This new voxpop section is subtitled "A Howl Against the Void," named in honour of a comment my friend Kristian made when I showed him yet another trendy book about contemporary music. "This is a howl against the void," he said. "The author is just wasting his intelligence on describing music." So this section is just that - wasting our (and your) intelligence on describing the detritus of everyday life, organizing it into piles and lists, for no reason whatsoever. Like it matters. Like anybody cares. This is our howl against the void . . .

[please feel free to contribute your own . . . as is the way with howls, they encourage more howling]

Top Ten Worst Movies Ever Made (compiled by Eddie Maloney)
(not counting The Cheerleader Orgy Massacre B-movie series):

Clash of the Titans (Laurence Olivier at his lowest)
Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (the best Ron Ely movie ever made)
Over the Top (Sylvestor Stallone at his best)
Godfather III (Coppola should be have committed some sort of painful ritual suicide)
Johnny Mnemonic (Keannu Reeves in the Matrix prequel)
Little Shop of Horrors (proof that musicals shouldn't be made, let alone remade)
Shark Attack (clear proof that Casper Van Dien didn't think Starship Troopers was supposed to be campy)
Star Wars: Phantom Menace (how to make Darth Vader goofy in three easy steps)
St. Elmo's Fire (made me think there really were hookers in Georgetown...damn false advertising)
Tango & Cash (every list has to have two Stallone movies...this one proved every academic's argument about the homophobic/erotic American buddy flick)

Top Lyrics that Rhyme the Same Word
(please send in more)

"Generals gathered in their masses,
Just like witches at black masses"
Black Sabbath, War Pigs

"When you get home from work,
I'm gonna make you do more work"
Missy Elliot, Dog in Heat

"Everybody actin' like it's a commercial,
Rapping like life is a big commercial"
Beastie Boys, Gratitude

"Don't make me lose it,
I just might lose it"
Aaliyah, U Got the Nerve (RIP)

Top Albums of the 90s
(more to come . . .)

Nirvana, Bleach
Obviously . . . and yes, I'm trying to be super-cool by not picking the obvious Nevermind. Even so, there are so many classic tracks on this debut, and the chunkiness is still has a pop-mentality without being slick. The essence of grunge (may it RIP).

Tricky, Maxinquaye
More dreamlike and disturbing than Massive Attack and all the other Bristol trip-hoppers (even if Tricky did begin in their fold), this album distils the anger and alienation of this "difficult" artist, with his brilliant ear for a sample and his fraught-but-fruitful relationship with his muse Martine (whose vocals bless most of these tracks). Unfortunately he is another person to disappear up his own arsehole after perfecting a genre.

Public Enemy, It'll Take a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
I heard this again recently blaring out of a record store in New York, and it sounded like it was released yesterday. People were just hanging around browsing the same section over and over again just so they could bob their head and say "Yeahhhh, booooyy" . . . . what's that? It was released in 1988? God dammit. (In that case maybe I can sneak in Jane's Addiction's Nothing Shocking . . . . no, I can't? But this is my webzine! . . I can do whatever I . . oh . . ok. Next . . )

Beastie Boys, Check Ya Head
Ten years on, and this is way more than just "finger lickin' good." Still young enough to mean it, but old enough to kick it up a few notches, this album stands as our absolute favourite of that defunkt decade. Putting the punk back into funk, with DJ Hurricane at his apex (before disappearing into pure lameness), and the B-Boys in fine lyrical form, Check Ya Head captures the sound of downtown manhattan and blares it across the rooftops of the world. If this album had "Sabotage" on it, then I imagine every copy would turn into anti-matter and disappear from our universe, since nothing that perfect is allowed to exist.

DJ Shadow, Entroducing
click here

Missy Elliot, Supadupafly
The beginning of a hip-hop empire, shared with his royal Timbalandness. Amazing production. Amazing beats. And the first of three (so far) indispensable albums. For once the person standing up front saying they are the best is right.

Kyuss, Sky Valley
Press play and listen to the unadulterated sound of Autocthonics. Hear the swamp turn into humans, and humans into gods. Alternatively, hear a group of men building a space-ship which flies through the air like a gigantic Russian tank. Hear thrash hitting quicksand, and bending back against its will into metal. Sky Valley sees Kyuss at their sublime peak, when they've settled into Chris Goss's astonishing production and found the perfect combination between form and formlessness (i.e. songwriting and jamming). You could just as easily start with the raw power of Blues for the Red Sun or the relatively refined last album, And The Circus Leaves Town, (but why refine perfectly good sump oil, when it sounds so good). Unfortunately they couldn't sustain the sheer brilliance of Kyuss, which is hardly surprising given its intensity. Really, these guys were the Kings of the Desert, and no-one will ever come close.

Tool, Aenemia
Except maybe Tool, although they are on the other end of a certain attitude-spectrum. Dark. Wagnerian. Hopelessly earnest. But it's impossible to make this kind of music without, you know, "feeling" it. Prog rock never sounded so intense (and, ultimately, therapeutic). Cool clips too.

Bjork, Homogenic
Well, she's unique isn't she. The beats are clashy (not like The Clash, that is, but "clashy" . . . you know, like copulating shopping-trolleys), and some of the melodies are sublime. (Irrelevant note: I once had breakfast at the same table as Bjork in a crowded café, but didn't notice for five minutes, by which time she was paying and leaving.)

Squarepusher, Hard Normal Daddy
Dwelling somewhere between chaos and order, jazz and techno, a small room in Cornwall and the hive-mind of humanity lies Squarepusher (aka Tom Jenkins). This album, which follows the superb Feed Me Weird Things and the joyfully insane Big Loada, represents the apex of his output; perfecting his skittish programming and prog-rock tendencies. Unfortunately this perfection led him to renounce the genre he created, since there was nothing else he could do for it, and disappeared into post-everything-fusion-land. But we still have this album, which is too brilliant to absorb in one sitting, so we advise listening to only two or three tracks at a time.

Will Oldham, Viva Last Blues
Prolific and idiosyncratic, Will Oldham (or the Palace Brothers, or Bonnie Prince Billy, or . . . .) really is (that is, was) the Dylan of the 90s. Literate, semi-feral, horny, and gifted with the . . . . erm . . . "gift" of melody, Will's cracking voice and faltering guitar is the perfect soundtrack to different phases of life. Sad, perverse, and playful, one day his cult status will be raised to the recognition reserved for only the greatest poets.

Chemical Brothers, Surrender
If you don't dance to the first five tracks of this album then you are legally dead . . . a cliché, I know, but an appropriate one. This album transcends their funky debut and their storming follow-up, which in itself is something to marvel at, but these are guys are miles ahead of the other artists associated with breakbeat (although Crystal Method would be worthy openers). Seeing them live kicks it up a notch, and I hold my breath to see if they can continue to forge new pathways for the ancient pleasure of shaking your booty.

Mark Hollis
I don't even know the name of this album, but it's the one with a dog-thing on the cover. Lots of extended silences, squawking woodwind instruments, and whispering girls marks this out as "an art piece," but - given the right circumstances - it can curl your toes and infuse the spirit; maybe even wrenching a couple of tears for your trouble. Not unlike Catpower's stuff in the next millennium.

But really, why am I telling you this. You already have these, and if you don't, then you don't really give a toss what I think. Either you think "hey, this guy has pretty good (if obvious) taste" or else you think "hey, why isn't U2 here" (in which case, please go away), or else you are thinking "hey, he forgot the limited edition BlarvyArse bootleg vinyl only available by mail-order through their grandmother's website." In which case, I tip my hat - you are way cooler than me. Defensive? Maybe. But it's my howl. Feel free to send in yours.