As George Costanza demonstrated, certain pastimes are better left to be enjoyed separately, rather than in combination. Take music and pro wrestling, for instance. Separately, I enjoy both, but I have no interest in hearing music performed by wrestling stars. Unfortunately, such a thing has indeed come to pass, and it's called "WWE Originals".

I dumped my integrity at the foot of the listening booth in HMV and gave it a listen. I did it out of curiousity and immense dedication to this unpaid writing job of mine, because I love music so much I'm even willing to sacrifice my boundaries of good taste in the name of my art.

Of course, the CD is, by and large, atrocious. The production is flat and lifeless compared to modern radio hits. Most of the songs were written by one man (Jim Johnson, long-time WWE theme composer), but asking him to affix his talents to so many different musical genres in the name of being competitive with real acts in each of these genres is a bit too much to ask. Short of John Cena's track (which must be no accident, since any fan of WWE programming will tell you that the boy's got the most legit skillz of any performer on here), it's hard to imagine any of these songs believably meshing into a mainstream radio playlist. Too much of them sound gimmicky and amateur, but maybe I'm not capable of judging properly. That is, every week I suspend my disbelief when watching them perform on TV, but I just can't do the same while listening to Booker T's rapping without thinking "ugh, this is Booker T trying to do a rap song".

Trish Stratus' answering machine message during the intro to "I Just Want You" is perhaps the most daft piece of spoken word ever to appear in a song. That covers a lot a ground, including "music" performed by cast members of the original Star Trek. Bless her Torontonian heart otherwise.

The Dudley Boyz' rap-metal "We've Had Enough" is actually shockingly good, which is partly due to the Dudleyz surprisingly strong vocal presence but also due to songwriter Johnson doing what he does best -- metal. Most WWE stars have hard rock or metal themes, including the Dudleyz, so everyone's in their element here. When the disc strays from this sort of element, the results are Desired Genre By Numbers, such as Stacy Keibler's Cher-lite Dancepop By Numbers and Rikishi's Barry White By Numbers.

Some people have criticized the album by noting that there are few surprises vis a vis the track selection, i.e. Cena does a rap song, the Guerreros do a Latin song, etc. Well, duh, the best performers usually live their gimmicks, so there's no point in acting surprised when these exact personalities spill from TV onto CD. In that sense, the lone unexpected track is Lillian Garcia's uptempo rocker, which she pulls off with aplomb. Again, no big shock that Cena and Garcia have nailed the best songs on this disc.

Chris Jericho, who is a fine heavy metal singer for those who think that heavy metal singers have fine voices, gains more credibility by the day for his musical side projects with each nice thing that's written about the Darkness. Is there any discernable difference between the mission statements of Fozzy and the Darkness? How can Fozzy be considered a joke by the same people who dig the Darkness. Chris, you clearly have a fallback position in case you ever decide to give up your day job (but please don't, because you're the best thing on RAW).

Much Music VJ Search ... was quite interesting at times. My top unanswered question: the rejected talent videos that they played and replayed and replayed ad nauseum were funnier than most of the finalists'. What happened there?

They were spot on with the first round of eliminations. Gone were Nina, the "I'm better than all of you" overachiever who didn't care much about music and was mainly there to add another line to her resume. And T-Roy, who was likeable, but his goofiness seemed forced and was trying a bit too hard to rip off Bradford How (but he shouldn't feel bad about it, because 90% of the people who try for this job are trying the same thing). And of course, Vanessa, who had zero personality in front of the camera and somehow pulled off the amazing feat of looking 100X hotter sitting on the toilet in her submission video than she did dolled up and made up in the Much environment.

I didn't mind Chad, but thinking about him now, I can't remember a single individual thing he did or said, and without looking at his picture on the Much website, I can't remember what he looks like at all. I guess that's not the reactions you want from a TV personality.

I think they dropped the ball with JC. Much has this fascination with white bread (no pun intended) semi-hipster college-age types. I was never a big fan of Master T or Sook-Yin Lee, but both had a look and a manner of speaking that you can't find in an ordinary university dorm without searching really hard for the freaks and geeks at the end of the hall blasting the music 180 degrees out of sync with their floormates tastes. JC has great street cred without appearing thuggish, looks nothing like the other finalists or anyone else working for Much at the moment, and is extremely well spoken (and has a post-secondary education). The best TV moment thus far in 2004 was JC smugly giving the camera the finger at the beginning of Sunday's finals. There were rumblings during the recaps/comments clips about JC being off in his own world and distancing himself from the other finalists, but I couldn't find fault with his on-camera work.

This left Devon, Dale, and Nahri. Between the guys, Dale was far more relaxed in front of the camera, and had a wittier way with his words, but that's likely to be expected considering the ten year age gap between them. Maybe I'm partial to Dale because he's in my age demographic, but it's not my age demographic that Much is after, it's Devon's, and that's what made the difference in the end, I'm sure of it. If indeed this was the case, then it needs to be said that Rick Campanelli is looking waaaay older than the other VJ's these days, which is a bit sad for me to say about a guy who's about my age, but then again, Rick looks his age and I don't (and neither does Dale).

However, Nahri was the best of the three finalists, I don't think it was even close. She was the first one to catch my eye at the start of Saturday, and you can't chalk that one up to an Asian fetish on my part because I generally don't go for Asian women. The trouble is, her strengths are her amiability, bubbly good looks, and enthusiasm, and these are the same strength as two other female VJ's already working for Much (Hannah, Amanda), and this considerable personality overlap was likely her downfall.

If I learned anything else this weekend, it was the reconfirmation that Amanda Walsh has an open invitation to drop by my apartment for some TLC. Amanda, if you happen to read this, just stop by. There's no need to call ahead. Just come over. And don't look at my picture on the research web page. I'm much better looking in person.

WHOA! It's been four years since I started writing on these pages. Although I completely forgot my first three anniversaries, I planned something a little special this time.

I believe the year was 1995, and I was on a bus returning from my (then) annual trip to the Montreal Jazz fest. Somehow, my friend Sandra and I got to talking about really well known albums that we'd somehow never gotten around to hearing (note to self: maybe start a thread on I Love Music about this). I was really surprised that she'd never heard "The Queen is Dead", but not as shocked as she was to find out that I'd never heard the Smiths debut. By pure coincidence, she had the tape with her so she grabbed it and forced me to listen to it right then and there.

I also confessed that I'd never heard the Cure's "Disintigration". This, to me, was my number one surprising neverheard (SNH). But in those formative years, such things were more common than they are now. Money was more scarce, and good songs on the radio were more common. I didn't hear Depeche Mode's Violator until a good eighteen months after it's release -- DM songs new and old were played on CFNY all the time, I owned the Violator singles, I owned most of their other albums, so there was no shortage of ways to get a regular DM fix. Similarly, I didn't hear New Order's "Technique" until 1992 or 1993. And much of the same was true of the Cure at the time. Anyhow, in the summer of 1992 all the good DJ's left CFNY, I essentially quit the radio cold turkey and the Cure were on an extended hiatus, so it was out of sight, out of mind for a few years.

That covers the story/excuses up to 1995. More time has passed since then than had passed since "Disintegration"'s release at that time. And I still haven't heard it!

Amazing. The conditions that led to those early SNH's are long gone. I buy a LOT more music now and my tastes are broader. When there's something I'm curious about hearing it usually isn't a problem to find it and hear it. Today, I buy music based on pure speculation all the time. Sometimes I don't even bother to listen to it first. With filesharing, it's even simpler -- the time between a curious inkling and music to my ears is only a few minutes. The bottom line, SNH's used to be not uncommon, but now they're practically an impossibility.

I can't even put this stuff into words. It's preposterous. Everyone knows how trivial it is to obtain music these days. How could I have managed to avoid one album for fifteen years, particularly one as lauded as "Disintegration"? All those times I could have found it in a used CD shop, all those times someone said "I'll lend it to you sometime", I said "OK", and then we never got around to doing it. It's nonsensical.

In some sense, the fifteen year wait is ending today. I don't have "Disintegration" in front of me right now, but I do have "Entreat". The existence of this live document of the "Disintegration" era was news to me until a couple of weeks ago. I remember the singles containing live tracks from back in the day, but I didn't know there was an actual live album released as well. As for the songs, I have "Disintegration" from the Finsbury Park 1993 bootleg, and of course I know "Pics of You" and "Fasc Str", but the other five tracks are new to me! So here it is ... the last of the great SNH's?

"Pictures of You". This is actually my first Cure CD, period. I have a bunch of cassettes and the "Just Like Heaven" remix 12" (from the Mixed Up period), but no CD's until now. Hey, eight minutes just flew right by, how about that. Great song.

"Closedown". I feel like such an idiot. Fifteen years ... the intro to this is just totally beautiful, good and long, but the perfect length, unlike the intros to some of the "Kiss Me" songs which were long for the sake of being long. The lack of the bass drum and wistful, yet downtrodden mood reminds me of Travis' "Driftwood", although that may be because I listened to "The Man Who" this morning.

"Last Dance". Nice, but I'm still hung up on the last two songs.

"Fascination Street". I'm 99% sure that this is the version that was on the single, and got played on CFNY almost as much as the studio version. I always preferred the studio version. Even better, I preferred the eight minute extended remix.

"Prayers For Rain". This album isn't bowling me over, but I've heard enough Cure to know what to expect from them. I'm getting flashbacks to their concert in 2000, which was the one and only time I saw them. Yeah, it even took me eleven years to get around to going to one of their concerts. I was never a hardcore fan (which is blatantly obvious by now, otherwise this entire article wouldn't have been necessary) but I've known enough hardcore fans to know that this is the good stuff. This type of song is what the hardcore types swoon over.

"Disintegration". The song goes on for a healthy time, but I'm still hung up on "Prayers for Rain". This is also the only album track I know, so I don't have to listen as carefully. "Prayers for Rain" is my kind of Cure track, long, gloomy, swirling, and mildly hellish. "One Hundred Years" is one of my fave Cure tracks, to put that in context. "Homesick"/"Untitled". I'm beginning to think that this entire article is pointless. This is like the Kraftwerk Euro Music awards performance (which I wrote about at length at the time and happened to mention again just a few days ago). I'm finally hearing these songs, it's taken so long for this to happen, and now time is anonymously passing by and before you know it, it's over. Fifteen years of waiting and now it's over. No fireworks, no nothing. Imagine how I'll react if/when Kevin performs on the Oscars. I won't have a damned thing to write about.

"Untitled" is a suitable ending, almost a lullaby despite the breezy tempo, drifting on for minutes on end ...

I've spent the last few weeks getting acquainted with new music (the Berlin + Boxing Day hauls) and reacquainted with old music (the long overdue filing of most of my CD's into space-saving binders). I've learned that Branca rules it, Talk Talk's "Laughing Stock" is no "Spirit of Eden", Rhythm and Sound have done it again, As One's "21st Century Soul" delivers the Detroit techno soul goods, Fennesz's "Live in Japan" rocks your universe, Vertical Form is a hit-or-miss label, and so on.

And Pluramon's "Dreams Top Rock" is NOT all that. After reading mountains of praise about beautiful guitarscapes, post-shoegaze gossamer, the rightful follow-up to Loveless, etc., my heart started beating faster and I searched all over Berlin to no avail. Finally, I found it back home, and it's good, but ... come on people.

The five CD random play method has been my listening proceedure of choice during the last couple of weeks. I've been playing one game with it in particular, let's call it the Similarity Game for lack of a better title. Example: I put in CD1 of Aphex's "Druqs", along with work by Bochum Welt and Eight Frozen Modules (plus two other discs which aren't part of the game). When I mashed all of their work together in the random play format, a) on initial listen, I started to forget who is who, b) upon checking the liner notes, I noticed that I the BW and EFM stuff better, causing me to wonder what happened to Aphex Twin's glory years. Who needs Aphex when you have BW and EFM -- they're doing far better impressions of classic Aphex than Aphex is himself these days.

Similarly, Pluramon shared space in the carousel with the "Projekt 100 : The Early Years 1985-1995" compiliation. Stunning, synth-as-guitar-drone material (mid 90's Dubstar also did this well, but in a completely different style, of course) went blow-for-blow against "Dreams Top Rock". Pluramon's album is far more than a curio, it's an inventive experiment that blends guitar, glitch, and the long-forgotten Julee Cruise and it succeeds most of the time. But it's certainly not a classic. As far as being "what MBV should have done after Loveless", Bowery Electric's "Beat" and Third Eye Foundation's "Semtex" have already covered that ground quite nicely.

As for the real thing -- is an Oscar nomination on Kevin Shields' horizon? If Elliot Smith and Eminem can get nominated, then why not Kevin? I'm strongly rooting for "Lost in Translation" for this year's Oscars. Kevin performing on the Oscars would be one of those Surreal Moment You'd Never Imagine You Would Ever See, kind of like Kraftwerk on the MTV Europe Video Awards.