Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout

Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive! Here’s MB5! • Blue Skies At War – You Pour The Gasoline I’ll Light The Fuse (Curve) :: If you only buy one album this year, make sure it’s not this one. • Keith Levene – Murder Global (Underground) :: I mean it, maaaaan: One listen to this phony flaccid funk and you’ll get the feeling you’ve been cheated too. • Billy Klippert Billy Klipper (Orange) :: He growls like Chris Cornell and falsettos like Russell Mael but just the fact that he covers Elton John’s “Levon” tells you that this ain’t no Sparksgarden. • Action Action – Don’t Cut Your Fabric To This Year’s Fashion (Victory) :: Is this the price we have to pay for Franz Ferdinand? • Team America: World Police (Miramax Pictures) :: When it comes to parody and insightful social satire, this super marionette epic proves once and for all that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder of the 21st century. • R. Kelly – Happy People/You Saved Me (Jive/Zomba) :: Is it rolling, Bob? • Midnight Movies – Midnight Movies (Emperor Norton) :: Not only do these kids know their Portishead and their Velvet Underground, they have the extra added attraction of being fronted by a femme fatale who has the uncanny vocal ability to expertly clone Nico right down to the last flattened Teutonic inflection. • Alan Jackson – What I Do (Arista) :: Gosh, I miss Johnny Cash. • SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Rich Robinson – Paper (Keyhole) :: If you like brainy guitar-driven pop music, then go out and buy this album now because Rich Robinson’s Paper is the modern equivalent of Luther Grosvenor’s Under Open Skies. Or is that Runt’s The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren? Either way, it’s that good. • Be seeing you.