Once upon a time, Graham Smith was a very happy man. At the tender age of 19, his Ponyoak album was garnering rave reviews from music critics worldwide and earning him a solid fanbase with its combination of anthemic pop hooks, clever lovelorn lyrics, and lo-fi recording charms. Graham went to Japan, where he became very popular, with throngs of underage pointy-featured Japanese girls throwing themselves at him.

Graham was very happy, indeed. But one thing still nagged him: while he was never hesitant to give himself full credit-- naming an album Graham Smith is the Coolest Person Alive, and naming himself alone in the thank yous of Ponyoak-- there was one member of his band that he had yet to give the slightest credit to. This vital entity had not only recorded all of Ponyoak, it was also responsible for sequencing, arranging, and countless other essential tasks. Graham Smith had never thanked his computer.

Though his computer couldn't express its resentment directly, Smith could tell it wasn't pleased. The Cakewalk software he'd been using to record began causing general protection faults to the point of inoperability. Smith tried to appease the beast by thanking it regularly for its kind work, installing a shiny new DVD drive, and even spending five hours on the phone with Microsoft tech support, who told him that, to appease the temperamental bugs in Windows '98, the software would require a major software update and "the sacrifice of two virgins, pure and true."

Sadly, Smith was without a fast Internet connection, and all his friends were skanks. But he got the feeling that even obeying the orders of the Microsoft tech support guys would not quell the violent machine. From weeks of careful observation, Smith had finally decided what the computer wanted. Like any dejected-feeling band member, it just wanted to sing.

At first, Smith was a bit unsure. It was, after all, his shaky, crackly vocal delivery that had helped make Ponyoak such a success; he just couldn't imagine a computer taking on the intensely human emotions he depicted in his songs. And suddenly, a lightbulb went off in Smith's mind: "I know," he said. "I'll record some songs about love and stuff that I'll sing. Then I'll mix them into a trite, fucked-up, occasionally funny but generally dull plot that somehow involves a computer. What's more, I'll make the computer say funny things. Like 'fuck' and 'cocaine.' Fourth grade was fun."

And so, Smith set about to record The Smith Album, a two-disc set that he hoped would set things straight between himself and his computer. Sure enough, the computer worked without a hitch. But in the time it took Smith to conceptualize The Smith Album, he'd forgotten to write the actual songs for the record! Fearing that the public would probably not respond well to an album that came off like a twisted hybrid of RZA's Bobby Digital and an Adam Sandler record, Smith sat down and wrote a bunch of mid-tempo, largely acoustic songs to flesh out The Smith Album.

While some of the finished songs, like the hook-propelled "Reunited Airlines," made Smith genuinely proud, he couldn't help but feel that the rest of the songs, which broke down mostly into either goofy, upbeat pop numbers or mellow folky acoustic tracks, just didn't live up to the widely varied songwriting he demonstrated on Ponyoak. And his attempts to augment the album's sound with a plethora of synthesized sounds did little but cover up the weaknesses that once developed in his songwriting. His computer was happy, though, and he'd been promising his fans a follow-up to Ponyoak for what seemed like ages. Feeling pressure from man and machine alike, Smith released the album to his eager fans, and hoped for the best.

Well, this eager fan is not pleased. Despite clocking in at a bloated 87:47, The Smith Album contains fewer actual songs than Ponyoak and nearly none of the inspiration. What's more, the skits surrounding these songs just make them seem even weaker-- after a while, the egregious amount of filler on The Smith Album leaves you simply not giving a shit, and causes many of the songs that would otherwise seem heartfelt and sincere to just fade into ambiguity.

But there are moments of sharp-witted humor-- an in-joke about the frequent Guided by Voices comparisons, and the presence of a female computer virus named Melissa. As the album's packaging suggests, though, The Smith Album registers more like an action flick than an album. Sure, action flicks can be good for a few cheap thrills, but when's the last time you wanted to see one twice?

-Matt LeMay