Contrary to what you may believe, it's hard to achieve a ranking this low. Your friends at Pitchfork have an 87.9% successful suckage spotter. And though there are occasionally some oversights-- both artists and critics have bad days-- we're ultimately on your side, kid. There are some things you shouldn't have time or money appropriating. In fact, there are (and I believe this, deeply) some things you just shouldn't have to hear.

The Push Kings' Feel No Fade is rife with unanswered questions. Like, for example, why a mediocre indie pop quartet hates its audience so much that they would compose and construct this travesty. Or the reasons why the record label green-lighted its release-- mental fogginess due to drugs? Perverse and damaging sense of humor? Mob threats? It's anyone's guess. But they better have a pretty fucking good excuse.

I really wish I had never, ever heard this.

The thing is, I've been in a pretty good mood lately-- ordinary ups and downs of life notwithstanding-- and summoning up the mass of vitriol necessary for eviscerating this album the way it should be has required a considerable sacrifice of peace of mind on my part. I figure this for a humanitarian gesture. Save yourself. This album is so awful it hurt my feelings.

Feel No Fade is appallingly glossy, insipid, vacuous cheese-puff pop music. So bad it warrants negative musical comparisons to such luminaries as Third Eye Blind and Matchbox 20. Apt description would necessitate me believing that there are more offensive and grotesque lapses of aesthetic judgment than the entirety of Rob Thomas' career. In order to convey my physical reaction to this album, I'd have to draw up analogies to eating tablespoons of mayonnaise on an empty stomach after drinking a six-pack of peach flavored wine coolers. And frankly, that's not a leap I'm terribly excited about taking.

The supposed ideal audience for this album currently lives on a lackluster block of neutral-toned tract mansions in the suburbs of some forgettable, brass-and-glass, corporate banking metropolis. Her name is Ashley. She is thirteen years old, and has recently become disillusioned with Britney Spears. She dreams of turning sixteen years old, so she can get a brand new bubblegum pink convertible, no, jeep, no, convertible, with fuzzy leopard print seat covers and a matching cell phone. And perhaps, she can get a fun job at Abercrombie and Fitch for the employee discounts and access to "like, totally hot college boys" on summer break. She already knows which sorority she wants to pledge Freshman year of college, and thinks Creed is "a little too hardcore for me."

Somehow or another, her best friend (and captain of the Junior High Cheerleading Squad) gets passed a copy of Feel No Fade, and it becomes the soundtrack to Ashley's life. Her long-suffering, indulgent yuppie mom is forced to play track six, "Honey Come Closer," on the way to school every morning so her daughter can bounce along and imagine "totally hot" (but nothing below the neck) romantic encounters with guys that look like Pacey from "Dawson's Creek." Ashley and her friends paint their nails at slumber parties and choreograph amateur dance moves to "Beat Girl (and Me)." And she knows all the words to "Summer Trippin'," and pulls her boombox into the bathroom to sing to the cute "doo-doo-doo" chorus while showering. And sometimes she stands in the bedroom mirror wondering if her stomach will ever be as thin as the tanned, tattooed female torso which serves as the cover art for Feel No Fade. She thinks maybe she would like to date one of the Push Kings.

Unfortunately, sometime around Ashley's fourteenth birthday, her interest starts to wane. Maybe the sparkling clean, sugar-coated guitar line in "Rocket N' Time" starts to sound a bit tired on the 400th listen. Or maybe, despite their best intentions, the Push Kings fail to interest the geniuses in charge of soundtracking the next WB teen drama. Or maybe she starts dating her next-door neighbor-- a barely post-voice change fifteen-year-old boy. He introduces her to Jimmy Eat World, which, compared to the Push Kings, is deeply complex, profoundly moving, seriously hardcore, and fraught with dangerous sexuality.

I usually think pure pop music is unfairly scorned. It's what it is: an idle, easy upper, analogous to pixie stix or cake icing. It can be addictive, but that's usually tempered by our collective inability to digest that much sugar without uncomfortable side effects. Even the most pretentious music snob can be counted on for the occasional foray into the pastel-hued and candy-coated. Ignore their impossibly lame defenses and justifications; pop music is great because you can like it without really having to explain why.

That being said, Feel No Fade makes a strong case for strict eye-for-an-eye justice, allowing all unwilling victims of its soul-sucking, commercial banality the privilege of publicly shaming their favorite Push King. There is absolutely no excuse for this shit.

-Alison Fields, January 14th, 2002