ALBUM REVIEW

Wire Tap

This is Wire Tap

This classic by unauthorized rock gods Wire Tap, who rule the heavy surveillance genre, has been rereleased to coincide with a new Congressional report revealing that the Bush administration, like the band itself, straddled a fine line between clever and stupid.

Rockin’ loss-of-privacy anthems like “Tonight I’m Gonna Bug You Tonight” and “(Listen In On) What the American People Are Saying” are joined by a new track about Dick Cheney’s concealment of a secret counterterrorism program from Congress (“Saucy Dick”).

Changes in digital technology since the album was first released have not only made it possible to overhear U.S. citizens, but for fans of this album to finally decipher the vocals. These lines from “(Funky) E-Mail Farm Woman” are now clearer than statements by Alberto Gonzales:

Working on an e-mail farm

Spying on your re: line

I’m your MAILER-DAEMON

Poking your smiley face emoticons

Wire Tap is working on a new power ballad, “Scary Memo,” about a C.I.A. “threat assessment” which the White House used to authorize wiretapping, because it was alarmed by a paragraph about future terrorist attacks that was inserted by...the White House. The national security equivalent of saying “These go to 11.”

According to the Congressional report, most intelligence officials “had difficulty citing specific instances” when wiretapping contributed to successes against terrorists. Yet the program, like Wire Tap itself, lumbers on with no end in sight. So listen to this album, or better yet, listen in while someone else is listening to it.

– Dr. Lester S. Carboni

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The Recalls

I see you driving down the street

In your car or truck

Your brakes don’t work

Your gas pedal is stu - uh uh, uh - uck

Here it comes again

Unwanted acceleration under the starry skies

Here it comes again

The CEO’s going to apologize

My best friend’s Toyotas

My best friend’s Toyotas

My best friend’s Toyotas

They used to not suck

(The gas pedal’s still…stuck)

– “My Best Friend’s Toyotas”

The Recalls are a new hybrid of two new automotive genres, Japanese decline and American malaise. Whereas previous artists such as Chuck Berry and Bruce Springsteen celebrated the romance of the automobile and the call of the open road, the Recalls sing of faulty electronics systems and sticky floor mats.

Songs include “Let the Complaints Roll,” “Bye Bye Lexus,” “You’re All I’ve Killed Tonight,” “Just What I Bleeded” and “I’m in Touch With Your Customer Relations Department.”

This is the Recalls’ first CD and also their last, because all CDs have been recalled as well as the Recalls themselves.

A spokesman for the group said, “You have my personal commitment that we will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the trust of the people we have the most contempt for. I mean, our customers.”

– Dr. Lester S. Carboni

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