Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare

You are buying this album, aren't you? There are so, so many reasons why you should be doing.

Reason one why you should get Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare: Tempo

Let's all sit round listening to Morcheeba and having coffee tables - NO! Let's all play Arctic Monkeys and get giddy pretending we're young again and not paunchy and miserable.

Reason two why you should get Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare: Noise

Even rock bands don't rock any more. The Killers are supposed to be the big act these days, but they're so lifeless they could just be a bunch of instruments sitting round unplayed. The Arctic Monkeys play guitars that protest at what's being done to them. They sound like guitars are supposed to.

Reason three why you should get Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare: Accents

You're not all with me on this, but fake accents are worse than letting children play with broken glass. Neutral accents are about as bad as punching someone in the face for no reason at all. US accents are as bad as anal rape. The Arctic Monkeys' have good, decent accents. The kind of accents who turn up in time for tea and say it's nice, even when it's shit.

Reason four why you should get Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare: Dialect

Four's too many really, but we just thought of this. Arctic Monkeys use phrases like 'fucking wank' in their songs. People say 'fucking wank' in Britain. If there's a whole genre of music based on saying, 'chillin in my crib with my homies' then maybe, just maybe, the British dialect is under-represented in popular music.

Mate, The Arctic Monkeys are fucking ace - everything else is wank.

Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero

Them's some mighty big nails. Particularly if they're finger nails. Mighty big and mighty disgusting.

Track one: 'HYPERPOWER'. That's in capitals as well. Just how much power can one song possibly contain? I'm not sure whether 'hyperpower' or 'POWER' is greater, but I think we can all agree that 'HYPERPOWER' is pretty much the high-water mark when it comes to power.

If I'm to apply my rules about song titles making sense in the context of the album, track two, 'Beginning Of The End' is either spectacularly inaccurately named, or the album is largely end-heavy, containing no fewer than 15 tracks at the end and only one on the whole of the rest of the album.

Track 11, 'Meet Your Master' is a good title. I only really obey giants and consider them to be my masters, being as they're benevolent overlords from another planet. I'd love to meet one to try and wheedle the secrets of alien technology out of him.

Track 13, 'Great Destroyer' is also a good title. It probably refers to a wronged and enraged giant who has been duped into revealing his alien technological secrets.

Maybe the Nine Inch Nails belong to a giant. That puts a whole new complexion on things. Maybe it's from these Nine Inch Nails that our oversized royalty gain their HYPERPOWER and maybe that HYPERPOWER is at the heart of all their technological developments.

Michael Jackson - Thriller

Does anyone else, reading about Michael Jackson's personal and financial problems, not think: 'Why doesn't he just have some more hits?'

It's easy. You're Michael Jackson. If anyone's got a reasonable idea of how to have a hit, it's Michael Jackson. Do it. Just make a funky bassline, prance about a bit. Bob's your uncle. Bob's your weird 'uncle' who creeps into your room at night and...

Sorry. It's easy to get distracted when writing about Jacko. Why is he called Jacko, by the way? I can see how it comes about, but surely he could do better. Jacko's what he'd get called if he were from Liverpool.

Here are some suggestions for better nicknames: The Jackinator 9000, The Jacksonator 9000, The Mikinator 9000 - the list's virtually endless.

Track 10's called 'Someone In The Dark' - it's weird uncle Bob again, isn't it?

"No uncle Bob, no... No means no... NO MEANS NO!"

James Blunt - Back To Bedlam

I can't really be bothered today, so I thought I'd find an album where I could write about bloody anything off the top of my head and no-one would complain because I wasn't missing anything important.

After much searching, I eventually settled on James Blunt, because everyone who doesn't like his records instead likes to hate him with a passion. This'll be easy, I thought. But then it occurred to me that maybe I wouldn't honour his musical incompetence enough by ignoring him.

So I've got to really, really lay into him to raise myself above everyone else. But I can't. I'm dashing this off in no time because it's late in the day and I haven't updated. No time for thinking.

Maybe I'll diss him by making his update the worst on the whole of the site. That'll teach him.

In my head, I'm a Viking and I've hewn James Blunt down with my axe of indifference.

'Back To Bedlam' - it's a play on words on 'back to bed'.

... clap...

...clap...

The Eagles - The Very Best Of The Eagles

It's track three. Hotel California's track three.

There are 17 tracks, so that's quite a lot of filler. Rumours that the first two tracks are merely short monologues by the band saying: 'It's coming. Don't go away'. And that the last fourteen tracks all feature the word 'sorry' are false.

I don't really know what 'country rock' is supposed to be. I'm guessing that you just have to wear a hat and maybe someone has one of those pedal steel guitars.

The Eagles featured no fewer than four pedal steel guitarists. This was an absolute necessity as they were unable to clutch conventional guitars. Instead, they would hover above a pedal steel guitar, plucking the strings with their talons.

The song 'Take It To The Limit' came about when Don Henley instructed Glenn Frey to clutch a string in his claws and soar skywards to bring about an especially large twang.

Melanie C - This Time

'Mel C' - pop act. 'Melanie C' - serious artist. 'Melanie Chisolm' - public pronunciation abilities render this a risk.

The first single off this album is bizarrely labelled as a 'bonus track'. Why is it a bonus? It's on the album just the same as all the others. Why aren't the other songs bonus tracks? Why can't this album actually be classed as a single with 12 bonus tracks?

The single in question is entitled 'I Want Candy'. Now I'm not the kind of person who's going to get bothered about the fact that an English artist is using a wholly and uniquely American word - 'candy'. I'm not the sort of person who thinks this is laughable posturing on the part of someone who thinks that the US is 'it' and is pandering to that nation in a shameful and embarrassingly deferential manner.

I'm certainly not the kind of person who's going to advise you all to poo in a bag and post it through Mel C's door with an accompanying note that says 'howdy'.

Hawthorne Heights - If Only You Were Lonely

Look at the scary gothic writing. Be afraid. Hawthorne Heights are serious and they show it through their choice of font.

Track two on this album is 'We Are So Last Year', which is apt, because this came out in February 2006. I'm only reviewing it because of another track title.

The track in question is called 'Where Can I Stab Myself In The Ears'. In the ears, man. In the ears. The answer's contained within the question, if you know where to look.

If the band want to stab themselves in the ears, what message does that send to the listening public? This is not great advertising. If I were Hawthorne Heights, I'd have called a song 'Where Can I Get Some Really High-Quality Headphones So That I Can Pick Up Every Nuance Of This Masterpiece Of A Song'.

Of course prior to naming that song, I would of course have ensured that the band was actually good - even if that had necessitated sacking every member, replacing them with members of Funkadelic and renaming them Funkadelic.