In the 14 November NOW, there was a perfectly decent article about Lali Puna, who were playing a show in Toronto that week. There was also a pitiful and unneeded nod to Radiohead.

No wonder they don't like going out in public and talking to strangers. People must be coming up to them all the time and accusing/crediting them with being the first rock band in the history of the world ever to use electronics in their music, not to mention "making" bands through their mid-80's Morrissey-esque endorsements.

Now I can appreciate them turning a few more people onto Lali Puna, but I cannot accept that Lali Puna owe a good chunk of their present success to Radiohead. LP are on an incredibly hip label, Morr Music, and would have garnered most of their attention that way.

More gems from NOW: "Sigur Rós. The Icelandic space rock ensemble went from comfortable obscurity to object of global attention after playing a handful of shows with Radiohead". People forget that "Agetis Byrjun" was released in 1999. The people who forget that sort of thing didn't hear about Sigur Ros until 2001. It was a #1 album in Iceland soon after its release, but a distribution deal with famed UK music shop/label FatCat didn't come about until the end of the year. The initial FatCat pressings sold out in five seconds, and practically nobody in North America was able to get their hands on a copy for months afterward. During that waiting period, the hype surrounding Sigur Ros reached fever pitch among indie heads in the know. THEN, they supported Radiohead. By THEN, their record had become more easily available internationally, although Radiohead certainly had nothing to do with that. I'd be willing to bet that two-thirds of the people who heard of SR after they toured in support of Radiohead (whether they heard of them that way or not) don't know that they have a new record out now. Those aren't fans, those are curiousity seekers and bandwagon jumpers. Sigur Ros probably did more to make themselves by playing high-profile festivals such as All-Tommorow's parties, and the five dates they played in support of Godspeed You Black Emperor! that same spring likely earned them more long-term fans than the Radiohead tour in the fall.

"Warp Records. During his post-OK Computer meltdown, when the sound of guitars would send him bonkers, fragile frontman Thom Yorke plugged the "intelligent techno" catalogue of Warp Records to anyone who'd listen". I cringe whenever I read something like this. It's sickening that by 1991, Warp records had released as many legendary records as any record label in recent memory, and yet when their name is thrown around in rock circles, it's primarily as a "Kid A"-inspiration footnote. It's not Thom Yorke's fault that countless writers are too lazy to do a bit of homework, but he's most definitely guilty of discovering Warp for himself, acting as though he'd translated the Rosetta Stone and opened up new avenues for rock music by doing so.

Warp's catalogue was an electronic music template back when On A Friday were playing to six people in college beer halls. After dominating early UK techno with the infamous "bleep" sound, they overhauled it yet again -- only two years later -- with the "Artificial Intelligence" series, becoming the foremost flagbearers for giving techno as much credibility in a living room as it did on a dance floor. At this juncture in time, Radiohead's "Creep" single, a relatively bright spot on a blase debut album, had failed upon initial release and was being prepped for a second go around, at which point it was disturbingly hailed as a classic in the post-grunge slipstream even though it was nothing but a passable attempt to rip off Nirvana and My Bloody Valentine simultaneously. During the next few years, Warp expanded its repertoire, branching into sweet electronics melded with soul (Nightmares on Wax), pop (Broadcast), not to mention the usual bevvy of excellence from the usual suspects (Aphex, Autechre, Mike Ink, etc.). Thom Yorke was said to be still quite happy playing his guitar during this period, thank you very much. But he's never put up much of a fight when writers and fans put Radiohead into the vanguard of electronica. So, in this specific respect, there's loads of people who need to readjust their thinking and give Radiohead the credit they are due -- which is nothing, absolutely nothing at all.

It's been so long since I ripped on Radiohead, I'd forgotten how much fun it could be (just then, a solitary tear rolls down Barry's cheek, cutting a jagged path through the stubble to the bottom of his chin, and makes a faint splash on the space bar of his grey keyboard ... )

A couple of days ago, I had to kill time while waiting my hair dye to set, so I flipped on MuchMusic. Good music or bad, the station is quite often entertaining. First, I caught the end of the Justin Timberlake Spotlight. Yes, they ran a spotlight on someone with exactly one solo single to his credit. So obviously it was mainly NSync videos and Justin speaking during their interviews. I've now heard "Like I Love You" a few times, and I'm shocked to be admitting that it's actually quite good. I'm not shocked that it *is* good -- the top pop producers and songwriters working on his album have seen to that -- but that I'm *admitting* it's good, since Justin's sissy cute momma's boy look and blatant Michael Jackson mannerisms aren't the kinds of things that I would normally like. Nevertheless, I'm completely sold on the NME's view of his solo career, that is, with the people he's hired to work on his records, they can't help but be good, so the only remaining question is whether they are actual Justin Timberlake records, or if you could have stuck any old shmo in there, Phil Spector stylee, and achieved the same effect. Guess which side the NME and I picked.

Mere minutes later, "French Kiss" began, and the first video was "Symphonie Pour un Dingue" by K-Maro. I don't have the slightest idea what he was rapping about, I can't understand French too well anymore (let alone French rappers) but the video itself was a strange and bizarre amalgamation of styles and trends that was very refreshing. First, kudos for tossing "symphonie" in the title, I don't think any hip-hop artist has had the guts to do that since Maestro Fresh Wes' debut more than a decade ago. Then there's the cheesy synth strings over the music, and the -- hello -- 4/4 beat! In a rap song! But the best is K-Maro himself, dress and posture straight out of Eminem 101, styling and profiling with a club full of bodacious hoochies. And their vice of choice? A fattie?? Malt Liquor??? Hell no, dogg, it's WHITE WINE. Head boppin', booty talkin', mack walkin' guys and their hos and their WHITE WINE. I love French culture.

The new Sum 41 video "Still Waiting" is a parody of the Strokes et al. Complete with a skit starring Will Sasso as a bandwagon-jumping industry exec, he renames the band "The Sums" and they film a picture-perfect knockoff of a Strokes video, complete with low quality film, identical outfits, ridiculous mid-song tantrums, and gigantic shining letters S-U-M-S flanking the performance. Cute, and very, very clever.

But the real joke is on "The Sums" themselves. One fad poking fun at another? Sad, really sad.

The Warlocks are coming to town tomorrow, so I took a listen to one of their discs to decide if the show was worth seeing. This is an unfair trial -- I'm far more partial to wreaking havoc at home than going out to gigs these days -- but nevertheless, I spun the wheel of steel and was mildly impressed. The record proudly displays the octet's love of Velvet-y motorik trance. There are also sharp pinches of jam-band indulgence, which is fine for those who like that sort of thing. But I found their overall sound to be fundamentally at fault. I just couldn't stop thinking that there *has* to be a better way to use four guitars. Grooving along in quadruple-chiming Strokes-style with optional feedback doesn't produce the necessary volume. Nonetheless, this stuff must rock live like a bitch, not to mention the physical spectacle of eight people on stage churning out this stuff.

A completely different use of density comes courtesy of the Delgados, who are surely one of the most underrated bands in the world. If the Doves "Last Broadcast" could shift units, then there's hope for "Hate", the Delgados newest effort. The album springs to life with sweet tunes humming and blazing with ambitious overproduction. Your ears ring and then a flute or a string section plays a lulling melody beneath the din. One might read the previous two lines and believe I was writing about a Super Furries record, but somehow, the Delgados tread a completely different path by eliminating the bonkers preteen jumping on the bed feeling.

Not to pick on the Hives or the Strokes or any of the other "sweet, becoming sour" flavours of the year, but it's really hard for me to fathom why anyone would listen to one of those bands instead of the Delgados, who have massive and singable choruses, play at appreciable volume, and can pull off the difficult trick of being wildly creative without being the least bit indulgent. And if you really want to listen to dumb three chord songs, there's plenty of that being peddled by the Green Day wannabes. Or Avril Lavigne, who brings the added bonus of being really fun to look at.

As always, the key to success in life is to evolve or die. The Vines have dragged Phil Spector out of mothballs to produce their next album. Don't hold your breath waiting for three stripped-down chords. Pray tell, it will sound a lot more like the Delgados than the Ramones.

The US has some important elections looming this week, but the month's biggest decision is whether to buy the new Godspeed album on vinyl or CD. Obviously the vinyl will be better sound quality, but due the large amount of music per side (~20 min) the groove widths are narrower and the loudness suffers. Sure, you can just crank up the amp to compensate, but then you're dealing with amp or speaker distortion, plus the music doesn't seem to jump out at you (as much as it does when the record is loud to begin with). I found this a bit disconcerting with the last Godspeed record, it would come off a bit flat unless the volume was high enough, and then I'd be amplifying more hiss and unwanted noise. All this was passing through my mind after I bought a 12" original pressing of Jesus and Mary Chain's "You Trip Me Up". On one side, you have the Phil Spector-tastic single, with two supporting tracks on the b-side. There was clearly something very deliberate being done. First of all, there's maybe seven minutes of total music here, which means it's overkill to use a 12" format. Second of all, the grooves are significantly tighter on the b-side, meaning it's literally a third as loud as the a-side. Third, and most importantly, "You Trip Me Up" was cut with huge groove widths, we're talking two and a half minutes stretched out over half the area of the record, so the song EXPLODES off the record to the point that any CD version that you might have is rendered more useless than eating soup with a fork. It can be no accident that JAMC were hoping that some unwitting Radio Two DJ would throw this record on the stereo without testing the levels first, stomping a giant bruise on the toes of the A-Ha and Arcadia records that they'd have been playing immediately before, melting an country's hair gel to boot. You know, there's a book that's just DYING to be written that explains in non-technical terms why vinyl sounds better than CD, why music companies and retailers screwed over consumers by force-feeding them convenience in favour of sound fidelity (even though it's not true), and the sociology/underground cult of vinyl lovers who keep vinyl alive and flourishing even though 99% of casual music fans believe the medium is dead. I would love to be the guy to write this book, but it'd involve taking off time from my regular life for a few months.

Something has possessed Sigur Ros' American distributors because they're heavily pushing an album with no title and no song titles. My guess is they're hoping to capture lightning in a bottle twice -- call it Radiohead in a bottle -- and they believe the album can get by on a second round of word-of-mouth buzz, critical jism, and general curiosity. I have no idea if they're hallucinating or if this maniacal plan will work. My gut feeling, given the "Step 1: pop, Step 2: trash" attitude of the entire industry over the last few years, is that the long-term financial prospects for a band like Sigur Ros are practically zilch. In the meantime, they've turned out a fine bit of dreamy grunge (the soft-loud-soft formula is worked to the bone). It reminds me a lot of the first Verve album. That is, Sigur Ros are either delusional noodlers in love with Kid A, or a "white-knuckled, intense experience". The defense calls the final track to the witness stand, a track I instantly recognized as the final track they played in concert a year and a half ago. Such was the impression it left me with even though it was six seasons in the past. I was all giddy, and then I remembered that as good as it is, the final five minutes of the Godspeed record blow it away like yesterdays garbage, which made me calm down somewhat.