List Day: 4 Disappointing Albums

• Stand Up by Dave Matthews: This was the album that made me stop buying Dave Matthews albums. At the time, I coined this mission statement for it: "Create a forgettable vamp that repeats every four bars and sing about something arhythmically while your band plays a fifth-grade arrangement as backup. Occasionally throw in a random mix of nonmelodic sounds on a separate track that has nothing to do with anything and call it an "Intro" track. Do not, under any circumstances, call this CD Busted Stuff because that name was already assigned to a CD with the exact same music on it."


• Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon by KT Tunstall: This album was devoid of hooks and vitality, not unlike a wily catfish who has succumbed to oxygen-starving algae blooms. In mathematical terms, if you were to plot a function as music approaches infinite "mellow", it would rapidly approach the limit of "forgettable". I think the double title is supposed to suggest the presence of two albums (double the value!), but the whole thing is so imbued with sameness that it's like trying to find the dividing wall in a duplex only to realize you're in a single-family home.


• The 2nd Law by Muse: This was the ultimate phoned-in album. Matt Bellamy sounded like he needed a good, long nap in every song he fronted, and another third of the album was devoted to breaking out the bassist as a singer (only to sound like Muse trying to be Coldplay or Finger Eleven trying to be Muse, both of which are the worst SAT analogies of all time). The last third could have been a movie soundtrack for any given student film on an undergraduate campus.


• Uptown Special by Mark Ronson: I've been trying to convince people to listen to Mark Ronson for 5 years so I was thrilled that he finally hit mainstream success with (the now overplayed) "Uptown Funk". Unfortunately, this song was paired with an uninspiring, aurally repetitive album full of C-sides that even fans can't enjoy. It's like buying the post-Super Bowl TV slot and then using it to air a pilot for a reality show about accountants.