DOG/STAR? YOU DECIDE

Scary headline of the week: "Keanu Reeves Sings The Carpenters." Apparently, Happy Ending, the upcoming album from his band Dogstar, features a cover of the Carpenters' "Superstar." I shouldn't be allowed to read such things before lunch. In any case, a superb cover version by Sonic Youth already exists, on the If I Were a Carpenter tribute album. And then there's always the original. All together now: "Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby?"

BANANAS

I got to see Woody Allen! I got to see Woody Allen! So what if that has nothing to do with music (although his use of Gershwin songs in Manhattan was a lovely touch for a lovely movie)? I'll be Soman for a paragraph and use my column to talk about anything pop-cultural... speaking of which, does anyone have the "Party of Five" finale on tape? My VCR was set to tape "Dawson's Creek."

Didn't "Dawson" used to showcase new songs? Didn't every episode end with a voiceover going "this episode of Dawson's Creek featured music by" such-and-such a group? I think I remember one episode that had music by Letters to Cleo, which was a pretty decent group to showcase. What happened to all that?

MMM, MMM, BOP

The Hanson brothers have a new album out. Who knew that they'd become the elder statesmen of boy bands? Who knew they'd be the only boy band to actually be a band? (See that picture of their lovely piano.)

Before I get another complaint about being completely biased against boy bands, I should mention that I don't have anything against purely manufactured groups. I really did like Take That before they broke up, for instance. I just don't think the Backstreet Boys are any good. And don't even get me started on 'NSync.

Aside: who is buying the Cypress Hill album? How is it number 4 on the Billboard charts?

BETTER OFF

Since we're on the subject of bad music, I've noticed that DJ Jurgen and Alice Deejay's execrable European hit "Better Off Alone" has finally hit American radio, thus returning to torture me for another few weeks (it was played everywhere in Singapore when I was there during winter break). The song has turned some ears obviously, since I've been getting requests to play it in my DJ sets. How much do I hate it and its basic Eurotrance-by-numbers beat? How many words for "cheese" are there? Bleu cheese, cheddar, Brie, Camembert, Parmesan. And I haven't opened my thesaurus yet.

POP GOES THE WEASEL

Jimmy Pop, lead singer of the Bloodhound Gang, recently wrote a story for British gay porn mag Homosex. This seems like a radical increase in sensitivity to sexual orientation from a man whose video for "Bad Touch" (the "do it like the Discovery Channel" song) featured apparently gay French men attacked by monkeys. But don't be fooled. In his let's-trade-one-offensive-stereotype-for-the-other defense of the video, Pop (presumably no relation to Iggy) claimed to Britain's NME that it wasn't an attack on gay men. "They weren't gay men, they were French men." Ah, so it was merely an attack on nationality. That makes it all better then.

But then the Bloodhound Gang hasn't exactly been a model of ethnic sensitivity. To quote "Yellow Fever," off the One Fierce Beer Coaster album, "Cause I ride my slant-eyed slope like a brand new Kawasaki/Oh me chinky she's so kinky got me hot like Nagasaki." Best form of protest for a group that seems to like controversy? Don't write letters, just leave the dance floor every time you hear any of their songs. And pull your friends off.

FINALLY-IT'S-COME-TO-THIS

Yes-I abuse hyphens.