I probably lumped most of the stuff I heard on the Dr. Demento show as a kid into that category.

Further, if you’d tried to offer me a late seventies multi-disc rock concept album, I’d have laughed in your face. (Well, more precisely, I probably would have made a straight-faced, snide comment and you wouldn’t be sure if I was actually joking or not. Such is the curse of being me.)

Thankfully, Joe’s Garage ended up being one of those times where it feels really great to be wrong.

See, Zappa is a comedic lyricist (probably one of the best), but that does not in any way preclude him being one of the most talented and prolific rock artists who ever lived. Just because he eschewed songs of the “I love my baby”/”my baby left me” variety for numbers like “Broken Hearts Are for Assholes” and “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” does not mean he skimped on the rocking. I’d even go as far as to say that his best work belongs up there in the pantheon with the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors and all the rest. (And while we’re at it, can we please kick Elton John out of the pantheon? Every time I hear him on XM’s classic rock channel, I feel like I’m playing that old Sesame Street game where one of these things does not belong here.)

Joe’s Garage was released in 1979 across three discs, presented as acts in, I guess, a rock opera. But none of that is as stupid and terrible as you think it is. Instead of the overblown pretentiousness of a Tommy or a The Wall, this piece adopts a lighter, mocking tone to deliver its message. And while the message isn’t even all that far from the usual subjects covered by its contemporaries (watch out for government and censorship, music is love but musicians are sleazebags), the fact that it’s delivered through songs about prison sex and backstage blowjobs makes it a lot more palatable and entertaining.

Make no mistake — even by today’s jaded standards, this album is utterly filthy. Topics ranging from lube etiquette for man-on-man intimacy to groovy orgies with all manner of specialty appliances help deliver the deliberately over-the-top anti-censorship message, a tactic adopted by the South Park movie some twenty years later. But, much like its ideological brethren, it’s not only funny because of the filth. There’s a fair amount of depth and complexity to the material as well.

Since it is presented as a comedy, the stream-of-consciousness setup works in its favor, and manages to bridge songs that you might not otherwise think would belong together on a concept album. With the assistance of “The Central Scrutinizer” (Zappa whispering through a megaphone), the seemingly unrelated narratives are woven together into a somewhat cohesive whole.

But all this attention to lyrics and story does not mean that the music is in any way lacking. Zappa had, by this point in his incredibly long career, assembled an immensely talented group of musicians to back him, and with their assistance (as well as Ike Willis doing about half the vocals, in character as the titular Joe), this thing is as solid as any other from the heyday of rock ‘n’ roll. Of particular note is “Watermelon in Easter Hay,” the most amazingly gut-wrenching guitar solo I have ever heard. Why Zappa is not recognized by the general public as a guitar god on the same level as, say, Clapton, I will never understand.

Overall, Joe’s Garage is infinitely better than you probably think it is. If nothing else, pick it up to hear a fantastic parody of Scientology, a good two decades before it became popular. Or skip to track 11 (”Stick it Out”) to learn to say “stick out your hot, curly weenie” in German. Seriously, how could you resist that?

I’ve been a huge Beatles fan for a long time, but this particular album never quite clicked with me for some reason. I don’t know why, exactly, but this recent (2003) “Naked” version did click with me recently, in a very big way.

I like the stripped-down sound better, which was the way the album was originally meant to be heard. Back in 1969, Paul McCartney had conceived of the project as a sort of “back to our roots” thing without a lot of heavy studio production, but his falling out with John Lennon in those later years resulted in the album’s being handed over to Phil Spector and mixed entirely out of sync with that original idea.

And while it doesn’t quite have the richness and complexity of their later George Martin-produced material (Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper and The Beatles, aka “the white album”), it does work as what it was meant to be: the greatest damn rock band that ever lived, just jamming to the old bluesy stuff that got them started in the first place.

John, Paul and George were clearly all writing individually at this point. And honestly, Paul’s stuff comes off as a bit schmaltzy and overly poppy (even for them) without the counterbalance of his famously cynical writing partner. John, for his part, is in solid form though, channelling his hostility for the band and his love for Yoko into some damned fine numbers.

But the real star of this era, in my opinion, is Mr. George Harrison — starting with the white album, continuing here and on through Abbey Road, he was really starting to step out from the shadow of the Lennon-McCartney behemoth and finding himself as a songwriter. His two entries, “For You Blue” and “I, Me, Mine” are just as solid as anything else on the record. Maybe he was never quite as good as John and Paul together, but with the pair barely speaking at this point and his own talents continuing to develop (as we were able to see from the previous decade or so of recorded material), he easily holds his own against them individually by this time.

You may argue that I have left out Ringo in my analysis. That’s quite an astute observation there.

It’s always exciting to get into a classic album from a favorite band for the first time — it’s almost like getting something new. And while it’s not quite Abbey Road or Sgt. Pepper, it’s still pretty damned good. Because let’s be honest here: bad Beatles is still better than good… just about anything else.

It’s nice that we finally got the opportunity to hear this album the way it was meant to be heard. Now, if only we could see the movie Let it Be, which hasn’t had a proper DVD release yet. (Sure, it’s up in a few pieces on the YouTube, but that’s hardly the same. Let’s see those final days in all their horribly awkward glory.)

Like all They Might Be Giants albums, it took awhile for The Spine to grow on me. But, like all the other albums by these two goofy guys named John, it’s also earned a permanent spot on my iTunes playlist.

More than any other, this album made me very aware of something the Giants have always excelled at — writing pop songs for smart people. None of the songs on The Spine are over three and a half minutes, and most of them feature catchy hooks and your standard verse-chorus-verse structure. That’s the thing about these guys: they’re subversive and experimental in a way that you can never quite grasp. Yeah, their lyrics are bizarre, but lots of bands do that these days. Sure, they play around with cool effects (they use Cher’s “Believe in Love” vocal distortion to much better effect in “Bastard Wants to Hit Me”) and aren’t afraid to run the spectrum from one simple keyboard to full brass band. But that still doesn’t make them stand out, exactly.

I think it’s the idea that they look, write and sound like nerds, who seem to comprise the bulk of their audience. Even though they must be pushing 40 by now, they still very much come off as a college band: smart, funny and a little off. I think the biggest hit they’ve had is the theme to Malcolm in the Middle, and that’s fine by me.

Anyway, my only complaint about this album is the length. 16 tracks (17 if you buy it on iTunes) times 3 minutes or less equals only about 40 minutes of They Might Be Gianty goodness. And the emotional roller-coaster really just gets going before some sweaty carnie is pushing you back out of the car again. From the drunken glee of “Thunderbird” to the eminently singable “Au Contraire” to the melancholy of “Broke in Two,” this album is a fantastic ride in an expertly crafted vehicle. Unfortunately it barely gets you out of the driveway before it’s over. But hey, these guys cram more into 40 minutes than most bands do in twice that long… so I’ll just shut up now.

My wife made the comment the other day — after having endured my playing this album non-stop for the first week of its release — that she doesn’t see what’s so special about the Beastie Boys. This may very well be the first thing she’s said in our 5 years together that I found offensive. No kidding.

Thing is, I guess I can’t really tell you what’s so special about them. I’ve never really had to, for one thing — just mention the Boys to anyone of a certain age (late 20s to mid 30s) and you get an almost universal nod of acceptance. For me personally, the Beastie Boys have been there for me at several major junctions in my life.

Licensed to Ill was released just as I was becoming aware of popular music, and it served as a gateway beyond Phil Collins and Huey Lewis into Yo, MTV Raps! territory.

Then there’s 1989’s Paul’s Boutique. There’s nothing I can say about this masterpiece that I haven’t said already, ad nauseum. It is, to my ears, the pinnacle of musical perfection, and the only album that feels just as fresh (in more than one meaning of the word) today as it did 15 years ago.

Check Your Head came in 1992, the year I graduated high school. As I entered what is, for most people, an age of experimentation, my favorite musicians were putting out an entire album of experimentation, daring to pick up instruments and actually play music in addition to rapping over samples.

Ill Communication, released an uncharacteristic two years later, felt like more of a continuation of its predecessor. It was just as great as all the others, just not quite as groundbreaking.

1998 brought Hello Nasty, an amalgam of their previous styles and a fully realized grown-up sensibility that somehow didn’t conflict with their long-established goofy image. It was, quite simply, a blueprint for being simultaneously cool and funny, but also relevant and responsible. I was 24 when this came out, and once again it was exactly what I needed.

It’s been six years since the last Beastie Boys album — probably the longest six years in my entire life. My job became a career. I got married and moved into a real house. We had an impeachment, a suspicious election and a terrorist attack on American soil. The world feels scary now, and I could use nothing more than the reassuring voices of Mike D, Adrock and MCA to make me laugh and feel like everything’s going to be okay. And hey look — here they are!

To the 5 Boroughs is decidedly old school — it’s 14 tracks of nothing but rapping over basic samples. Take the musical sensibility of Licensed to Ill and mix it with the mentality behind Hello Nasty and you come pretty close to the tone of this new release.

“An Open Letter to NYC” is exactly what it looks like — a tribute to the city that the Beasties have always called home. “Triple Trouble” borrows a sample from the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and a lyrical hook from Double Trouble, one of the original Krush Groove groups from back in the day. “Time to Build” encapsulates the group’s staunch anti-Bush stance into one track, though remnants of it creep into others. And while I agree with 90% of what they’re saying, the political stuff does get overwhelming at times.

For the most part though, the lyrics are as goofy and brilliant as ever. “Yo, what the falafel/you gotta get up awful/early/to fool Mr. Furley” from “Oh Word?” cracked me up the first time I heard it, as did this line from “All Lifestyles”: “don’t mess with the crack or the baking soda/whether in a high rise and you live like Rhoda/or in a shack and you live like Yoda.”

At the end of the day though, I suppose my wife is right. I can’t tell you what exactly makes the Beasties so special — but I can’t deny that they are. This album continues a proud tradition started 18 (holy crap) years ago: a tradition of making me smile. That’s all I’ve ever asked from them, and they’ve managed to do it for over half my life.

What an odd thing this is. Beatallica, if you haven’t heard of them, is an anonymous re-imagining of Metallica as a Beatles cover band. But it’s not just covers — the classic songs of the Fab Four are actually reworked in to Metallica-friendly thrash-fests, while still maintaining their melodic charm.

Their first “album,” A Garage Dayz Nite, featured such transporter-accident favorites as “…And Justice for All My Loving,” “The Thing That Should Not Let it Be” and “Everybody’s Got a Ticket to Ride Except for Me and My Lightning.” Catchy and clever, all of them. Beatallica (self-titled and gray, a mesh of the Beatles’ “white album” and Metallica’s “black album”) continues this proud tradition with “Sandman” (to the tune of “Taxman”), “Got to Get You Trapped Under Ice” and “Hey Dude.”

They seem to have expanded their scope this go-round — not satisfied to remain the novelty “Metallica/Beatles” act, they actually made some of these songs about things. For instance, “Leper Madonna” works as a combination of “Leper Messiah” from Master of Puppets and “Lady Madonna” from the White Album, but it’s also a scathing indictment of the pop singer Madonna, complete with “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” sample. (Apparently a number of bogus Madonna MP3s are floating around the internet containing this scold from Queen Skank Herself.) “And I Am Evil” contains a duet with an equally adept impersonation of Lemmy from Motorhead. And “I Wanna Choke Your Band” attacks nearly every one of Metallica’s late-80s poser metal contemporaries, from Warrant to Poison. Great stuff.

This whole thing is so incredibly well done — everything, from the distinct sound of Kirk Hammet’s guitar solos to the unmistakable James Hetfield growl — is duplicated perfectly. If you didn’t know any better, you’d seriously think this was a “lost” Metallica album circa 1987, just prior to the death of Cliff Burton.

There’s only one thing I really don’t get: for all the incredible effort put forth here, it seems like the audience for it must be so narrow. Unless you have a comprehensive knowledge of the complete catalogues of both bands, most of the jokes are lost on you. However, if you have gone through both Metallica and Beatles phases in your life (and I have), this is the most clever and entertaining thing you’ll hear in a long time. Beatallica is worth the price of admission alone (which, incidentally, is free — they’re doing this without permission after all) to hear the opening strains of “Blackened” from …And Justice for All whining out the hook from “Hey Jude.”

This is, in short, destroys the mold for “novelty bands” and, sadly, kicks the ass of anything Metallica has thrown out there for the past several years.