Hi, everybody! Look what hit the record bins today:

   The Verve’s Forth.

   What’s that you say? You’re American?

   Oh, yeah, sorry. I forgot that you don’t care.

   It sure is a pretty cover, though, don’t you think?

   Yeah, me too. I mean, that cover’s almost enough to make me run out and snatch it up right now, not having heard a note of it.

   Totally! That’s not a good or responsible thing to do at all, especially as low as my bank balance is.

   Hahaha! You’re right! It would be hilarious if I spent my last $15 on this Verve album with the pretty cover and not-so-cleverly punned title rather than spending it on cheap canned vegetables and $10 of gas to get me through the rest of the week.

   Oh, American, you’re the funniest person I know.

Again and again, I’m reminded that the world can’t be such a bad place when the Muppets live in it.

Watch and be relieved.

“Habanera”

“Ode to Joy”

It’s Strauss, but they say “Bach”

 On the mash-up side, I never knew Miss Piggy was so perverted! [ audio NSFW - set to Peaches’ “F*** the Pain Away”]

And why not an old classic while we’re at it?

   It’s been a while since I posted about the summer’s best calendar record.

   I figure it’s time to refresh your memory.

   Coldplay’s Viva La Vida (the album) sits at No. 6 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart at the time of this blog. “Viva La Vida” (the song) is also at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Both peaked at No. 1 back in June.

   Not too shabby.

   The single could re-climb the charts now that the band has released two videos for it.

   The first (surprisingly artistic) video is by director Hype Williams.

   The second is a parody of Depeche Mode’s video for “Enjoy the Silence” that might or might not be directed by the same auteur, Anton Corbijn.

   The king-wandering-the-earth concept works surprisingly well with the song’s lyrics about a de-throned royal. Check the original, yos.

   What the Corbijn version does is - finally! - make the band members put down their instruments for a video. I love Coldplay, but the band has done almost nothing but ‘hey we’re playing live’ videos since “Yellow” and “The Scientist.”

   Still, the Hype Williams vid will get more play.

In honor of the reunion tour - plowing into Charlotte this Sunday - I’d like to present you with 10 reasons to love the Stone Temple Pilots:

1. Interstate Love Song
2. Sex Type Thing
3. Sour Girl
4. Plush
5. Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart
6. Big Bang Baby
7. Vasoline
8. Big Empty
9. Pretty Penny
10. Art School Girlfriend Down

It’s OK if you hated STP in the ’90s when the band was perceived as hangers-on to the grunge wave. I invite you to re-listen to the band’s best songs. I’m fairly certain you’ll come away believing what we should have somewhere around 1995 or 1996 - that STP was a tremendous band.

In their heyday, this snob never pegged himself as an STP fan beyond several inescapable radio hits (”Plush,” “Sex Type Thing,” “Interstate Love Song”). After all, this was a band beloved by macho a-holes that wanted to nothing less than my blood on their knuckles. And when I started playing guitar, the only songs every would-be guitar hero wanted to play were Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” and STP’s “Plush” (if they were female budding guitarists, they might also play Hole’s “Doll Parts”).

In spite of the zillions of albums they sold, STP was critically reviled and the band’s street cred was next to zero. I didn’t want to invest much in learning about the music of a band that seemed mechanical rather than musical.

That mistaken view changed when my college roommate, Jim, introduced me to STP’s albums freshman year, which also happened to be the year the band celebrated its “comeback” in 1999’s No. 4 - the first after frontman Scott Weiland was released from prison. It also brought STP its first mainstream hit in five years for the glorious “Sour Girl.”

I recall with detail the first time I listened to those borrowed copies of Purple and Tiny Music: Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, dumbfounded I’d so long missed the point.

Here was a band pulling together so many threads of great rock’n roll with a modern eye. That it did so with the DeLeo brothers’ thunderously inventive riffs and - in Weiland - arguably the best frontman to emerge in the 1990s was as key to the formula as the songs themselves.

And what songs they were: psychedelic, metal and glam-rock at once. Weiland infused elements of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, The Beatles and The Doors into his melodies and harmonies. His stage presence was somewhere between Iggy Pop and Axl Rose.

I was always a sucker for the band’s softer, melodic side. Give me “Pretty Penny” over “Wicked Garden” any day.

When the band announced a reunion tour this spring (rescuing Weiland from the wretched hell of Velvet Revolver), Jim booked us tix for Sunday’s show.
I’ve seen STP in Charlotte once before (fall of 2000, maybe?) but that show is a blur to me beyond Weiland’s stage acrobatics and sitting in Greensboro traffic for more than an hour and arriving late to the show.

I’m ready to relive the past with the 1990s’ best mainstream rock band.

Never thought I’d be one for ’90s nostalgia but, here I come, I come, I come…

Until I woke up with swollen glands and explosive gas this morning. Now I’m sure I’ve got it.

More here.

(Thanks, Onion.)

In 1984 and Animal Farm, he created socio-political horror and dark satire in response to World War II, Nazi Germany and the growing influence of communism in Europe and Asia. (If you haven’t read those two, it’s time to crack the books. They’re on the Snob’s required reading list. There will be a test.)

Now — nearly 60 years after his death and the reams of essays, poems and treatises he published in the 40s and 50s – we get to see what he really thought.

The Orwell Prize and Orwell Trust are publishing the author’s diaries from 1939 to 1942, 70 years to the day after they were written. The blogged diaries began Aug. 9.

Here’s an excerpt from that day:

“Caught a large snake in the herbaceous border beside the drive. About 2’ 6” long, grey colour, black markings on belly but none on back except, on back of neck, a mark resembling an arrow head (ñ) all down the back. Not certain whether an adder, as these I think usually have a sort of broad arrow mark (^) all down the back. Did not care to handle it too recklessly, so only picked it up by extreme tip of tail. Held thus it could nearly turn far enough to bite my hand, but not quite.”

Not exactly the stuff of legend, but interesting nonetheless. I hope to keep track of Mr. O’s scribblings through their completion.

Yeah, sorry. 

If you followed that link - very similar to a message and link I received months ago - you just got Rickrolled.

“What is Rickrolling?” those of you who are a bit too lazy to follow the link and find out might be asking.

Rickrolling is one of the various pop-culture phenomenons birthed by the Internet. The idea is to deceptively link someone to Rick Astley’s terribly embarassing video for his almost equally embarassing 1988 hit ”Never Gonna Give You Up.”

It’s not uncommon to feel anger when those synthy drums and strings kick in. Nor is it out of the ordinary to need to avert your eyes when the lanky, British redhead begins dancing like Carlton from “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

To read more on Rickrolling, go to Wikipedia.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, I’ve gotta get you to see this genius Barack Obama clip that series of tubes, the Internet, has spawned.

Someone actually took the time to create a “Barackroll,” splicing Obama’s speeches into the chorus of the Astley song. Yeah, I had to get this up before Brent got his web-hoarding hands on it.

You can thank me later.

   Brett Favre was about the only guy in professional sports who I actually respected before he retired.

   For all those years - 15 of ‘em - he quietly and unboastfully led the Green Bay Packers to two Super Bowls and set a ton of records.

   When he announced his retirement, even I - the man who hates football and pro sports - got a little misty eyed.

   But today’s lame-o news that he signed with the NY Jets and came back out of retirement - after negotiations and a couple weeks of debate with his homeboys in Green Bay - leaves me deflated.

Favre, oh Favre. I counted on you as a bastion of integrity, decisiveness and at least a semblance of humility.

Yes, you’re a great athlete. One of the best.

But things aren’t going to be the same with you hopscotching to New York.

Where have all the good guys gone?

Apologies first: I should have put up a note about my abnormally long absence from posting here. I’ll try to be better about leaving notice in the future.

I spent the last week in the Western U.S., trekking from Boulder, Colo., to Las Vegas, to the Grand Canyon and back again.

1. Xanax is God’s gift to skittish airline travelers.

2. You might not get to see a rattlesnake in the wilderness. Don’t be too disappointed. There are plenty of cougars around to startle you.

3. Las Vegas is not the place for me. It’s like Disney World in Hell. Too expensive. Too smoggy. Too much traffic. There are so many people you can’t move or breathe, and the air inside casinos smells like coconut ass smoke.

4. The Grand Canyon really is amazing. You can spit into it.

5. Because the Grand Canyon is so amazing, people have decided to throw their cigarette butts and Taco Bell cups and old couches into it. Litterers are awesome.

6. If you ever want to learn French through immersion, don’t spend all that money going to France. Just go to the Grand Canyon, where the official language is French but they’ll allow you to speak German if you’re really nice about it.

7. Forget what they tell you about dry heat vs. the humidity here. Sure, it doesn’t feel like you’re walking through a shower room and your clothes aren’t soaked when you finish a 2-mile uphill hike, but you can’t breathe, either.

It feels like you’re sucking fire and sand.

112 degrees is just too hot for things to live. I swear I saw a fox spontaneously burst into flames while crossing a canyon in Moab, Utah.

8. The Rocky Mountains are so huge that soil type, climate and vegetation can change from one hill to the next. Driving through Utah, you’ll see lush green pines on one side of the road and scorched desert on the other. The shape of the mountains - red and rounded, brown and wrinkled (like a sharpee’s skin), jagged and snow-covered - change nearly as quickly.

9. Micro-breweries rock my face off.

10. Squirrels in the Southwest don’t mess around. They’ll take your hand for a peanut.

11. I’m glad our speed limit isn’t 75 on the interstate. Trying to drive a Durango around mountains at 80 mph. made me pucker.

12. There’s only so much drive time the human body can take. 12 hours is my max.

13. In all honesty, Arches National Park is a little more fun than the Grand Canyon.

14. People are generally healthier out there. I don’t know if it’s because there aren’t as many buffets or that they all think it’s fun to run/bike/slolem everywhere they go. I felt like a slob.

15. Mormons are a little strange.

16. When you tell a local in Las Vegas you’re going to walk somewhere rather than take a cab or bus and their eyes go wide before exclaiming, “Are you sure?” it’s probably best to just take the cab and not try to prove that you’re cool enough to handle a mid-day stroll through Hell.

17. High school friends will always know you better than anyone else (besides maybe your parents).

18. Stars are the bomb once you actually get to places where city lights don’t drown them out.

19. Despite my cynical desire to paint all of humanity with the same self-centered, lazy, dispassionate brush - people can still surprise. Walking up a steep cliff to Utah’s Delicate Arch, it was enlightening to see a British family give one of their two shared bottles of water to a stranger struggling up the side of the mountain alone. The poor guy - obviously not from the U.S. - was in dress pants and a shirt. Thanks to their water, he made it up and back without a medical emergency.

20. Satellite radio = endless entertainment.

21. After a 2,000-mile roadtrip, one should factor in an extra day of rest before going back to the office.

What’s the Mercury Prize? Why, it’s only the most baffling, snobbiest and British-iest award in the industry.

The list compiles the organization’s “12 Albums of the Year” before it votes on the top prize winner. It’s open to all genres by artists exclusively based in the U.K.

2008’s 12 Albums of the Year are:

• Adele - 19
• British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
• Burial - Untrue
• Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
• Estelle - Shine
• The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
• Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
• Neon Neon - Stainless Style
• Portico Quartet - Knee Deep in the North Sea
• Robert Plant and Allison Krauss - Raising Sand
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• Rachel Unthank and the Winterset - The Bairns

What I’ve noticed over the years is that the Mercury Prize voters (whoever they are) always choose a few obscure albums that have no chance of winning, a few “respectable” artists (sometimes the same as ”bigger names” or “perennial critical darlings”) and maybe an album that actually sold a copy or two.

This year’s no-chance album: Burial’s Untrue. The album has no melody, no theme other than creepy, shadowy synths and no real lyrics. It’s essentially faceless. I heard it last December on the recommendation of Pitchfork Media. It was crap.

The perennial critical darlings? Elbow and British Sea Power. Both released great albums this spring, each had less-than-stellar sales despite their greatness, and each have been around long enough to release three or four well-respected albums already. Both of those records will be close to if not listed in my top 10 this year.

The respected artists? Easy. Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’ Raising Sand is a no-brainer here. Also, Radiohead’s In Rainbows. The Last Shadowpuppets contains a key member of 2006 Mercury winner Arctic Monkeys.

The others - well, I haven’t heard them yet. Except for Estelle. Her hit “American Boy,” featuring Kanye West, is being played everywhere right now. It’s pleasant and has the decency to have a melody and coherent lyrics.

Who should win?

My head says Radiohead, but that’s an easy choice and the band has made better records than In Rainbows. That doesn’t mean In Rainbows isn’t grand.

I have to go with my heart, for Robert Plant and Allison Krauss. It’s a record anyone can love. It also features two of the best vocalists around in an unexpected pairing, covering old blues, soul and country tunes with T-Bone Burnett in the producer’s chair. It’s also an effortless listen.

But the Mercury voters also like to defy expectations and often award the prize to unknowns. And they often give it to the wrong artist.

Here’s a list of past winners:

• 1992 - Primal Scream, Screamadelica
• 1993 - Suede, Suede
• 1994 - M People, Elegant Slumming
• 1995 - Portishead, Dummy
• 1996 - Pulp, Different Class
• 1997 - Roni Size/Reprazement, New Forms
• 1998 - Gomez, Bring It On
• 1999 - Talvin Singh, OK
• 2000 - Badly Drawn Boy, The Hour of Bewilderbeast
• 2001 - PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
• 2002 - Ms Dynamite, A Little Deeper
• 2003 - Dizzee Rascal, Boy in da Corner
• 2004 - Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand
• 2005 - Antony and the Johnsons, I am a Bird Now
• 2006 - Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
• 2007 - Klaxons, Myths of the Near Future