BOMB O havoc antiphony molten cleft BOOM

The lead singer of Taking Back Sunday is such a tool.

While waiting for a fish burrito today, I caught the band's latest video on MTVU. The singer tries so hard to be a rock star. Keep flailing about and flinging your mic, buddy. How else will people know that you're a WILD CHILD?

Taking Back Sunday hired (former) Blink 182 guitarist Tom Delonge to direct said video. He's credited as "Thomas." Thomas Delonge. I see how it is. He's mature and shit now because he campaigned for John Kerry.

[pause]

Drop the poseuring, dude. You're no Joseph Lawrence.

Whoa…

010: Trey Parker
"America, Fuck Yeah"
[Team America: World Police; 2004]

Simultaneously taking aim at macho-rock anthems, American jingoism and the theme songs for Power Rangers series, this tongue-in-cheek 80s-style number, which plays as Team America planes zoom out of their Mount Rushmore headquarters toward the Middle East, boosted Soulseek traffic to great heights last October. There's also a "Bummer Remix" for a more, uh, introspective moment.

009: Black Lab
"Learn To Crawl"
[Spider-Man; 2002]

Black Lab released their debut album in 1997. Two songs received modest radio airplay. Then they disappeared, only to resurface years later with an epic thematic companion to a comic book adaptation. The Bay Area band has since disappeared again, but this tightly-spun, post-grunge knockout endures as a testament to their potential.

008: Nelly, P. Diddy and Murphy Lee
"Shake Ya Tailfeather"
[Bad Boys II; 2003]

A few noble souls may still have the willpower to decry the inexcusable and unabated materialism and sexism that reigns in commercial hip-hop, but their cries will remain unheeded until this vile, misogynistic, bling-obsessed music becomes less totally awesome. This particular song is beyond good and evil, too powerful to let most of us to do anything but yield to its bombastic body-moving beats.

007: Elton John
"Tiny Dancer"
[Almost Famous; 2000]

Love songs by Elton John directed at women became highly-suspect kitsch even before the end of his early-70s heyday. His flowery tribute to the blue-jean babies and ballerinas who populated rock 'n' roll's backstage areas and hotel rooms works so well in Almost Famous though that viewers tend to overlook the fact that the band Stillwater averts breakup by collectively singing "Tiny Dancer."

006: Eminem
"8 Mile"
[8 Mile; 2002]

Written from the point of view of his character Jimmy Rabbit, Eminem spits an incredible 1,100 words on 8 Mile's title track. Over a relentless rolling beat, he flows on and on about the desire to make something of himself, one rhyme after the next, for five straight minutes without pause. The result is an exhausting performance worthy of the endless eponymous road.

Saturday: #005-001