You know, I should learn to just come straight here and rant about whatever it is I plan on ranting about because if I do anything else, like say, check my email, first then I get completely lost and end up talking about something else.

usually.

Not today.

Today we're gonna rant about exactly what I planned on ranting about my entire drive to work.

I bet you think I'm going to rant about traffic. Maybe you were stuck with me behind that funeral procession this morning. You're wrong though. It's fine. I don't know why dead folk are in such a rush that I have to be late for work just so they can get dumped in a hole, but whatever.

That's a rant for another day.

Today's rant is this. I'm rolling around the dial this morning on my way in, which is new. Lately I've been listening to a cd I burned recently over and over and over. You could say obsessively without being wrong.

Because I know at least a few of you will ask: Maria Mena, some Garbage, one Aimee Mann -I could hurt you now (because Crate would want to know), Curve, Cake and Angelfish.

Not the point.

I'm roaming the dial and hear some song I've not heard before, well, that I can remember anyway. It's not a very memorable song. It is in fact, an amazingly boring song. I can't place the voice, figure it's one of the many new singers who sound exactly alike.

The thing is? There is something in my head screaming at me to pay attention to this song. Something telling me that I WANT to like it. Except I don't. It couldn't be less original. It's like the ultimate generic song. I've already forgotten the title and I knew I was going to come in and write about it.

So what then? Why did something in me react to it?

I hit the info button on my radio. It told me the station. It told me the name of the song. It then told me the artist.

Bo Bice.

Now I'll admit I lost interest in Bo after a particularly annoying fan of his left a bad taste in my mouth. I stopped paying attention to what he did and assumed that when his album came out I'd hear him and return to listen.

This Stepford Music was not the Bo I remembered. I was dumbfounded. Could it be that all that time back during American Idol I was blinded by lust? Was I that wrong?

I had to pull out my cd of his idol perfomances.

I still get chills when he sings In A Dream. I still get riled up when I hear Whipping Post.

Essentially I was right back then, he had talent. Sure he needed to work on his breath control, but that was really kinda all. He was exactly what he needed to be.

Then Clive Davis got his claws into him.

He should've just let Clive fuck him in the ass and leave it at that.

Instead Clive shoved him throat first into the rock polisher that is mainstream music production and smoothed out any edge of originality or talent.

I could WEEP.

There was this kid Jacob I worked with once. He had been pulled from a crowd of thousands to be in a new boy band by a boy band producer who is known for creating bands that will hit quick and die fast.

Jacob was chosen because he had this hard edge, but of course, in boy band world hard edges have to be run over with a steep plane until you just have maybe a little spike to your hair. You have to be pre-teen safe edged.

When I worked with them I told him, over and over, this is wrong for you. You have raw talent and you can really make a name for yourself but if you sell your soul to this particular devil you can forget it. You're finished.

He didn't listen. You will never know his name, you will never hear his work and it's a shame.

All this being true, let me send on plea out to Chris, the current shining star of American Idol (which I haven't watched since they sent Mandesa home, and won't watch again regardless of what happens):

Run Chris. Leave this mindwashing behind, this is a cult of soul sucking, talent leeching zombies who want nothing more than to fill the airwaves with pre-digested babyfood of sound.

There. I feel better.

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