But a little fascism is a small price to pay for the age of miracles we now live in. And there's more to come: As foretold in the last century's greatest cinematic triumph, Bicentennial Man, by the year 2005, every home will have a hyperactive, cloyingly sentimental robot butler who looks like Robin Williams. Rumor also has it that by 2005, Windows 2000 might be in stores. Ah, the future shines brightly upon us all, and its glow has permeated all aspects of our enlightened society. For example, music criticism, once the ugly stepchild of journalism, has reached new heights.
For one, vocabularies will improve astoundingly:
"The group's latest disc... matches the intensity of the single with coruscating tracks like 'Waited' and 'Lying Awake.'" -- Phil Freeman, in Alternative Press, using 50-cent words that 20th-century money couldn't buy.
"I mean, the Shack is good, but this band makes Jimmie HaHa look like Jimmy Ca Ca." -- Larry Nichols, in Baltimore City Paper. Back in the 20th century, we had to use simple, understandable words, but here in The Future, the critics' vocabulary spans from 'coruscating' all the way down to "ca ca."
As dazzled as they are by 21st-century words and new ways to misuse them, music critics of The Future can still pause to look back on that quaint bygone era, the 20th century. For example, RollingStone.com, who have the audacity to call themselves "the online alter-ego of music's revered magazine," printed this when including Hello Nasty as one of the essential albums of the decade: "After the left-field experiments of Check Your Head and Ill Communication, Hello Nasty was where the Beasties brought it all back home and stir-fried it in their wok." -- Okay, bad wok metaphor aside, in what way were either of the B-Boys' platinum-selling albums left-field experiments? Doing an album of Gershwin standards would have come from left field. These two albums are just the Beastie Boys doing what they do best, and either has a far better claim to the "essential" category than last year's weak effort. Name-checking Mr. Spock doesn't give you cleverness or street cred, it's just a game stab at a tough rhyme.
Rolling Stone is also helping to keep recycling alive in the 21st century. When listing their best albums of the '90s, Sleater-Kinney is so low on their radar, they couldn't be bothered to write anything new; instead they excerpted Greil Marcus' review of Call the Doctor that brought the band its first national attention. With their budget and circulation, Rolling Stone could churn out new crap endlessly, but their commitment to the environment is such that they bleed every drop out of the crap they've already written.
And while The Future is an age of wonders, these are still troubled times for some. I'm not talking about the homeless, the impoverished, the child laborers paid starvation wages by Nike; no, I'm talking about celebrities. Shed a tear for tortured pop star Melanie "Sporty Spice" Chisholm, who tries to justify the statement, "Just because you're a Spice Girl you can't have everything," in an L.A. Weekly interview by telling the following story of woe: "I got my assistant to ring Adidas and say, 'Can Melanie have [their newest line of sneakers]?' They weren't out until December! So that was a bit of a letdown." I'm sure her assistant was equally crushed at the 25-year-old multimillionaire's ill fortune. So when you're up in your ivory tower, ironing your foil jumpsuit and thinking about what color you want your jet-car to be, say a little prayer for those true unfortunates -- celebrities who can have whatever they want, but have to wait two whole weeks to get it. MIKE VAGO
The Sampler
The Year 2000
