Jesus Jones On $4.25/hr

This store was particularly anal in that we were only allowed to play from a menu of the six (6) CDs that had been selected for that month. They were anal about everything, to tell you the truth, but particular woe would be unto you if you were caught playing something not on the list. Which is exactly what we would do everytime the manager would take off for the food court, or if it was her day off. Although even then there might be a surprise inspection, or they might send spies in, or...hey, I told you they were anal! Clueless, too--I mean, this is the place that brought in a crate of Elvira cassettes the week after Halloween. When the people at the top are that incompetent, they usually try to compensate for it by “running a tight ship.” (Into the ground.) What it meant for us behind the counter was that so long as the control freaks were within earshot, we were stuck with those six discs. And since they were force-fed to me in this fashion, I can’t talk about one of them without mentioning them all.

Two of them were The Phantom Of The Fucking Opera, (which, in my best Dice Clay voice, is how I mentally refer to it to this day), lordie what a cursèd thing. Certainly one appreciates the quality of the songs, Andrew Lloyd is nothing if not clever. But all that melodrama at nine in the morning, diva shrieking, Phantom huffing and orchestra puffing? I had enough on my mind already: I was being used as a tool of evil, fully aware I was doing the devil’s work, i.e., schlepping ugly Vanilla Ice cassingles into their plastic retainers. I took my punishment like a man, even as I cringed with the knowledge that I would have to tolerate every note of this shit one more time for the next two hours, indeed for the next two weeks.

Except that it never ended. A boffo production of The Phantom Of The Fucking Opera in a neighboring city became such a smash hit that it ran for years and years afterward, goosed along by a saturation radio/TV ad campaign that likewise ran for years and years. Innumerable were the times I’d be in the middle of a damn good cup of joe and in mid-gulp the coffee would reroute itself up my nose as I’d hear that dig-me-I’m-so-sinister cackle wafting in from the next room, “de-ar friends!” he would smirk, and then he’d crow “Buy Phantom by phone!” as 1-800-TEDIOUS would flash onscreen. Then people would come home with their Phantom regalia, mugs and T-shirts adorned with the secret stigmata of the rose and the Phantom half-mask, which would stare me down as they passed me in the mall. And all the inductees into this cult always referred to it in hushed tones as “Phantom.” Not even the Phantom, much less The Phantom Of The Fucking Opera. Some people have no eye for detail. And then there’d be the occasional family get-together when I would allow myself to be persuaded to play some music, and what do you suppose they all wanted to hear and sing along to? Forgive them, ghod, they know not what they do.

Then there was the dreaded In-Store Promo Sampler, and like all such discs nobody would ever play it of their own free will because it featured the sort of segues that can only be bred in captivity. (pseudo-Dick Clark voiceover: “That was ‘Black Cat,’ from Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814. Coming up soon we have some Harry Connick, Jr., but first here’s the Bulgarian Tabernacle Choir!”) The only track I could stand off of that one was, of all things, a pop/rap/dance hymn to codependence called “Breakdown,” by Seduction. Who were they? Another one-hit wonder--“chick” music, so utterly dispensable that even with a hit they never got to make a second album. Not that I would have ever cared if they did, but that one tune had this quality of gum-chewing “why me?” vulnerability in the vocal that was so, well, seductive that even I bought it. No wonder they took a dive.

Then there was One True Passion by the band Revenge, which I hated just from the wall poster: this incredibly Eurotrash, dig-me-I’m-so-decadent model-type outfitted in some civilians’s concept of S&M pleather. *yawn* This sort of thing quite simply does not excite me, and of course I heard it in its entirety at least once a day. The place was crawling with dumb new-wave chicks who were obligated to think it was great stuff since there had been a write-up on the band in a recent copy of Spin magazine. (They also thought “I’m Free” had been written by the Soup Dragons. Hopeless new-wave chicks.) The vocals are ennui personified, resembling nothing so much as the Mandrake Memorial’s Randy Monaco toying with a Bowie fixation, a Fairlight synth and a drum machine. It’s as effete as all that, and more. Justice prevailed for once and the band went nowhere. What New Order spinoff ever did?

Was it the worst movie she ever made? Not nearly, just among the worst, a rung or two below A Certain Sacrifice. One hesitates even to discuss Madonna’s film career for being accused of cheap shots; but this limits one to discussing one or two pictures, neither of which is Dick Tracy. It’s a shame how many bombs her name has been associated with, when L.A. is crawling with talented people who never get to make even one movie. Is there another popstar who’s racked up so many consecutive stinkeroos? Not since the heyday of Elvis, and at least the plug mercifully, eventually was pulled on Elvis’ acting career.

OK then, enough about the film. I wasn’t being forced to watch the movie several times a day, just to listen to the fucking, excruciating album. Just as bad. A difference that makes no difference is no difference. The Carmen Miranda “Going Bananas” slop was the worst offender in an album full of worst offenders, but only when “Hanky Panky” wasn’t playing (*shudder* those backup vocals--gawwwwd. You can often count on Madonna’s backups to make things somewhat less tortuous, but she was getting into her B&D phase that year so there was to be no escape). Hadn’t the very intent of rock’n’roll from the beginning been to consign poses such as these to the ashcan of history?

Speaking of poses leads us directly into “Vogue.” Hey, fuck rock’n’roll, didn’t we as a nation fight a revolution and several other wars to put such preening, prancing crap in its place? (“But Madonna’s not rock and roll!” To which I reply: “And that’s her problem. She started out drumming in a punk band and the world didn’t fall at her feet. She wasn’t good enough to be rock and roll.”) Even for Madonna, it was a new low; the only way she could possibly bottom it was with the release of her “book” a year later, entitled Sex. Remember? I didn’t buy it. I never buy anything with her name on it, but I have skimmed it. Afterwards I scolded my friend for having spent his money on anything so foolish, until it turned out he had done no such thing.

What is there left to say about this amazing woman? This: Anyone who charges her Pavlovian admirers $50 for a “book” that can be read in under two hours, and compounds the offense by making the ripoff integral to the hype is merely and publicly shitting on her fans, pure and simple. I was never prouder of my “no cash to Madonna” stance than on the day she published her “book.” I knew all along that if I just waited long enough she’d do something so utterly crass I could crow about not supporting it.

In the meantime, shellshocked as I was, the only comment I could muster for the album (over and over) was that if that had been her first, then it would have been her last. And, freed from her various Blonde Ambitions, liberated from a threat we’d never known we had even faced, what a Golden Age we would be living in today. Alternate Universe theorists, take note: maybe the fact that Revenge’s One True Passion went nowhere (well, one sequel--which also stiffed) is more significant than we’ll ever know.

Enough. There was only one more CD in the tray, and that was the debut by Jesus Jones. (This is a review of Jesus Jones.) Faced with such competition as The Phantom Of The Fucking Opera, etc., everything on Liquidizer came up roses. Perennials, at that. The cover was a photo of...well, nothing in particular, which was fine because it meant that (in my MTV-lessness) there were no visuals to get in the way of the music. And that was a plus. A+, even. There were great songs and lyrics popping out all over this thing!

went one chorus, bouncing off another that proclaimed “I’m so pleased for you/You got all the answers!” Given this band’s core audience, that one could’ve meant either that someone had finally evolved and road-tested a viable philosophy of life, or else they’d scored 100 on the dreaded Anthropology exam.

Sure, a few of the tunes sound a little stale eight years later, but most discs are like that. Damn near all “alternative” discs are like that nowadays. No matter. Part of what friendship is all about is the willingness to cut a little slack, and this album is my friend. What the hell, this album saved my sanity! I still listen to it and it’s still good.

Doubt came out a year later, and it was...OK. “Right Here Right Now” fit the era perfectly (ah, the optimism of that brief window of opportunity between the end of the Cold War and the realization that the bills were coming due!), and “International Bright Young Thing” was as pleasant a li’l entity as was its protagonist. Much of the rest, though, especially in contrast with the behemoth roar of their debut, just seemed...lame. Inconsequential. Too eager to please. Beatlesque. I dunno. The third disc dispensed with the band completely; it was written entirely on somebody’s hard drive. In retaliation, the universe dispensed with the career of Jesus Jones.

I said the first album was my friend; that doesn’t mean I felt that way about the band behind it. After all, they weren’t the kind of guys you could imagine passing you a bong as you cued up the Hawkwind CD; at the time, such things were for me the very essence of a Saturday night. I suppose I shouldn’t have come down so hard on them, most bands’ 2nd albums are an attempt to consolidate their influences and audiences rather than to break any new ground. And most third albums don’t even exist. Still, I never forgave them. They had cute “scream” logos though, probably meant to resonate with their collegiate info-freako constituency. And their very name was a fanfare for the common man. So get Liquidizer and return the compliment!