shakira: is she meant to sound like alanis morrisette? and is this the first time mtv has put a completely spanish-language song into regular rotation? or was that marc anthony/jennifer lopez's "no te ames"? or was that only shown on vh1?

and do people really like pete yorn? i mean, really. i see he has a second video on mtv now; did that first one ever take off? are the video channels just really big fans of his? and, if so, are we meant to suffer for this?

last week, whitney houston's, what, 10 year-old version of "the star spangled banner" (?) was at #6 on the billboard hot 100. this week, it's PLUMMETED to 18, leading me to ask: is patriotism dying down?

and now it seems to me that every plane i see is flying too low.

the strokes! i bought is this it today. after listening to the album, i was struck by how measured the album is. sure, there've been comparisons made to the stooges, v.u., television, et. al., and they're not so off-base, BUT the strokes are like a streamlined version of these bands. every note -- whether sung or played -- is mapped out carefully in advanced. "take it or leave it," for example, seems to aspire to iggy: listen to this track and then listen to something like "search and destroy." hear the difference? "take it or leave it" and, similarly, "the modern age," seem to want to rage but they sound contained, like "search and destroy" itself before it was freed from the cage of bowie's production.

in e-mail, matos complained about the sameness of the tempos and the general sound, and he has a point. i mean, even appetite for destruction had the power ballad in "sweet child o'mine." there's no token "slow" one, and the most experimental the album gets is using a drum machine on "hard to explain." i'm not so bothered by any of this, really. there are 8 great rock n' roll songs on is this it: they're punchy, they're fun, and they're over before you can get bored, ditto the album. few studio albums i've heard in the last few years seem to capture a live feel so well (and i'll find out firsthand if this is the case when i see them at the hammerstein on halloween).

of course, i must register my dismay with the fact that they re-recorded the singles from the modern age ep for the album. (and at the same time, let me make my joy known: here i thought my ep would be a redundancy!) "the modern age" has been slowed down, and now it seems a bit plodding where it was once charging. and "last night" just isn't as good, frankly. the drums used to sound like they hopped; on the album, it's as if they've been fastened to the floor. ("barely legal" alone benefits from its new version.) "hunger," "being hungry," etc. are words i generally despise when used with reference to rock n' roll bands, but here it's perfectly apposite: while the ep sounds like a band desperate for a recording contract, the new versions give off the air of a band high on its own press.

i haven't updated since 9/25. damn!