Anna Minard claims to "know nothing about music." For this column, we force her to listen to random records by artists considered to be important by music nerds.

CHROME

Half Machine Lip Moves

(Siren)

Oh, good. It starts with someone playing his guitar with power tools. My favorite! Then music. Dernernernernerner. Then we go to space. Then Van Halen shows up or something. Then more construction sounds. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Then what I thought was crappy guitar but is actually distorted vocals. Hey, the Crypt Keeper has some vocals on this album! No, wait—a whole song. Then they play pretty much the same song a few times. (I had to check to see if it was a new track starting or if they had just paused in the middle of a long song.) Then they play a record backward—either that or demon cows take over the mic. Mmm, now that intense sweeping sound, shhwip, shhwip, shhwip. I think it's a record player?

This is a great thing to know: I thought before that I could get into anything that had a great drumbeat. Untrue! There are things that can cancel that out, apparently. See? Learning and growing. Oh, now he's making fun of the differently abled. That's just rude, my friend.

Oh! That was the whole album. It's over. Well, that was interesting. I'm going to go listen to this album's sonic opposite now, until my ears remember how to work. Like noise-canceling headphones. That's science, right? Hmmm. Maybe Jewel's Pieces of You?

In order to understand this better, I went straight to the source: Mike Nipper, resident plastic hoarder and the person who assigned me this record. If you don't know him, picture your dad, but 90 pounds and wearing tween girl jeans. He has only two speeds: deep-level incomprehensible music nerdery and sexual harassment. Here is our interview:

Me: What the fuck is wrong with you??!!

Nipper: Wait, what?

Me: Did you think in a million years that I would like this?

Nipper: You don't have to like your work. That's why it's called "work."

Me: Who do you recommend listen to this album, really?

Nipper: Well, I recommended it to you, newbs. And your mom!

Me: Explain this shit to me. You have one sentence. Go.

Nipper: It's entry-level noise/post-punk, very American.

Me: Siiiiiiigh.

I give this a "GET OFF MY LAWN" out of 10. recommended