I used to write a lot more about music, than I currently do. I think I aspire to be a frustrated music critic, but then I hear Joe Jackson or Bonnie "Prince" Billy, and I wonder if there really is a reason to ever listen to any new music. In some ways I am glad I found Springsteen retroactively, because if I had been waiting for it, and then had to deal with disappointment (e.g. Tunnel of Love) it would have played with my emotions more than the cute girl who sat in front of me in 7th Grade Reading. (She used to paint her fingernails so they looked like the unit patch for the 1st Air Cav). So anyway the Rock and Roll Hall of fame has listed their 200 essential albums. I think I noted previously that these lists are only set up for people to debate. One could argue that they are intentionally ranking Pet Sounds low at number 9, but for the most part I have a no problem really arguing with the top ten, even Thriller I can accept as being in the top ten. It's hard to separate the Megan's Law opponent from the artist, but musically that album still packs a wallop. Its when I finally get to number 13 that I have to laugh. Santana Supernatural. Yes I own it. I was a sucker. This album is to music what the macerena was to dance, what the Da Vinci Code is to literature. It is water-downed (or is the term watered down?) entertainment that somehow makes you think that you enjoy it even though it is crap. I remember in high school, the Pizza Hut near our school had an all-you can eat lunch buffet. So on half days a bunch of us would roll over there and it would be greatest thing ever, but really it wasn't and after you were done you were actually less satisfied than had you just eaten cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. (as an aside to an already self admitted wandering paragraph I set up the Pizza Hut anecdote as if that something I regularly did it may have happened twice)

Look I can buy that Carlos Santana may be talented, but Supernatural is crap. and shouldn't be ranked anywhere above anything that Tom Petty, Weezer, Foo Fighter or the Wiggles have ever put out. I would rather have your local Catholic Church's choir singing "Angels We Have Heard on High" on my I-pod 1000 times than any of that Rob Thomas crap.

Over and out.