Sometimes it's best to stand aside and let a record speak for itself.

"I've got a very goth towel/ A terrycloth cowl/ And when I wear it/ I'm a hairy moth owl."

"I'm iller than the Iliad/ And show more than Shoah/ While you're so corny you've got a SOH-CAH-TOA/ PEMDAS EFX the number one skirmisher."

"I'm advancing the art form/ De-pantsing a fart storm/ Some people don't like thinking/ I guess it's too hard for 'em."

"I bungee jump/ Into my grungy dump/ And come up with a trust fund-y dust bunny spongy clump."

A few more pieces of information to give you a pretty clear picture of what Paullelujah! is trying to say:

1) All of the above quotations are taken from the same song, "Excuse You".

2) The "very goth towel" line actually appears in two songs: the aforementioned "Excuse You" and "Vulture Shark Sculpture Park".

3) The line, "My dandy voice makes the most anti-choice granny's panties moist," from Paul's It's Very Stimulating EP, is repeated on Paullelujah! in the chorus of the song "Cock Mobster".

Nonsensical, awkward alliterative rhymes! Lame-ass mnemonic devices from high school math class! Gratuitous references to Greek epic poetry! Wow, Paul Barman sure is one clever, well-educated guy. He can rhyme words with other words! He's an iconoclast! In a thigh-high condom cast! Building upon the past like Monet painting a pond and grass!

So what exactly is Paul trying to say with Paullelujah? Well, let's see... Paul's rhymes consist mainly of vaguely clever attacks on trendy ultra-liberal types, totally out-of-place references to art and academia, third grade poop humor that would probably lead most third graders to kick the shit out of him, and aimless, self-indulgent wordplay. What can we learn from all this? Obviously, that Paul is a smart fellow! He knows lots of stuff about everything! Hey, he rhymes about John Cage! And rapping about John Cage is like crapping on a fond sage! Or an actor napping when he's supposed to be on stage! Hey, that's more confusing than reading a Jacques Lacan page!

Yes, that's right, it's fun to see how many consecutive rhymes you can construct for a given phrase, regardless of logic and meaning! It's not even that difficult! And when you're done, you're left with that wonderful sense of smug self-satisfaction that you can only get from doing something completely fucking useless.

On Barman's It's Very Stimulating EP, the relatively consistent theme of sex at least gave Barman some kind of focus, resulting in some genuinely funny rhymes. Here, he's all over the place, the only at all constant theme in Barman's raps being... well, Barman himself. It was kind of funny the first time around, when Paul opened his EP with the line, "My brain makes the earth dark/ But I'm hung like a birthmark," but on the unrelentingly self-glorifying Paullelujah!, Barman tries to play both sides, dropping endless, useless bits of trivial knowledge as well as endless, useless references to his endless, useless store of trivial knowledge, while glibly playing up his own weaknesses as an MC.

And indeed, Barman's flow is even worse on Paullelujah! than it was on It's Very Stimulating. He trips up on his own words so much that it's often hard figure out what he's saying. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter what he's saying-- twenty seconds into the record, you'll probably have already stopped giving a shit.

And it's kind of a shame, too, because Barman got some pretty talented producers to help him out on this record. Old standby Prince Paul, modern-day innovator MF Doom, and probable furry Phofo, all lend their production skills to the record. Some of the beats-- most notably MF Doom's contribution to "The Anarchist Bookstore"-- are pretty tight, but any rhythmic complexities present in the beats are immediately bulldozed by Barman's lame and awkward rhyming. It's always been clear that Paul likes to be the center of attention-- and though some of the beats on Paullelujah! are pretty creative, they're always kept repetitive enough that you'll eventually have no choice but to pay attention to Paul's lame-ass rhymes.

I could spend another ten pages going into the specifics of why this album is disastrous, but I don't think that's necessary. Instead, I'll briefly summarize what you can learn from listening to Paullelujah!, leaving absolutely no reason for you to bother with it.

1) Paul Barman is a smart, educated, politically informed guy. He knows stuff about art and math and stuff. And he can rhyme, like, anything. He's probably way smarter than you. Seriously.

2) But he's not like those other smart, educated, politically informed guys. Because he makes fun of them. So he's smarter than them, too. Seriously.

3) But, seriously, don't take him that seriously. Because he thinks poop is really funny, and there are goofy skits and stuff on the record. Hey, remember De La Soul? Didn't they do goofy skits? Didn't Prince Paul produce them, too? Didn't it actually seem relevant back then?

So, in conclusion, Paul Barman has recorded the perfect album for his target audience-- assuming, of course, that his target audience is Paul Barman. I can only hope he enjoys it as much as I do.

-Matt LeMay, November 21st, 2002