My friend Mike tells me that the main problem with popular music today is that the artists take themselves too seriously. Unlike the tuneful rock of the seventies and eighties which was mainly perpetrated by harmless eurotrash and other folks in silly clothes, nineties pop rockers try to carry a bit too much of grunge's chip and indie rock's cred on their shoulders.

Playing a blissful punk pop, a la fellow Californians Green Day, the Ataris rumble through six distortion- ridden pop ditties on their Looking Forward To Failure EP, covering such weighty topics as lost friendship, unrequited love and a fan letter to Claire Danes without an ounce of pretense. Things don't really get very deep here (the title of the euphoric opener "San Dimas High School Football Rules" pretty much says it all), but the junk food chord progressions and overt lyrics are almost inspiring after a long day of listening to the local alterna-pop station.

Alas, a career (or even a movement for that matter) is not made with six songs. Can the Ataris come up with enough three- chord combos to fill an album? Do they have enough tales of lost love for two? Who knows? Who cares. Mike would tell us we're thinking about it too much.

-Neil Lieberman