it was january. it was cold. way too cold to go to the record store several blocks away. i ducked into my neighborhood thrift store to warm up and came out with these stinkers. the best thing i can say about these cds is that each was worth the dollar i paid for it.
jill sobule, jill sobule  
this music is a lot like allie mcbeal: romantic scenarios involving adults with high-school mind-sets. this is the one where she kisses a girl and gets all giggly about it. and by chance, the resume feature on my portable brought me right to that famous track. i was pretty sure i didn’t like her, but wanted to give her another chance because she reminds me of a friend in college. of course, this girl had pretty weak taste in music. one time at her place i asked why we were listening to lite fm. it turned out to be her new burt bacharach cd. so i was not surprised to find this album sounded like watered-down sugar-free kool aid. she mumbles and twitters her way through 12 tracks including ‘the jig is up’ which sounds like ‘the chicken soup’ (is that a banjo?) and a light-hearted ditty about the popular girl from school who became a porn star (did she just chuckle? what a bitch). it’s no wonder my friend couldn’t sing on key if this is what she listened to all the time. worth a dollar? yes. this album makes me think, if this chick is writing pop songs, then i could too. also the sleeve is full of goofy pics of her wearing those huge blonde braids usually seen swinging from costume viking helmets. and she sort of looks like hatchet-face, don’t you think?.
various artists, if i were a carpenter
everything about this album is creepy, from the big-eyed, cartoon siblings on the cover to the jacket full of dazed, toothy smiles to the ambiguously nostalgic/antagonistic tone to the way none of the contributing groups sounds anything like itself. where recognizable, the artists sound like spaced-out, half-asleep versions of themselves, which is only interesting in the case of sonic youth’s ‘superstar,’ probably the only track that put this comp on anyone’s shelves. the creepy vibe is perfectly fitting as a tribute to the squeaky-clean duo made up of anorexic karen and piano geek richard. the surprise success is johnette napolitano and marc moreland’s ‘hurting each other.’ they collaborate on a dark, swirling dirge that's not quite concrete blonde and not really wall of voodoo, and with none of the spun sugar of the carpenters. 4 non blondes' singer sounds more like a heavy metal dude than ever. most disappointing is shonen knife’s comatose ‘top of the world.’ a super-rocking pop band with its own impressive tribute, they didn’t seem too inspired about the project. in an interview with webzine snackcake, naoko says, “the record company who made the tribute album asked shonen knife to join the tribute album, and we chose "top of the world" because that song is very pop. nice pop song.” worth a dollar? yes, for the two good songs and the comforting notion that even super-credible artists do lame things every once in a while.
molly mcguire, sisters of... on chicago’s HitIt! label  
i hate when guy bands have girls’ names. and put pictures of girls on their covers. and have ‘sisters’ in the album title. i thought maybe i was in for some chicago chick rock but all i got was kansas city dick rock: 4 aggressive guys half of whom are named jason. looking at the cover now, it should have been obvious. the sisters depicted are naked (except for their socks, god knows why) and decomposing. more like molly misogyny. suddenly i’m really glad i can’t understand the lyrics. poking around a bit, i discover they’ve changed their name to gunfighter since then. they still like putting chicks on their covers, but chicks who are less naked and dead. worth a dollar? yes. there was a band sticker in the cd case: the band name in red with a red ant in the middle. the colors and size were right, so i stuck it on my sony bag that came in the mail for someone who used to live in my apartment, to cover up where it says ‘walkman.’ just hope i don't get scary flannel dudes coming up to me asking what did i think of LIME.
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