FHM magazine surveyed 100,000 people online for their best album album of the past decade (1994-2004). Radiohead's OK Computer came in 6th. Here's the full list:

1 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
2 Oasis - (What`s the Story) Morning Glory
3 Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
4 U2- All that You Can`t Leave Behind
5 Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
6 Radiohead - OK Computer
7 Coldplay - Parachutes
8 Prodigy - Fat of the Land
9 Blur - Parklife
10 The Verve- Urban Hymns


In ten years there are only 2 albums that will still be on this list, Radiohead's 'OK Computer' and Eminem's 'The Marshall Mathers LP.' If I had a vote or two, I may have put The Bends ahead of OK... but then it's really great apples and incredible oranges.

But now here comes a rant: Me and my wife (she wasn't then my wife) were at a pub in Paris in November 2001. She was supposed to come to the States (she's from Finland) but after 9/11 she didn't want to fly here (can you blame her?). So we used that excuse to spend a week in Paris. It rained all week but I think that's part of the allure of Paris in the fall. We got some nice days, spent a lot of time in our hotel room (across the Seine from the Notre Dame above the Shakespeare and Company Used Book Store, yeah that one). We drank a lot of red wine that week and ate a ton of falafel in that little Amsterdam-like nook called the Latin Quarter (the 5th arrondissements for all you bourge bastards). One night we took a little trip nearer Marais. We found the previously mentioned pub that happened to have a pool tournament happening. I was with mun dearest so I opted not to whoop ass (that's right), preferring to coo with mun rakas over vin rouge et bière. What does this have to do with a stupid survey about albums in the last ten years you ask? Well you impatient troglodyte I'll tell you.

We were sitting on stools in the empty section of the bar. Watching this disturbingly arrogant frenchman strut around the table as if a crowd was forming outside of the bar to watch him miss the five ball in the corner pocket. If there was ever a person who thought he was being videotaped by a million hot french women in heat (mmmm. hot french women in heat. i digress) with their tongues hanging out and pantiless, better yet wearing a garter belt and rainbow colored suspenders. So. back to the survey.

The music that was playing was Californication by the Chili Peppers. It's an ok album at best that has a few catch lines that are repeated with a most annoyingly nasal cacophony. It is the most overlistened album of the past decade for sure. Anyhow. Before I go on my Chili Pepper rant, the bar wound up playing the album three fucking times in a row! The worst part about it was that people were still singing along, especially that cocksucking megalomaniac that lost his first game of pool televised on "Vouz Deux Cool TV." So. Here I am, an American tourist in Paris (not ugly American, some could debate that though in Rome when I got plastered and stole a scooter and drove around town the night Roma won the championships, or in Prague when I had three shots of absinthe before we went to the bar -- the same night I met my wife!) So. Reticent of the stereotypes of the self-important American in Paris, my hatred and impending insanity required action. Pronto. So, quite anti-climactic, I asked the bartender to change the music and she did. That's it.



I performed Under the Bridge in high school with some of my friends. We played two nights in front of like 600 people or so and I sung that tune. We were obliged to play some semi-poppy tunes that our peers knew and that is always a classic. I certainly could not hit any of those notes right now.
But the Chili Peppers... sure the video for Under the Bridge was cool (except for the jello pectoral interlude) but the majority of their music borders on annoying. They are unquestionably influential in music, for better or worse, and Flea is the best bassist since Les Claypool. But I was never able to understand the insanity that some fans had for Anthony Keadis. okay.