Hi everyone. As you are all undoubtedly aware, I was arrested at gunpoint last Wednesday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and I am now facing a federal criminal charge by the United States Government of copyright infringement, after allegedly hosting a stream of 9 Guns N’ Roses songs, for a brief period of time in June.

As a result, many old friends, new enemies, creepy strangers and reporters have been cramping my style; Asking questions, offering to help, threatening to injure / kill me, wishing me luck, wishing that I rot in jail for the rest of my life, hiding in my bushes, et cetera.

While many have been spending the past fourteen years begging for Chinese Democracy, I’ve been waiting eighteen years for NKOTB’s The Block (1993’s Face The Music doesn’t count, because it was a piece of shit- like Guns N’ Roses’ Spaghetti Incident in ’94), though a comeback album wasn’t always in the works.

When The New Kids On The Block went on the Magic Summer Tour in 1990, I was there. It was a birthday present to my mother– that’s how in love I was with NKOTB. I was there at Dodger Stadium in a handmade shirt that read “I love Joey!!” even though Jordan was my favorite. Long story short, my older sisters called dibs on all the other New Kids until only Joey was left. We certainly couldn’t have duplicates.

Christmas morning arrives. You stumble excitedly down the stairs in your jammies, and your leaping heart cracks three of your ribs, puncturing your lungs as you see that long, rectangular package under the tree. You ignore the blinding pain and lunge for the box, figuring you can get in a few songs before drowning in your own blood. But as you tear open the wrapping paper, the realization that you’ve been swindled in God’s name sets in. This looks like Guitar Hero, but it’s not Guitar Hero. It’s Guitar Praise.

Your final gurgling moments are spent clawing at your mother’s face, spewing a sputtering mess of blood and words that sounds like “blurrrgh… cheap… gurruuurgmother… fuuurrglefucker!” You fall. You will never get to play the one thing that may have saved your rotten, sinning soul.

I have a problem. It’s an ugly habit that is destroying my life. When everyone else hates an album I love, a syndrome kicks in- its severity proportionate my peers’ collective hatred for said album- and I find myself compulsively determined to convince everyone that they’re wrong, that they just need to give it a truly objective chance.

Forgive me, but I am unable to stop loving The Distillers’ 2003 album Coral Fang.

While the rest of the nation was watching Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination in Denver, Radiohead was in Santa Barbara, CA, bringing their international summer-long In Rainbows tour to a triumphant, if subdued, close. The biggest band in the world proved last night exactly why they can give their album away and still be a wild success; they’re maniacally passionate about what they do, and the authenticity of delivery matched with sheer instrumental genius lifts them head and shoulders beyond the lion’s share of arena bands out there.

Radiohead proved once again last night that they’re atmospheric pioneers in a purgatorial electronic landscape, where the running theme is delicate despair with bursts of angelic optimism. Whether they’re pushing industry envelopes, making crazy laser beam videos or simply blowing minds and dropping jaws with their music, this band is undoubtedly among the best of our generation.