CONSUMERISM RUN AMOK - McALBUM

Consumerism run amok hasn't graced the ShoppingFix screen in a while. And this one probably deserves different treatment.

Paul McCartney has done so much for music that according to Toronto's NOW Magazine, "whether the music is exciting or relevant to anyone but himself probably isn't a big concern". 41 albums (not incl. Beatles) is enough to make anyone tired.

This one star review is here for a few reasons. NOW call it "insipid" and "soulless", but the Guardian call it almost perfect. A Brit vs. a Canadian perspective?

Another reason is that it's 40 years since The Beatles' Sgt. Peppers album. In 1977, 87, and 97 McCartney released questionable stuff (although his '97 effort was a classical album).

Is the current schtik merely what's expected on a major anniversary?

SENSITIVE CONSUMERISM - THE MASHUP

You'll find regular pieces Consumerism Run Amok and Saturday Sensitivity here at ShoppingFix. Amok covers amusingly reviewed crap music. Sensitivity is a vid series where people express themselves and/or issues.

I was watching Scratch again the other day. DJ Shadow explaining digging made it clear to me that the hip hop DJ relies on "discarded" albums. The "quest for beats" is indeed dependant on time hunting through mountains of shit and not-so-shit records. Rare and obscure is best. No better evidence than with DJ Shadow himself.

CONSUMERISM RUN AMOK - JACK IT IN
Continuing the amok series is Slant magazine's one star review of Tenacious D's movie soundtrack The Pick of Destiny.

Don't get me wrong. Although this is crap, Jack Black is a clever chap. High Fidelity is one of my fave films and on the D debut album Black came up with the epitome of musical efficiency. Although inward singing hasn't taken off it held the potential to cross over piss-take and serious music.

Imagine the "filler tracks" on otherwise fine albums having (by decree of some recording supergod) to be halved in length through inward singing. Brilliant!

But I've seen this one in sale bins already. If only D took their own advice. This album would be ep length - thereby not subject to an album review. But they didn't and the Slant reviewer hated it:

"What was once a cult curio on HBO that affectionately sent up the inanity of the music business is now a brand name, something to be latched onto without really understanding what it's all about."

The music business. Abound with god-like talents, mindless egotistical pomposity, and morons. This cd review sums up the aims of the amok series in one clean hit.

CONSUMERISM RUN AMOK - CLAY OF AIKEN
Here's another regular(ish) piece that falls on the lighter side of sustainability. Consumerism Run Amok is dedicated to the humour of mediocrity in the music industry.

Consumerism Run Amok has emerged from my boredom (as a music lover) with reading three star music reviews. Why should we be interested that another ordinary music release has hit the shelves? We're seeking entertainment dammit!

If the work under review isn't entertaining surely the review itself can at least raise a giggle. Therein lies the potential of one star music reviews. Consumerism Run Amok is about celebrating the humour needed on the part of a reviewer with a one star release in their hands.

So, without further adu: the first amok subject is the Rolling Stone review of a recent album from that weaselly little dribbler Clay Aiken. "...[M]aking an album this soul-suckingly awful must have taken some hard work".

Just to make sure I did some checking: "...an exercise in earnest melodrama that" "...is still pure vanilla custard" according to USA Today. And no, I have not heard a note of this album...