Both iTunes and Amazon have two versions of the album. One is marked explicit on every single track. The other has edited the one song, and isn’t marked.

I suppose that might have made sense in the old days when an album was only ever sold as a complete unit (with maybe a single or two)…but in today’s digital market, the base unit isn’t the album. It’s the song. If the song itself isn’t explicit, it shouldn’t be labeled as such. That would be like giving Spider-Man an R rating because Sam Raimi also directed Evil Dead.

Some consequences:

• On my playlist, 9 out of 10 songs from this album are labeled [Explicit], but aren’t. They’re perfectly suitable to play around children and people with sensitive ears, but are labeled as if they’re offensive.
• Anyone searching iTunes or Apple for an individual song will see at least two versions, one of which says it’s explicit (but isn’t) and one of which doesn’t — even though they’re the exact same recording. Confusing your customer is bad for business.

Katie and I came up with these:

• Death Crab for Cutie
• Chum-bawamba
• Flounders of Wayne
• Vienna Tang
• Betta than Ezra
• Dace of Base (or Ace of Bass)

Some favorites from the event:

• beano76: Sushi and the Banshees
• shinkaide: Squid Vicious
• MisterElGuapo: No Trout
• ebrown2112: Fleetwood Mackerel
• Caissie: Sharkira
• dominichamon: Kylie Minnow
• ethanwc: Crash Test Guppies
• ThisModernDeath: Ling Cod Park
• earlkabong: Herman’s Hermit Crabs
• znmeb: Pike and Tuna Turner
• AndyJukes: Smelton John
• KenPlume: Mackerel Jackson
• notgiamatti: Jefferson Starfish

It looks like it’s still going on if you’re in the mood for fish puns.

And the error that was printed on my screen
Made me scream
And put aside my work
For chkdsk

We caught Vienna Teng’s concert at the Roxy in April, a few weeks after the album came out. The Paper Raincoat opened for her, and I picked up their EP (and later, their first full-length album).

#2 Vertical Horizon, Burning the Days – After years off the grid (they’re best known for “Everything You Want,” which came out in 1999!), Vertical Horizon finally got back together and recorded a new bunch of songs. It’s not quite as good as the Gin Blossoms’ comeback, but it’s absolutely recognizable as Vertical Horizon and yet still new. (Well, mostly. “Welcome to the Bottom” sounds an awful lot like “Inside You,” though it does have more words.) Musically it’s similar in style to Go (a mix of hard and soft rock), but the lyrics are better, more on a level with Everything You Want.

#3 Butterfly Boucher, Scary Fragile – It’s been about five years since Butterfly Boucher’s last album. We heard “Another White Dash” the first time we listened to Indie 103.1 back in 2004, then caught her opening for both Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, but her second album was delayed by contract problems with her ex-label. As it turns out, it’s very good — Katie described it as the best sophomore album she’s ever heard. It’s a sort of indie rock sound. It was really tough for me to figure out whether to put Burning the Days or Scary Fragile in the #2 spot, but I finally settled on the one that I’ve been playing the most lately.

We saw Butterfly Boucher in concert last June at the House of Blues in San Diego.

From the M.O.D.O.K. Holiday Special.

All this could make it the best show ever or an hour and a half of uncomfortable embarrassment punctuated by moments of hilarity, depending on your taste and frame of mind.

Appropriately enough for a story about fusing different genres together, the show itself is a fusion of two types of popular musicals these days: adaptations of movies, and “juke box” musicals that string together previously unrelated songs by an artist or in a particular style.

Personally, I really liked about 10% of it. I finally started to get into the show during Danny Maguire’s flashback/tap dance sequence and the song, “Whenever You’re Away,” but the rest of it just wasn’t my thing, or wasn’t what I was expecting, or something. The rest of the audience seemed to like it a lot better, though.

Some of my contributions:

• Jefferson X-Wing (I figured it sounded better than Jefferson Death Starship, though someone later suggested Jefferson Star Destroyer, which is better.) #
• Obi-Wan Folds Five (This one actually got a retweet!) #
• Red Five for Fighting #

And Katie’s (Posted on my account because hers isn’t publicly visible):

• Snowspeeder Patrol #
• Augustanakin #
• Seven Mary 3PO #

There’s a ton of entries out there, and it’s still going. Some of my favoirites others have posted:

• pipboy2009: Naboo Fighters #
• DevDell: The Qui-Gon Jinn Blossoms #
• treelobsters: Alderaan Deraan #
• wk_marshall: Peter, Paul, and Mara Jade #