Gerardo Was Kinda A Mentor

My self-imposed exile from Radiohead has ended today after two months. And what happened? "Reckoner" started to sound real good. "House of Cards," though, still pretty questionable.

My "Bends" CD circa '95-'96 is officially, finally dead. Interestingly, the skips and squawks start/end at the start/end of what I dub "The Middle Gauntlet," the brilliant sequence that is - Nice Dream, to Just, to My Iron Lung, to Bullet Proof...I Wish I Was - the four songs that converted me into a person with good taste. Or pretentious taste, whatever the case.

Well, not pretentiousness. I still hold that NOW & FOREVER by Color Me Badd rivals the greatest modern r&b record, II (Boyz II Men). That makes me delusional, maybe, but not pretentious.

Between The Bends and OK Computer, I was forced forever into a servitude to music. I discovered that music was important and that I wanted to make music. Especially in our age of disposable media, it's important to find serious art. Remember when we thought, "LORD, music can't get any worse than Lil Jon?" And then Soulja Boy came out? Yeah. I was at the tail end of the Last Generation - born three years later, I wouldn't have known any better. Mr. Tell'em would actually sound INNOVATIVE to me. I'd be at my high school reunion saying, "Man, those were the good days, OneRepublic was ROCK N ROLL!" Man, I wish I were alive when mainstream pop was Chet Baker, or Dean Martin, or The Beatles, or Kate Bush, or Rico Suave.