"Guess who I'm dating? Wes Brody. He's super cute. He plays soccer with my sister. He's seven."

Everyone who knows me knows that once I get obsessed with a tv show, it's pretty much all I talk about. Before White Collar, there was Glee. Due to the creative marketing and never ending buzz, I was into this show before it ever aired. Now that the first season has finally wound to a close, and I ended it with mixed feelings, I have a few suggestions for next season.

Click below:

"Did you know dolphins are just gay sharks?"

1. Do not let Jonathan Groff go!
Writing his character as a senior was probably a big mistake. When he first showed up I was annoyed by his blatant overacting, but once he settled in to his character, he stole every scene he was in. Groff's big rock star turn during the regionals performance of Bohemian Rhapsody easily became my favorite performance of anyone on the show ever. He's a great character and has more singing talent than Mark Salling and Cory Monteith combined. Find a way to bring him back. The show is definitely going to miss him.



2. Brittany, Quinn, and Santana are underrated.
Let's face facts, Dianna Agron is the best actress this show has. (The argument can be made about Jane Lynch and her stellar comedic chops, I know.) Dianna transitioned from the bitchy alpha female cheerleader to the vulnerable fallen from grace teen so well, and the heartbreaking crying on command didn't hurt one bit. She's not an outstanding vocalist, but the sheer acting ability makes up for it. Heather Morris and Naya Rivera managed to turn Brittany and Santana into two of the most well liked characters in an ensemble cast. Everyone loves Brittany's one liners ("Mr. Schu...is he your son?") and Santana emerged as a hyper sexual firecracker with a surprisingly good voice. (I mean, who expected her at all during Like a Virgin? I know I didn't.) Use the dynamic duo more. It'd be nice to see them with an actual storyline other than Britanny says something funny, Santana says something sassy or flirts with someone, then they flirt with each other.



3. Can we get some new story lines next year?
Who didn't see the plot of the finale coming from a mile away? It was essentially the same thing that happened in a ton of other episodes, with the added bonus of Quinn finally having that baby thrown in. Coach Slyvester threatens the Glee club, Mr. Schu tears up like a woman, Rachel and Finn either fight or fall in love (again), Kurt makes reference to struggling with his sexuality, Mercedes hits that note, Glee club doesn't end after all.

Groundbreaking stuff.

The Kurt storyline got recycled so many times this year that it was easy to forget that the other characters even have lives outside of the choir room. Though it gave Mike O Malley the room to show off some impressive range (who knew the host of Guts and the star of the Time Warner commercials had legit talent?)one episode covering this topic would have been sufficient. I went to high school in Ohio ten years ago and alternative sexualities weren't even as big of a deal then as they were made to be on Glee. Personally, letting Kurt be openly gay and giving him a functional relationship with an awesome guy and having it NOT be an issue would be a more effective way to get the point across in my eyes. (But rumors have it that this is in the cards for next season. Fingers crossed.)

The Will Schuester, Emma Pillsbury romance is getting stale as well. They get so close to figuring it out and then something happens. She dates someone else, he starts making out with anyone who will have him, she dates someone else again. For someone who is so socially stunted, Emma sure does get around. Maybe it's because Will cries all the time. That's bound to put a damper on anyone's romantic plans.

Hopefully the writers will stray from the regular episodic formula next season and we'll get to see some new stuff. For example, it'd be nice to see what Rachel's dynamic with her dads is actually like. Do Mercedes, Tina, Artie and Puck even have parents, or do they all just live in the choir room in some kind of "don't get them wet, don't feed them after midnight" Gremlins type deal? It's okay to do episodes that don't revolve around Kurt, Rachel, and Finn. I won't tell, I promise.


4. Make better use of the stellar guest stars.
If you're a show that has access to Idina Menzel, Kristin Chenoweth, and Neil Patrick Harris (just to name a few), you hang on to those names and those voices for all that they're worth and gave them something solid to work with. The character of April Rhodes is weakly written and largely useless. Sad stuff, since Kristin has an amazing voice, great chemistry with Matt Morrison, and great comedic timing. Having April show up should be an event, not an afterthought with some lackluster songs thrown in the mix.

The Idina Menzel story line is a whole other story. It's a solid character with obvious flaws, but condensing a plot point as major as revealing her as Rachel's mother and then her insistence that she doesn't want to be a part of her life into two episodes was a biiig mistake.(Not to mention that weird performance of Poker Face as the one song they were ever going to sing together...I mean I know it was the Lady Gaga episode, but really? Did everyone forget that "Speechless" exists?) Not to mention her magical instant adoption of Quinn's baby at the end of the season. Who knew adopting a baby was as easy as going to the hospital and filling out a form. Apparently a lot of people are doing it wrong.

If you're going to have Broadway royalty on your show (and lets face it, it's a trend that will continue), use them well.

5. Better song choices, please.
First of all, unlatch from Journey already. That first performance of Don't Stop Believin' was magical, tear jerking, awe inspiring. It set the tone for the first half of the season. Bringing it back for the finale couldn't even revive it, not to mention throwing together a completely underwhelming medley for the regionals performance. With a fan base that is largely under 30, Journey, Kiss, and that god awful "To Sir, With Love" performance are not going to hold the attention that the Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Lady Gaga songs will. The surprises in the first half of the season (Bust Your Windows, No Air, etc) were great reminders of modern songs that may have been forgotten over the last couple of years. But "Rose's Turn", "A House Is Not A Home", "Give Up the Funk" took what could have been amazing moments and turned them into forgettable scenes.

At the very least, if there's going to be an insistence on taking obscure older songs and turning them into performances, at least put them on par with the Vocal Adrenaline performances. "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Another One Bites the Dust" are two completely dated, forgettable songs made cool again by the flawless performances from the rival club. It's been done, calling out Lea Michele's out of the park performance of "Don't Rain On My Parade" from the end of the first half of season one, but that magic hasn't seemed to be recaptured since.

Also, for the love of God, stop Mr. Schu's embarrassing rapping moments. Matt Morrison is a ridiculously talented singer, but I've never suffered more second hand embarrassment than I do whenever he busts out some ridiculous hip hop number. Also, if you're going to have Quinn sing, keep her in the ballpark of "Papa Don't Preach" and "Say A Little Prayer", that weird pregnant ballet of "It's a Mans, Mans, Mans World"...odd, and totally out of her range.

I was not looking forward to the theme episodes, but the Madonna episode became my favorite of the season. The "4 Minutes" performance was exactly what it should have been, and "Like A Virgin" went from a light and bouncy song to a steamy and sexy song with the chosen performance. Or I guess as much as it can be when you're singing during foreplay and are a show about teenagers.

In spite of the obvious cracks that became evident during season one, I'm not going anywhere. I still love the show, it's still a unique concept that has been executed better than was to be expected, and is bringing musicals to the forefront, which is never a bad thing as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully season two will give the other characters room to grown and get the show back on track with some stronger musical numbers.

The back nine was largely a disappointment for me, but did have some shining moments: Tina scaring Principal Figgins with her vampire act, The Safety Dance, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Puck trying and failing at hooking up with Mercedes ("I'm going to ask you to stop, because I'm starting to get embarrassed for you."), and Emma's rant about Will being a slut, ("Nobody's safe. NOBODY'S SAFE.") to name a few, but I have hope that it'll rebound in a solid fashion next season. It's still better than lot of shows around right now, I think it just set a standard for itself with the first few episodes that was nearly impossible to maintain.

I'm just not sure the point of it all was to make me wish that the show was focused on Vocal Adrenaline instead of New Directions....

I'm notoriously known for judging other people based on their tastes in movies, music, and books. Now I feel it's time for me to confess a few of my own. (Rest assured, I do still find a few guilty pleasures unforgivable...everyone who loves Twilight, I'm looking at you.)


Short is the joy that guilty pleasures bring...




Miley Cyrus - See You Again (Rock Mafia Remix)

I want to preface this by saying that I find Miley Cyrus to be one of the most annoying people on the planet. As a result, I almost feel like this song was wasted on her, but I do love it, and it's impossible not to sing along with once you get it in your head. Especially the 'My best friend Leslie said 'Oh, she's just being Miley!' part. I'm pretty sure Miley's bff is that girl Mandy who is in all of her Youtube videos. Poor Leslie, dropped like a bad habit once Miley made it big...but I'm sure she'll turn up for the E! True Hollywood Story.



Selena Gomez - Falling Down

Selena Gomez looks exactly like a real life Bratz doll to me. That said, I happened to watch the Princess Protection Program movie and immediately decided that she's super cute. Not cute in the traditional sugary sweet Disney kid way. Cute in the kind of way too sassy for her own good, we'll probably be hearing about her cussing out an assistant and throwing a cell phone at their head in the future way.



The Rachel Zoe Project.

I can't really figure out why I watch this show. The actual content is incredibly boring, the outfits that they put together are mostly fugly. Taylor hates everything, Rachel is only mildly interesting, and Brad is too fabulous for words and should spin off immediately. What I'm really fascinated by is the butchering of the language, of course. Where. Everything. Is. It's. Own. Sentence? With. Like. Random. Questions? Thrown. Into. The. Middle? Of. Them. Oh. My. God. I. Died. Bananas. Shut. It. Down? Vintage. Chanel. You get the picture.




Britney Spears - The Circus Tour

Right around the time that Britney went bat shit, I developed a soft spot for her music. Blackout and Circus have become two of my most played cds ever. As a result, when she took her psycho circus on the road, I was totally tapped in. I love the shades of crazy that we still get, like when she starts talking about Christmas in the middle of the summer and things of that nature. I think I can safely say that I've seen all of this show via Youtube, and my favorite numbers are the first two. Circus and Piece of me are as well staged as they could be for an artist that never sings and doesn't dance anymore. A bonus in this video is Britney ripping out one of her awesome extensions at the 7:22 mark.



I fully expected to hate Glee, and then fell in love with it so hard that I'm eagerly seeking out the performances for the next episode that surface a few day before it airs. Thankfully it stays as far away from taking it self seriously as possible, because if this show came off the least bit pretentious, it would be over. It's fun and light and written to be quite snappy and sarcastic, but the music is where it really shines. I'd pretty much watch Lea Michele and Amber Riley sing the phone book for an hour every Wednesday and be happy about it.

I'm hoping that in calling out a few of my own guilty pleasures, I can now be on the road to recovery. The first step to healing is admitting that you have a problem. God grant me the serenity...

Twitter, oh Twitter

So, first let me start by saying neither Maggie nor I are addicted or obsessed with this blog, apparently. It's really quite sad because we had such lofty goals in the beginning. But don't give up on us yet. I know we'll continue to blog when the urge strikes. That said, the urge has struck me. There's something I've been wanting to blog about for a while now just as one of those pet peeve sorta things.

So back in the good ole days of 2007, Maggie tells me about this new thing called Twitter that Kevin Pereira from G4TVs Attack of the Show had been talking about. And she says I really gotta get on there cause Kevin's so awesome. And I resisted for a little while because I didn't "get it". I was still all into MySpace (see, I said, the good ole days!) and was really trying to even get a grasp on that Facebook thing. Didn't really want another thing to get caught up in. But sure enough, my arm didn't need much twisting because, yeah, I'm a techie at heart and like to see these new things early on.

I joined and followed Maggie and Kevin and singer/songwriter Matt Morris for what feels like forever because in it's infancy, no one was really doing the whole Tweeting thing. When I finally remembered I had one and went back to it after a few months, I started to get it because of it's simplicity and to this day, that's the thing I love most about it. Call me a victim of the MTV generation with the whole lack of being able to pay attention to anything for very long. I was getting sick of MySpace and people's ridiculously decorated pages and I still was (and kinda am not) feeling Facebook and all the damn quizzes and stuff. So, yes, Twitter was becoming and still is my social networking site of choice. The app on my iPhone made it so easy to fall deeper and deeper in love with it, too.

Given all of that, I don't want to say that I'm like the Queen of Twitter cause I know I'm far from that. BUT having been around it for longer than a bunch of people that I now follow, kinda leaves room for me to make some observations that are generally reasons for me to stop following people and it makes me sad even though I'm sure someone might be able to say the same about me for some reason or another. I mean there are real, legitimate friends who I wish there was a way to stop getting their updates because they're such annoying Twitterers but I don't because I don't want them to see I stopped following thus causing some sort of Twitter War because of feelings being hurt. So, I'm resorting to blogging my general annoyances and if I stop following you, it's not personal. I just don't wanna be annoyed when I log on to my favorite little website of the moment.

Here's the lowdown...

• Don't tweet too much - There's nothing I hate more than when I see on Friendbar (a ticker of tweets for Firefox) the same pic/name for like 10 posts. Twitter's 140 characters for a reason. If you got more to say than that, take it to a blog or Facebook or something.
  
• Learn how to use RT - Retweet stuff that you want everyone to know, not just when you feel the need to reply to someone. I don't see when you reply to people I don't know for a reason, and I like it.
  
• Do you really think P Diddy is gonna see you tweeting him? - I get the whole loving the fact that Twitter gives you a bit of accessibility to celebrities in a way that we've never seen before but really, said celebs are likely getting thousands of @ replies and there's a slim to none chance that you're gonna get a reply or acknowledgment when you try. That said, it's not completely wrong to do, just don't do it all the time, cause really? It's ridiculous.
• Trending - Sure, some trending topics are fun, but man, it's not a competition to get something to be a trending topic (though some are amusing) and making every tweet of your day a # is just wow, too much.
  
• Sharing of information - There's a bunch of people that are either TMI or not enough info. I think the people who share waaaaaay too much are equally as annoying as the vague ones. It's like both are searching for attention and replies and it's just frustrating...okay, wait, I think I hate the vague ones more cause it's like "Really, WTF are you talking about?!"
• TV Tweeting - I like to see what the people I'm following are into, as far as TV and music and all that fun stuff, but man, when you feel the need to give me a play by play of what you're watching, there's a problem. Step away from the computer or cell phone and just WATCH THE FUCKING SHOW. I don't need to know every detail of it. If I did, I'd be watching it myself.
  

I'm sure there's many, many more things that peeve me about the way people are on Twitter but those are the ones that come to mind. Again, if you notice I stopped following you, no offense...you're probably doing at least one of these if not a combination of them and I just can't take it.

An open letter to Matt Nathanson.

Dear Matt Nathanson,

It's about damn time.

Love, Maggie


So, news broke this week that Matt Nathanson is FINALLY releasing another single. Falling Apart is going to usher us into the summer! I can only consider this the best birthday present ever, since Come On Get Higher long ago entered dangerously overplayed status for me, so this news leaves me positively thrilled.

I was going to make a pro and con list, but can see nothing but pros thus far. It's the perfect summer song. Great energy, catchy, perfect for highlighting during the billions of tour dates that he has lined up. It'll take me awhile to get tired of hearing it during every tv performance that he does, and the pictures from the video shoot look promising. I love when a series of videos has some sort of continuity to them, and since the same model that was featured in the Come On Get Higher video was also hired for this one, I have incredibly high hopes!



There has been other stuff going on. Life and love (and lack thereof) and things of that nature, but this new single is the best news I've gotten all week! (The second best news was the announcement of the In the Heights tour, but that is another entry all together and will be coming soon!) For now, go ahead and get acquainted with this song before you start hearing it on the radio and wondering who the hell is singing it.

The Guiltiest of the Guilty Pleasures

I can't believe October was the last time either Maggie or I have blogged. Wow, we suck at this.

That said, I'm going to do a quick one about the one thing I should totally be ashamed about. Remember a few years ago when Disney announced they were going to try to bring back the musical and that it'd be about High School? Yeah, I totally avoided it...completely stayed away from it. I have a niece that got all into it and I just was like, whatever, let her have it...good for her. Then just last year, I finally saw the first two and I thought they were adorable for what they were. I mean, if I were their target age, I'd totally be all about it. So, they have their big bad Senior Year movie coming out and I promised the niece that I'd take her and a friend to see it...apparently, I'm the cool aunt. We go and I totally loved it. I thought it was the most adorable mindless entertainment ever. And being a fan of the cheesy pop songs, I totally loved most of the music, like I said, if I were in the target age range, I'd have been ALL about it. But since I am not, it's so sad how cute I thought it was.

So, in celebration of the release of the High School Musical: Senior Year DVD release last week (of which I bought for ME and not my niece but she can borrow it), I will share with you my guiltiest of guilty pleasures from it. I love Troy and Gabriella (and actually Zac & Vanessa as a couple are equally as adorable), so here's "Can I Have This Dance". I'm sure you'll actually click this and LOVE it.

*Hides face in shame*

A true sign of the apocolypse...

...is that this chick is considered talented in some circles. Cause, REALLY?! REEEEAAAALY?! 21 MILLION plays on youtube, people. REALLY?! God help us cause these kids nowadays wouldn't know good music if it was thrown at them. The part that has me scratching my head the most is near the end when you have absolutley no fucking idea what she's saying. The only good that came out of this track is that "Swagger Like Us" got it's title and sample from it. That is all.

I don't even know where to begin.

Let me preface this by saying I'm hardly a connoisseur of music journalism. I'm not a connoisseur of music journalism for the simple fact that it peaked somewhere in the early 90's, which can also be earmarked as the true dying days of Rolling Stone being somewhat credible. Since then I regularly read Blender, but admittedly for the funny commentary and not any genuine insight into the state of music, or the industry, or anything that actually matters to me as a music fan.

That said, I recently stumbled across an article by Boston Globe writer Joan Anderman, and have not felt so genuinely compelled to respond to an article in more than a decade. Let's take a look, shall we?

Does that sound familiar? Blame it on John Mayer.

In August I dutifully arrived at the Rod Stewart show at the Comcast Center in time to catch the opening act, Josh Kelley. Kelley, known to gossip hounds as Mr. Katherine Heigl, is a singer-songwriter. He writes pop-rock tunes, plays the guitar and the piano, and sings well. He's attractive and personable. His songs are sturdy and pretty. And he makes me feel . . . nothing.

Nothing is worse than feeling nothing at a concert. If you hate a band, at least you can whine about it to your friend in the next seat, and if you're me, you can register a public complaint in the newspaper. And odds are good I'll receive plenty of mail from readers who love the band just as much as I don't love the band, which confirms my view that music that makes somebody feel something is worth listening to.

Listening to Kelley, I just felt empty, and I found myself marveling once again that he and his ilk have become the mainstream standard-bearers for the genre.

"Garden-variety" is the term I used to describe Kelley in my review of the show - i.e. common, ordinary, of no special quality or type, according to the dictionary. And he's not alone.

So up until here I have no complaints. I've never found Josh Kelley overly burdened with talent, and have been genuinely more entertained by other artists telling stories of him stumbling around the Rock Boat completely tanked than I have been by his cds. A quick search of Joan Anderman's other articles for The Globe reveal that as many times as she finds reason to reference Josh in articles that have little to do with him, she trots out the "Mr. Katherine Heigl" moniker as if he's showing up in the pages of the Enquirer with nothing but that to carry him. I read my tabloids, girlie, can't remember the last time I even saw an article on Katherine, much less on Josh and trust me I'm no fan of hers either, so I'm on the lookout.

Another quick search gets much deeper to the root of what we're dealing with here. The review of the Rod Stewart show in question was largely positive, and very indicative of someone who has clearly had a lot of years to get familiar with his catalog. My knowledge of Stewart largely consists of people singing "Maggie May" to me on a regular basis, a Tom Waits cover that was better off left alone, and a daughter that looks like a cocker spaniel.

The description suits a whole slew of singer-songwriters making the rounds of theaters, airwaves, and soundtracks with their inoffensive, unremarkable, soul-numbing songs.

Matt Nathanson, a Lexington native who lives in San Francisco, performs a sold-out show at Berklee Performance Center tonight, the same night Howie Day plays at Northeastern University's Blackman Auditorium. Jason Mraz comes through town Oct. 17 for a show at the Orpheum, also sold out. Matt Wertz has been on the road opening for Gavin DeGraw, Mat Kearney is making a new record, and Josh Hoge just put an album out. Ari Hest, exhibiting a flash of ingenuity, has been writing and releasing a song a week this year.

All of these artists are competent. None of them has a sound.

Okay wait...what?

Hold the phone.

This is the point where I put down my glass of water and almost laughed and ended my own life by choking.I mean...seriously? Maybe someone spent too much time in her late 20's in the 80's listening to arena rock and hair bands and therefore has some damaged ear drums that led to making such a sweeping generalization on such a wide range of artists. I'm friends with a lot of musicians, or very involved music fans. I myself am someone as versed in the discography of everyone from the likes of Britney Spears, Jay-Z and Fiona Apple as I am with those of Matt Nathanson, Death Cab for Cutie, and Hit the Lights. I'm hardly a musical elitist, I just can't seem to consume enough of it. Granted, some of it is completely lost on me - the majority of country music, screaming rock anthems, and the Dave Matthews Band for a general cross section, but I know enough to know who is who when I'm stuck in traffic and hit the scan button and it settles on a station that I never listen to.

We all know that I could go on for days about the mere passing mention of Matt Nathanson, but let me just sum it up by saying that someone who can't seem to find a unique sound would never be able to sustain a career that's now spanning 15 years and was built solely on crisscrossing the country and selling out rooms wherever he goes. Howie Day may have hit the mainstream with the generally generic "Collide" but his first album showcased his unique abilities as a writer and singer in songs such as "Sorry So Sorry" and "Kristina". Hearing him pound out "Sorry So Sorry" live could put anyone's doubts to rest.

Jason Mraz has hit his stride with his new record and the reworked version of "I'm Yours" but is another artist who, with his own blend of wordplay and quick beats over his guitar playing has carved out his own niche that makes him another sure sell out road act each and every summer. Mraz has a quick tongue and churns out gems on his albums that range from quiet love songs to stumble over your own tongue rhymes and slick and sexy ballads. I don't remember anyone ever confusing a Mraz tune for a Mayer tune, even in the "Remedy" days.

I'm hardly a huge Gavin Degraw lover (I leave that for Nikki of course), but there's no denying that he's probably got the strongest voice out of his entire genre of young singer songwriters. He can literally sing the hell out of anything, from the defiant and slightly cocky "I Don't Want to Be", to a cover of "A Change Is Gonna Come" that Sam Cooke himself would approve of.

The point of this is that the genre itself is deep and unique. Insisting that this crop of artists have no unique sound is about as ridiculous as getting a Jay-Z song confused with a Soulja Boy song, just because they happen to file into the same genre when you're browsing through the iTunes store.


They seem for all the world to be using a template to write their songs. Sit down to listen to a batch of them at the same time, and you'll notice that the same pattern crops up again and again, usually in the chorus. It's made of four chords that repeat in a cycle, sometimes tenderly and sometimes forcefully but always winsomely, suggesting lost love or found love or the bad love that inspired him - no, impelled him - to write this song.

As wrong and this woman is, this argument can be applied to any genre of music. During the reign of pop it was largely argued that every pop hit was composed of the same few chords and key changes. With some slick production and a catchy hook, anyone could have a number one song. During the reign of rap it was the era of a sample. Grab a beat, obtain a sample, enjoy the millions rolling in. This is not new information, sweetie.

Love songs will always be the ones that get people talking, because those are the songs that everyone can relate to. If Jason Mraz wrote "Remedy" (a song about a close friend fighting cancer) 14 times over and released it as an album, he would have never had the chance to make a second record. If John Mayer had released a handful of albums consisting of different versions of "Your Body Is A Wonderland", he'd still be playing at coffee shops in Atlanta on nightly basis. Being cute and holding a guitar may work as a novelty for a little while, but is hardly enough to grant you the ability to tour the country and live comfortably when not doing so, especially not in this day and age. Let's face it, they all can't have the ability to churn out such obscenely creative jams as "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?", but they do what they can to entertain those that somehow manage to find meaning in their meaningless and talentless songs, you know?


I don't buy it. This musician has studied hard. His introspective lyrics read like a composite of sensitive-guy clichés. He doesn't so much sing from the gut as use his voice, expertly, in the service of a sentiment. It cracks just so to evoke his broken heart and grows bold when it's time to be strong. He's a little soulful, a little wounded, totally ready to be saved, and with the help of a skilled producer he pushes people's buttons - especially those belonging to young women, a demographic that's especially susceptible to a cute boy's connect-the-dots charms.

And who can blame them? These guys get the job done. It's like the recipe for McDonald's Secret Sauce; you can count on it. It tastes the same every time. Nobody clamors for new ingredients every time they order a Big Mac, because reliability is a good thing when it comes to fast food. But sameness is depressing when it defines an art form where emotional veracity has always been the most compelling piece.

Singer songwriters are not the new bubble gum pop stars. The guitar boy equivalent of Lou Pearlman is not sitting behind a desk holding auditions at theme parks for the next group of boys he can clean up, give a Fender and an MTV reality show to, send to Max Martin, and then swim in the millions he makes off of them like it's the beginning of Ducktales and he's Scrooge McDuck. This would be valid if I walked into a store and was faced with seeing Jason Mraz and Gavin DeGraw lip gloss, or John Mayer and Matt Nathanson lollipops that I could buy to enjoy while watching Josh Kelley's feature film about traveling the country with some of his friends to find his long lost mother.

This is not 1999 and Howie Day will never sell 2.1 million records in a week. There is no longer endless money to be made for getting air headed teenage girls to stand outside of the MTV studios for you. To put it into reference the writer may understand better, this is not the same thing as anxiously awaiting Davy Jones' appearance on the Brady Bunch because he's OMG SO DREAMY!

I blame John Mayer. He paved the way for this wave of well-groomed troubadours with the unlikely success of his 2001 album, "Room For Squares." Mayer is a better musician than the lot of them, but the mass appeal of his sweet strummed pop tunes triggered a record-label spending spree on cookie-cutter tunesmiths. And it's working, because in this era of branding and multi-platform careerism, originality isn't the goal. Quite the opposite: The business needs innocuous, multipurpose songs that can service radio formats, dorm rooms, television dramas, film credits, and iPod ads.

The original pop troubadours carved their niche (and set the bar high) with distinctive visions spanning the literate commentary of Jackson Browne, James Taylor's graceful meditations, and fiery soul-searching from Cat Stevens. And there are formidable talents working today, among them Conor Oberst, Damien Rice, Tom McRae, Joseph Arthur, and Rufus Wainwright. Which makes it even harder to listen to the assembly-line sentiments and achingly familiar refrains of the Mayer descendants.

Ugh. I'll give you Damien Rice and Joseph Arthur. Those two have moments of pure transcendence on their albums. But Conor Oberst? Really? That almost negates the rest of the list for me. I do enjoy a couple of Bright Eyes songs, but holy Christ, pulling that name for a list of formidable talents making the rounds today is almost like putting Hanson on a pedestal or loving the Terrence Howard record...oh wait, Anderman already did that in previous articles. I guess somehow those two artists managed to avoid the trappings of the terrible pre packaged singer songwriters that you can't help but be overrun with these days.

There's enough wallpaper in the world; we don't need uniformity from the very people who are meant to be scouring their hearts and baring their souls in song. But that venerable task has been co-opted, at least in part, by music supervisors looking for a faux-emotional tune to underscore the season's faux-emotional teen drama, and nervous music execs hoping to reach the most people with the least distinguished palette of sounds.

It's bad math for music lovers, but it adds up in the short term, and these days that seems to be the main frame of reference.

To sum this all up somehow, I'll say this: if this writer wanted to bash an entire genre of music based on it's depth and genuine contribution to music a whole, she was way off base to pick this one. Go to a Matt Nathanson show, watch him play upwards of 30 songs that he himself wrote from the ground up, and then tell me that he's in it for the money and not for the genuine love for music and his gift for sharing it. Listen to a live Mraz record from top to bottom and tell me that he isn't a great lyricist and and amazing vocalist. Sure John Mayer has become commercialized and trite, but he wasn't always that way and with any hope the other greats in his genre will never see that side of themselves.

Being that Anderman still finds Motley Crue culturally relevant none of that is likely. Writing a badly researched and completely off base article damning an entire genre of music isn't exactly a reflection of a well rounded music fan, much less one that should be writing for a major newspaper.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some cds to listen to.