New Beastie Boys Album

To Buy or Not to Buy? Honestly, To the Five Boroughs kind of soured me on everything since Ill Communications.

Here's Pitchfork:

Looking at their arc from a purely musical perspective, you could divide their career in half at the midpoint of that decade-- at some point between 1994's Ill Communication and 1998's Hello Nasty. Their first four full-lengths came in less than eight years, and during this stretch, they were hungry and on the move, restlessly searching for new avenues of music expression. They're just now getting to their third proper album (fourth, if you want to count 2007's instrumental LP The Mix Up) in the 17 years since.

I think that's just about right. Hello Nasty is good, but not great, and they've only gotten older since. Every critic's desperate attempt to plump them up as "Beastie Men" or "engaged post-wiseasses," has failed to cover up the fact that they've lost their spark and are basically decaying into a Beastie Boys cover band.

But hey, I could be wrong.

Guess Who's Still Alive: Advent Edition

[Because it's not Christmas until Dec. 25th.]

The following artists have Top 20 albums on Amazon:

• Susan Boyle (the top 2 spots, in fact. Maybe we're not an image-obsessed culture...)
• Taylor Swift (never mind)
• Josh Groban (continuing to labor under the delusion that the world needs someone to stand in for Bob Dylan)
• Big Time Rush (no no no...we're supposed to have Boy Band nostalgia in about 8-9 years, not NOW)
• Bruce Springsteen (because I know I want to pay 70 bucks to hear all the tracks that weren't good enough to make it onto Darkness on the Edge of Town)
• Hannah Montana (if we put her in a room together with Taylor Swift, and they saw each other, would the rift in the Space-Time Continuum cause each other to freak out and faint for a year or so, like in the Back to the Future sequels? Cause that would be pretty rad)
• Bob Dylan (see?)
• Christina Aguilera and Cher (we comment on the one who's gained as much weight as the average college freshman, and not the one who bleeds botox. I hate the media)
• Norah Jones (apparently she works with other artists! Who'da thunk it?)
• Buddy Guy (Good for him. No snark)

Guess Who's Still Alive, Part IV: The Revenge

The following artists have Top 25 discs on Amazon as I write:

• Eminem (Stealing the Blues is Business, and Business is Good)
• Iron Maiden (Dude! Most Triumphant!)
• Brian Wilson (Apparently, we aren't quite full up on crazy yet)
• John Mellencamp (I once thought that Cougars don't like him, either. I was apparently wrong)
• Sheryl Crow (Is it just me, or does she look more like Butt-Head every album?)
• Los Lobos (Back from the 80's and hungry, hungry like the wolf!)
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (The Rolling Stones of New Wave ride again)
• Gov't Mule (The Rolling Stones of Jam bands ride again)
• The Black Crowes (The Rolling Stones of their tepid imaginations ride again)
• The Kidz Bop Kids (Because all that keeps a Katy Perry song like "California Gurls" from being age-appropriate is an infinitesimal shift in vocal pitch)

Guess Who's Still Alive, Part III

Here's who's sitting comfortably in Amazon's Top 25:

• James Taylor and Carol King (Hope she knows how to duck)
• Natalie Merchant (Never have so many bought so much for 10,000 Maniacs)
• The Cast of Glee (four, count 'em, FOUR discs in the top 25. I can't imagine something I'd be less likely to buy)
• The New Pornographers (who rely on close readings of smut, irrespective of authorial intent)
• Melissa Etheridge ("Fearless Love," eh? I wonder what that refers to...)
• The Deftones (Music by 2001. Album Cover by 1986.)
• Toni Braxton (answering the long-asked equation: Whitney Houston - Amy Winehouse + Mariah Carey - Anyone interesting = ? )
• Godsmack (never understood whether God is doing the smacking or being smacked. I suspect both.)
• The Rolling Stones (with an album that was first released in 1972, and is not actually available for another two weeks. Whoever negotiated their deal with the Devil earned a bonus.)
• Sade (Throw it)

Guess Who's Still Alive, Part II

The following artists have Top 25 CD's on Amazon as we speak:

• Jimi Hendrix
• Sade
• Johnny Cash
• Jeff Beck
• K.D. Lang
• Peter Gabriel
• Ry Cooder
• Drive-By Truckers
• Gorillaz
• The Black-Eyed Peas

The last few are the only evidence that the last decade even happened. Unless you count Susan Boyle, and I don't want to.

Guess Who's Still Alive?

Each of these, inexplicably, has a top 100 album on Amazon right now.

• Rod Stewart (He pooped his pants, though)
• Darius Rucker (Regrettably, the album is not called "Learn to Live With People Thinking Your Parents Named You Hootie")
• Tom Waits (For No Man *rimshot*)
• They Might Be Giants (Shouldn't we know by now?)
• Yo-Yo-Ma (I can't make fun of him. He's a cellist. There's absolutely nothing funny about cellists. They're like actuarial tables or Whoopi Goldberg that way)
• Lyle Lovett (No, really)
• Barbra Striesand (Looks like she's been to Cher's plastic surgeon, though)
• Whitney Houston (Bobby's college money is still not for bail, though. She ain't playin')
• Kris Allen (Who?)