Hell, I'd go. I'd ask if he could play songs written by other similar bands mentioned here and sheepishly apologize when he said he didn't know those ones.

Next up is Linkin Park's My December.

I liked it, but I was also 14 years old and liked Counting Crows. I don't get how adults signed off on it.

Live wrote a song called "The Dolphin's Cry." What else needs to be said?

The downfall of musical society is easily "All Star."

They're not bad at generic popcraft; I think the problem most people have is their obvious lack of authenticity.

Ed and Dean Roland are brothers, but I had to look that up. Will Turpin sticks with me over the years for reasons I don't understand. Probably because his last name is "Turpin."

I was playing a lot of Phantasy Star IV when I first dove into this album. So the two are forever linked in my mind. I played the game a few years after release and only got into this album after I'd already heard (and somewhat enjoyed unironically) "Disciplined Breakdown". Which, upon retrospect, is exactly the kind…

I don't think so. Hell, I used to know all of their names.

That's because Shine should be retitled Shit.

Yeah, I have a few tracks cherry-picked from their greatest hits myself. Shine is not one of them. What a plodding, boring bullshit song.

December is a good song. Collective Soul is much like another band on the list, Better than Ezra, in that they were dedicated to trying to stay current more than anything else, but both bands had some decent songwriting (though I fall more on the side of BTE, whose second album is solid).

Ugh. Gel is so awful. That atonal "uh huh uh huh uh huh". And the lyrics- "Let's mingle/ And make it well/ Let's come together/ Yeah let's gel."

No, keep it down!

I still don't know what TekWar is/was.

It's just like suffocating.

I have a black cat too, named Nicodemus, and I love when he does that arched back stretching thing because it looks exactly like a thousand pictures of freaked out black cats we see every Halloween.

I have never understood anyone's childhood crush on her ever.

He does. There's also a short story he wrote that continues Shadows "adventures", such as there are.

They started out more as oddities than anything, but the songwriting on the last two albums is as good as anyone's - and I mean that. Like, two fantastic albums, back to back. Cannot wait to hear this one.