
HOME	REVIEWS	ABOUT	WORLD OF WHEATON	FILM PROJECTS	CONTACT
WHAT UP THUG	POLLIES	Q&A	VEGAS SEVEN	POLLYGRIND	LINKS

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

THE BLACK PARADE - MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

Gerard Way cut his hair and dyed it, but that’s not the only thing he changed with the release of this Polly Staffle pick as the 2006 Album of the Year. He’s clean and sober and it shows as his lyrics are stronger and his vocals are better than they’ve ever have been before. From the first track of this CD, New Jersey fantasty rockers My Chemical Romance hope to take you to an alternate Tim Burton-esque universe with Way as your tour guide. The good news is Gerard’s brother Mikey and their fellow bandmates - Frank Iero, Ray Toro and Bob Bryar - roll up in top form to help pull off Way’s theatrics. It’s as if Queen, The Beatles, KISS, Marilyn Manson and Pink Floyd all got together and are performing their own rendition of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It’s dark, it’s funny, there are moments of sadness and the whole thing is so beautiful I can’t stop listening to it. Though the themes on this rock opera mostly deal with death, anxiety, love gone bad, isolation, revenge and neglect, it’s actually more inspiring and empowering than one might expect.

Favorite “The Black Parade” tracks: “Cancer,” “Mama,” which features Liza Minnelli, “Welcome,” which has become my permanent ring tone, and the album’s first two tracks “The End” and “Dead!” that could be singled together like “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions.” (Polly Staffle Rating: ****)

BAND OF THE YEAR

MUSE

No other band makes me want to take on the world like the British progressive outfit Muse. Each and every track on their 2006 release “Black Holes and Revelations” has a do or die feeling to it. Every time they release a new CD, I think to myself, there’s no way they will surpass the last one. Some how they do, adding more elements to their already full blown epic sound. But what really secured Matthew Bellamy, Dominic Howard and Chris Wolstenholme being named Polly Staffle’s 2006 Band of the Year wasn’t the fact “Knights of Cydonia” opens with UFO, galloping horses and laser beam sound effects. It was their album’s bold and politically appropriate opening track “Take A Bow.” Gee, I wonder who they might be referring to in the lyrics. No it’s not Madonna.

“TAKE A BOW”

Corrupt
You’re corrupt
Bring corruption to all that you touch
Hold
You behold
And beholden for all that you’ve done
And spin
Cast a spell
Cast a spell on the country you run
And risk
You will risk
You will risk all their lives and their souls

And burn
You will burn
You will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell
You’ll burn in hell
Yeah you’ll burn in hell
For your sins

And our freedom’s consuming itself
What we’ve become
It’s contrary to what we want

Take a bow

Death
You bring death, and destruction to all that you touch
Pay
You must pay
You must pay for your crimes against the earth
Yeah hex
Feed the hex
Feed the hex on the country you love

Now beg
You will beg
You will beg for their lives and their souls

Now burn
You will burn
You will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell
You’ll burn in hell
Yeah you’ll burn in hell
You’ll burn in hell
Yeah you’ll burn in hell
For your sins

Favorite “Black Holes and Revelations” tracks: “Knights of Cydonia,” “Take A Bow,” “Starlight,” “Soldier’s Poem,” “Invincible” and “City of Delusion.” (Polly Staffle Rating: ****)

POP DIVA OF THE YEAR

CHRISTINA AGUILERA

While Britney Spears spent 2006 posing nude pregnant, having another child, filing for divorce, partying with no panties in Las Vegas and trying her best to top Michael Jackson and Mike Tyson as the greatest tabloid circus act on Earth, Christina Aguilera reinvented herself and put out a damn good pop album. Looking like porn star Davia Ardell in “Makin’ Whoopee,” Aguilera went retro in 2006 to nab Polly Staffle’s Pop Diva of the Year. It wasn’t just her newly found pinup style, however, Aguilera’s 2-disc release “Back To Basics” is a grand album that features strong vocals, catchy lyrics, as well as strings, horns and a lot of old school soul to it. But don’t let the hype in the magazine’s that claim this pop princess has dropped her dirty act for class fool you. She’s the same Xtina as evident with The Andrew Sisters-tinged “Candyman” (“He’s a one stop shop, make the panties drop.”) and the striptease-inspired “Nasty Naughty Boy” (“You better give me a little taste, put your icing on my cake, you nasty boy.”) She’s no Marilyn Monroe, but it’s as if she’s becoming more Jayne Mansfield than her old self, which was sort of like a fly girl Courtney Love. Needless to say, it’s definitely an improvement.

Favorite “Back To Basics” tracks: “Understand,” “Nasty Naughty Boy,” “Save Me From Myself,” “Welcome,” “Hurt” and “Candyman.” (Polly Staffle Rating: ****)

- CCF, January 2007