Here at The Daily Campus, we receive a plethora of freestuff from record labels eager for some good reviews. For thelongest time, this mountain of music has remained untouched forfear of what lies beneath its shrink-wrapped surface of bad coverart. But no longer. You may not agree, you may think I’m tooharsh, but that’s the nature of this business.

This is Bad Press.

The Forces of EvilFriend orFOE?

I have nothing against ska. If someone were to come up to me andsay, “I love ska,” I would nod and smile politely. Ifthey were to go into greater detail, I would probably zone out andnod at the appropriate pauses, all the while thinking about thatgreat ham sandwich I had for lunch or maybe about puppets. Thepoint is, I’d be polite about it. I may not like ska, but ifyou do, hey, good for you. Have a lollipop.

However, after I listened to this particular album, I felt thatit was my duty to pick up my sword and go into battle. Never beforehave I seen a perfectly innocent musical genre twisted into such amalignant, sophomoric travesty.

The group’s lyrics are on level with that of an angry12-year-old who has just discovered profanity. Let’s take theband’s instant classic number, “Angry Anthem,”for example. The lyrics: “If I had my way, I’d neverspeak to anyone again, I got to say, I hate people, I’m sosick of them, I just can’t stand the bulls**t, I wish I wasso far away from it.” Aww, boo hoo. I’m so sad.

Let’s say that ska is a fork. Three prongs, made of metal,the works. You can use a fork in many useful, productive ways— you can use it to eat or for self-defense against bears.You could even use a fork to conduct an orchestra, if you wanted.The Forces of Evil take the fork and shove it into the nearestelectrical outlet without any hesitation. It’s a terriblewaste of a perfectly good fork. What if there are bears outside,Forces of Evil? What will happen then, when a huge bear comes afteryou? I’ll tell you what will happen. You’ll get eaten.And no one will care.

My Morning JacketIt Still Moves

When I first listened to It Still Moves, I wasn’timpressed. In fact, you could say that the entire album bored me.So I listened to it again, just in case it would grow on me.

It didn’t. I actually liked it less than I had before.

“Perfect!” I thought. “Another album I canreview for Bad Press!” But when it came time to actually sitdown and write a review, I was stumped. It’s not enough thatthe album is bad. I could say that in a paragraph and be done withit. No, I had to find something in particular to expound upon, afocus for my copious hatred and musical elitism. But it continuedto elude me. I began to drink heavily and my wife left me. I wasforced to sell my commemorative fork collection, a decision Iquickly regretted after I was ambushed by a bulimic bear outsidethe pawn shop. Actually, none of that happened, but doesn’tit sound much more dramatic?

In my desperation to find something to write about, I checkedout some of the user-submitted album reviews on Amazon.com. Much tomy surprise, almost every single one of the reviews was glowing. Isaw phrases like “best band ever” and “amazingmusic” bandied about, with the album being described as”awesome.” Some reviews went so far as to make theclaim that It Still Moves “rocks.”

Needless to say, I was astonished. They liked it, yet I hatedit? But how could so many people be wrong? I was obviously missingthe point entirely. This realization came as a very severe shock.All this time, I thought that I could tell good music from bad— I was getting paid to, at the very least. But with thissudden discovery, all of that was gone. I would have to shut downBad Press. I would die alone and poor. My life was over.

But then I remembered that I was in America, land of the free,home of the brave. If I hate a band, I have the God-given right tosay so, and say so loudly. I despised Stellastarr*, even thoughRolling Stone thought they were the bee’s knees, but did Ifalter? No. I’ve compared Manitoba to synthesizer-abusingmonkeys, despite a good deal of popular support for the band. Butdid I falter? No. And I won’t falter now.

My Morning Jacket has a hint of talent, but little more. Theperformances are half-hearted and limp, while the vocals are soecho-drenched as to be unintelligible. I’ll give the albumbonus points for having a picture of a bear on the cover, butI’m taking the points away for covering the bear in tinsel.It’s a well-known fact that bears hate tinsel, even more thanthey hate forks. My Morning Jacket needs to be kept hung up in thehall closet, out of sight and definitely out of hearing.