I decided last night that instead of writing five posts every day this week about how much I love the new Arcade Fire and potentially embarrassing myself I'd do something uncharacteristic and spend this whole week covering music I don't "get". I don't do a lot of criticism on here (unless Mike Doughty is involved) so this'll be a change of pace.

The reverb-soaked lazy surf rock thing that has been going around, I have not been able to get myself into. I enjoy Beach Fossils, and have covered them here, but they sound like the least retarded bunch---like underneath all that unnecessary reverb there are actual songs that are good---so I give them a pass and, still, deep down, they kind of bug me.

A lot of people are wanking themselves hard over Best Coast, even Pitchfork has bestowed them with their "Best New Music" moniker, but I just find myself scratching my head. When I listen to a song like this a number of things come to mind. I'll put it on right now and say what comes to mind, right now.

1.) There's nothing I love more than guitars that sound like mush. (I'm being sarcastic. I love a lot of things more than mushy guitars, like going to the dentist or making clichéd comments about how I like things less than going to the dentist.) Right now in my room back home my only electric guitar, from about eleven years ago, sits unused in the corner because I'm too cheap to buy an amp. The only sound this guitar will make through my existing amp is something like the guitar on this song, where you can't really be sure if you're playing something that sounds nifty on purpose or if just the static drowning it out makes everything sound cool. I wonder if she's playing actual chords in this song. Probably doesn't have to really.

2.) Ugh, how embarrassing for her. I feel like I've just wandered into the back patio area of a small art gallery and there's someone on a little stage reading poetry. Worse than that, it's a fat girl, and she's wearing a Smiths t-shirt. (Admittedly Best Coast has this going for them: she's a cute girl, and doesn't match the gross patheticness of her songwriting, including, of course, "I wish my cat could talk," which I don't find offensive, it's just part of the character I suppose. Why anyone would want to go on stage and sing lyrics from the perspective of the fat girl Morrissey is pretending to be in "How Soon Is Now" is beyond me, but whatever. I'm not Best Coast. You can't expect me to know.)

3.) So is the hook really supposed to be the annoying valley-girl way she raises the last syllable of "boyfriend"? "I wish he was my boyffrrriiIEENNNNDDD" is not a hook. That's a headache.

4.) Where the fuck is Giant Drag in all of this? Giant Drag has been doing the "girl with a guitar singing raw lyrics and a boy dummer" thing for, like, ever now, and you're telling me all they had to do to launch into indie stardom was soak everything in reverb and tap a little tired surf rock formula over their heads and boom! we'd have been seeing Giant Drag marked as "Best New Music"? Is that really what is happening here? Are you listening Giant Drag? Ditch the grunge, get with the Smiths-tinged surf rock! Get with it! That can be the name of your next album.

5.) I just really get the feeling that if you stripped all the effects pedals off of Best Coast you'd be left with something no one would really want to listen to. I'm not really sure how you're supposed to want to listen to this now, with them. I don't hear any hooks (not any good ones, anyway) or anything that makes me think, "Wow! I wish I had thought of this!" which is how I know when music is good. If I had thought of this, I know that I would wish I hadn't.

6.) Usually when I come out against something I find myself, months later, totally in love with it. I wonder if that will happen here. If it does, I am going to be embarrassed for myself right now, because I'm sure I'll drive down the street and I'll have this damn song turned up to 40 and I won't realize people are looking at me going, "Does he really have 'I wish he was my boyfriIIIEEENNNDDDD' blasting out of his car? Oh, he is driving a Prius. What a poof." Ugh, how embarrassing for me. I hope it doesn't happen this way.