There are some crap albums out there, and working in a record store, you get to hear a lot of them. I don't mean just your run of the mill Nickelback crap either, I mean stuff that is either completely unknown and you wouldn't even remember it if it weren't so rubbish; or stuff that comes with so much hype and baggage, that turns out to be completely unwarranted. Like, the Knife. After months of selling Jose Gonzalez' album Veneer on the back of the Knife-penned single Heartbeats, we were pretty excited to get Deep Cuts, the Knife album containing the original, if only to hear what that song would sound like in synthpop form. In Gonzalez' hands, it was a vulnerable, beautiful little thing, frayed at the edges and barely there - much like the rest of Veneer. Unfortunately, the Knife's album was so hilariously bad it made us laugh, not cry. Synthesized steel drums do NOT belong in electro-pop.

Intrigued by the reviews, I thought I'd check out their follow up Silent Shout anyway, which was a waste of iPod battery life. It sounded like it was made with software from 1992, and I half expected Paula Abdul to appear at any second - what came was worse though. It seems the Knife bought a pitch shift pedal sometime since Deep Cuts, cause there's barely a vocal on it that isn't drenched in it. The woman's shrieking didn't really need to be any higher, and the guy's voice didn't really need to be any lower.  It's as if they took the patches marked 'alien' and 'Darth Vader', and fucked them up so bad in the name of 'art'. Sorry to say this, but it wasn't that funny ten years ago when we were teenagers with brand new Zoom 505 pedals and $20 microphones doing the same thing, it's still not funny, and it's still not art. If I'm laughing, it's cause it's amusing so many hipsters are buying into this crap.

Or not buying. Truth is, we don't sell jack of this stuff that 'everyone' is meant to be so into. I think that about sums it up - no one is buying these albums, so there's no one out there to let others know they suck... So if the marketing and image are right, presto. You've got yourself a hip band it's not okay to hate on.

I checked out the CSS album, based on the awesome first single Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above. Oops. It was rubbish too. I suppose it appeals to 19 year old art students, cause I'm pretty sure I used to like this kind of stuff when I was one, but (a) that was 1999, and (b) I also liked Atari Teenage Riot and Devo's Shout album. Besides, Bis did their whole schtick better, and with far more humour, ten years ago. Maybe if the two bands switched places in time my attitudes to each would be reversed? Maybe. But that's what's so awesome about having an opinion. It doesn't have to be rational.

Shit, I've gotta get to work.