Listening to Memory Almost Full, I initially thought: hey, this is pretty darned cool. But I soon decided that: no, is really isn’t. My attention wandered away during the album’s meandering second half.

There are definitely stellar moments during the disc’s overarching theme of personal memory, its reevaluation over time, and evaporation upon death. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will satisfy me in the long run. It’s a ray of sunshine on a slightly overcast day, continually fading behind clouds, leaving me wanting for its occasional warmth.

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Oasis was criticized for aping the Beatles at times too similarly, so the Scissor Sisters sound like a mash-up of The Bee Gees, Elton John, ABBA, and Beck on Midnite Vultures. She’s My Man has nearly the same melody of Elton John’s I’m Still Standing, while the infectious, ear-worm I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ is a Saturday Night Fever outtake — more specifically a mash-up of the Bee Gees, ABBA, and Elton John.

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Not sure how exactly this happened, but I sort of got on a French pop kick a while back, starting with Isabelle Adjani’s Pull Marine, moving through Stereolab and ending with Keren Ann. One of the odd offshoots of this genre is April March, a kooky American surf bird, who earnestly sings in French. From what I’ve gathered online, she was an animator on the Ren And Stimpy show and recorded with a band named the Shitbirds. Gotta love this stuff.

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One of my Christmas presents (to myself, in a sense) was the album Under The Covers, Volume 1 from Sid and Susie, better known as Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles). The disc is a collection of fifteen sixties-era covers, which if I stop to think about it, was over forty years ago. Damn, I’m getting old.

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I’m most familiar with Weezer’s “Blue” first album sporting The Sweater Song, Buddy Holly and Say It Ain’t So, little perfect diamonds of mid-nineties indie rock. I’ve vaguely heard other Weezer songs since, like Hash Pipe and Islands in the Sun. After a hiatus when it seems the band pretty much broke up, this album Make Believe arrived in 2005. Has it really been over ten years?

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