I don't want anything to do with bringing SEXYBACK

Why in the world does anyone give two shits about Justin Timberlake? Have we as a nation forgotten that this is the same whiny asshole from N’Stync? Have we forgotten that this guy just flat out sucks? Well let me refresh your memory.

Justin Timberlake is the classic, “I’m a lame-ass but for some reason everyone has forgotten that bit of information” guy. He’s the dude who slipped in to the hot Hollywood party when he wasn’t invited to. He’s the guy who got free tickets to the football game on the 50, but doesn’t really like football. He’s the person, as hard working Americans, we are supposed to loathe. The only difference between him and Kevin Federline is that Timberlake actually gets up there and earns his money. But he earns it because dumb fucks all across this great country are throwing it at him.

I don’t listen to a lot of pop radio, but typically, if there’s a song that’s hot, you will hear it eventually. Those kinds of songs, even if they suck, will somehow make it to your earhole, even while you’re avoiding it like a Robin Williams movie.

I never heard any of the so-called “hits” off of Timberlake’s first solo album (solo from N’Stync remember) Justified. Not once did I even get one note of “Cry Me A River” or whatever clownish dance pop he cooked up with the help of very capable studio gurus. And what that says to me is that it wasn’t very good. Sure it might have sold a lot of records, but for the simple fact that I never heard a note makes me think it couldn’t have been as good as everyone said it was. And just so we’re clear, I’m stoked that I didn’t hear any of it. I’m as stoked as an anti-abortion activist, tightly binding his balls with an extension cord while watching violent porn. That stoked.

So I get back to the question at hand: why is Justin Timberlake not only popular, but relevant as well? For one, he’s white. And in this day and age of the hip hop star, record companies, media outlets and white people with money who are tired of the “thug” image, want a fresh faced white guy to succeed. Sure, Justin just rips off black music to achieve his aim, but he’s white nonetheless.

I’ll concede that he’s talented; he can sing and apparently he can dance up a storm, but he’s being propped up for the simple fact that people in the music business feel the need for a “great white hope,” which is a racist tag anyway.

All of the other white guys involved with popular music are not playing R+B based tunes. They are your Fall Out Boys and Panic at the Discos that, wholeheartedly suck, but won’t get near the kind of record sales that ol’ Justin will do. The aforementioned bands, spend way more on hair cuts and hair product than what it takes to make their actual music, so the profits are slim at best. Timberlake has curly hair so that could be how he’s managed to stay afloat in this mostly African-American pop music scene.

Timberdick bridges the gap between pop and R+B and he doesn’t look like he’ll steal your car while doing it. Parents eat this up and this directly affects how many more records he will sell.

If the music he makes didn’t fully suck dead hobo ass, I’d give him his due. But from what I’ve seen, if the music was any good, combined with how popular he appears to be, it would be playing out of every speaker for miles around. They would install speakers in every dead soldier’s coffin coming back from Iraq and blast his music because it’s just that damn good. But alas, I will probably never hear it. That in of itself is a good thing, but I can’t help but think the American public has, yet again, been duped into liking something that couldn’t stand up on its own without the aid of a good looking white kid who can dance well enough that you forget how shitty the music is.

I don’t know where SEXY went in the first place, but is JT really bringing SEXYBACK if no one actually hears it? I think Mr. Timberlake had better keep cashing every check thrown his way because it can’t go on like this forever. But then again, Guns N Roses has been promising Chinese Democracy since the late 70’s and no one has pulled the plug on that ridiculous freak show. Come to think of it, Axl Rose has those bad corn rows, so maybe there is a correlation to white guys with their shitty faux black guy hair and longevity in the music business. Something to ponder. Somewhere JC Chasez is quietly contemplating having a plastic surgeon make him look like Flavor Flav.

Here’s some actual good music I’ve been listening to:

Been listening to some pretty good tunes lately. But before I get to that I want to remind everyone that I usually get my stuff from the library these days, so calling the music “new” isn’t very accurate. I’m sure for some of you some of this is old news, so let’s just dispense with posts regarding how out of touch I am. I know how out of touch I am.

The first thing that blew my ass away is the Wolfmother album. Man that record rules. It’s like a 70’s rock masterpiece that could take a turn into the ridiculous ala the Darkness, but never does because the jams are just that sweet. I would imagine this would be the album Sabbath would make today if they were young and full of cocaine.

And while I’m in the metal mood, the new Slayer is also worth your time. Christ Illusion rejoins Slayer with its original drummer and the results are fantastic. I really enjoyed the last Slayer album, and this is about as good, but the drumming stands out immediately. I don’t know if it’s a more “organic” sound, but that mother fucker hits the skins like no other. On one track (Catatonic), it sounds like he’s forging a plus 5 Broad sword from a furnace in Mordor. There are a couple of misfires, but for the most part, Christ Illusion rips.

The DJ Spooky/Trojan Records collection is very good as well. It’s two discs of reggae, ska and such, selected by DJ Spooky and it’s a pretty good throughout. Most times, collections like this don’t do it for me because I might have a lot of the stuff on here, but a good portion of this was stuff I don’t own so it was nice to have it in one place.

And speaking of reggae, awhile back I got the Max Romeo: Open the Iron Gate 1973-1977 album which is just phenomenal. Romeo’s got a great voice and the reggae is simple and stoney. A couple of songs have “versions” tacked on to the ends of the regular track, which is cool. I played this thing to death a couple weeks ago.

One record I cannot understand why is so popular is the Gnarls Barkley bullshit the media beat us over the head with for the last couple of months. Oh it was popular in England, but that doesn’t mean shit. The British, although purveyors of very fine music, can also get behind a turd if someone told them it smelled good enough. They like some shit over there (just like us I guess) and Gnarls Barkley is some bona fide shit. I got this from the library, put it on my ipod and started to mow the lawn while listening to the first couple of tracks. I was bored silly by the first song so I fast forwarded to the big hit “Crazy.” Well call me crazy, but “Crazy” sucks. It’s kind of catchy but overall just a bland pop song that I can imagine might be alright if you’re hanging out by the pool, but did it really deserve the hype that it got? No. Once I got to the cover of the Violent Femmes song “Gone Daddy Gone,” I turned it off. Absolute crap….but that’s the English way!

Been listening to the latest Neil Young album, Living With War. I’m a pretty big Neil fan so I’m pretty open to everything he does. Living With War is pretty good even if you leave out the anti-war/Bush message that pervades it. But I’m really glad he made this record because no one else did. Some of the songs delve into the goofy because he’s trying to get a point across by mentioning certain things Bush has done. For instance, in “Let’s Impeach the President,” which is kind of a fall anthem for me, Neil starts talking about Bush cracking down on steroids, “after he sold his own baseball team.” As a lyric, it doesn’t really work, but as anti-Bush tidbit, it’s great. The album has an anti-war, anti-Bush bent throughout but it works well as a Neil Young album and it’s been playing in my head for the last couple of weeks.

That’s about it for now, feel free to let me know about any music you might think I’d like. No Sufjan Stevens please.

JR