Jason Pierce, you scare me. You really do. You are a genius. That is not new, for upon buying the "Electric Mainline" 7" single in 1993 I went home and heard it and loved it so much that I proclaimed Spiritualized to be a band whose susbsequent material was worth buying without the need to listen to it first, which was a trust I put in no other bands except maybe the Orb or Depeche Mode, and even then, the latter have made only one record better than the absolute dreck of your recorded output (relatively speaking of course, for "Laser Guided Melodies" is the bee's knees, and I don't count the second half of "Recurring to be a Spiritualized recording, even though it is for all intents and purposes) but if that's the shoddiest thing you've ever laid your name to, which includes every last note played with Spacemen 3 -- the early, tinny demo versions onward, impressively covering seventeen years of everthing from blistering psychedelia to poignant orchestral blues -- then you've got a career value that'll rank with the New Orders and the Barry Bonds'.

But 1993 genius wasn't enough. The aforementioned greats got better with age. You did too. "Anyway That You Want Me" would have (well, should have) been enough to make you the Soft Cell of 90's British pop. The career of your new band had already been rendered fond with that simple seven minute piece of swoonsome guitar pop with the Hey Jude ending. You became *the* white soul brother. Sure, Spectrum beat you to the punch with "Highs, Lows, and Heavenly Blows" (one of the greatest albums that nobody knows about) but went on to show him, didn't you, and the victors get the sympathy in the history books, and one certainly doesn't see Sonic Boom's name gracing the gossip pages and the pop charts these days, which likely suits him just fine, though. But you got to make the album of the year. Which you did in 1995. And again in 1997. And you've probably done it again in 2001. Do you think you're Stevie Wonder or something? Is there a world full of Paul Simons to serve as placecards to hold peoples' attention while you sit on your ass for years between albums and imbibe exotic narcotics in a depressed daze while contemplating the meanings of life and love? It's not fair. It isn't. You toy with anyone else who dares to release a fine record, knowing that at your very will, coming at approximately eighteen months to the day after you stop feeling sorry for yourself and finally get off the couch and clean yourself off and start work on your next work of unimpeachable genius, you can one-up any ambitious musician by vomiting forth a bevy of suites with more emotional depth and sonic bonkerdom than anyone else could even begin to conceive.

You move me, but I hate you. OK, I don't really hate you but I just can't believe you can be all numb and drugged out and depressed and still do the things you do when the rest of us sober and healthy people struggle to make minimal impact on the world around us. Just keep doing exactly what you've been doing. Sigh.