And before that...

After reading your line about hitting "a mono button" on a receiver to listen to the songs, or asking why anyone would even want to hear the songs in mono immediately made me realize that you are completely clueless. To be honest, I used to go around with the same attitude. "Oh, rock critics say Pet Sounds is so great, so everyone has to like it, blah blah blah," and already loathing the Beach Boys made me say a lot of the same things that you did. However, I finally grew up and decided to give it a real open-minded listen to see what the big fucking deal was. After the fifth listen, I can honestly say that it became my favorite album of all time. I'm assuming that you have not REALLY sat down and listened to it, because if you don't think it influenced many artists, then the amount of music you've been exposed to has to be very sparse. Well, that's all I have to say. After reading your comments, I couldn't resist some kind of retaliation. I hope that you will some day grow up (although I doubt that will happen after reading the name of your email address) and stop showing your musical ignorance by hating everyone that enlightens you, helping you to understand why Pet Sounds is the best record ever made. I'm sure you'll rip me apart after reading this. Oh. Ouch.

[Unsigned from someone with "newwave" in their email address]

To be honest your tone makes me want to be nasty, but you're actually right, and someone far more kind and interested in helping -- rather than hurting -- has already explained to me why hitting the mono button is not the same as listening to the mono recording. And I had a discussion with them that led me to decide I was wrong to put it down, and that I should take a few more real listens.

Not that I have done so yet; it's kind of about 75% of the way down an "items to download/purchase and on which to spend some time scrupulously developing an informed opinion" list that exists in my palm pilot (abbreviated for palm shorthand irritation alleviation as "Music") which I really haven't been consulting as much recently cause i'm just using the quick and dirty to-do on calendar.yahoo.com, so you can see how, while my intentions are good, the task ended up lost in the fray.

Another option, of course, would be to take down that entry as it no longer reflects the officially sanctioned Mary Chen Opinion, but I always have trouble taking down things I've written because that feels dishonest, like I'm hiding my mistakes and deliberately crafting an inaccurate personality for the benefit of an audience. I could have just annotated it, but that involved the work of sitting and writing all this out like I am doing now, and when it comes down to it, it wasn't a priority, and I forgot. Which I have done with a number of other entries I later changed my mind about. I should really take some time to go through here and correct stuff, but... shite. Who the fuck has time.

Luckily, your testy email reminded me that I never recanted on the topic so I'll recant now:

I have no opinion on Pet Sounds because I have not listened to it enough to form one, and chances are I was just taking out some job frustration on that poor, nice record that changed all the people's lives. So I'm sorry, record, for hurting your feelings. And I'm sorry, people with the changed lives, for doubting you reflexively.

And while my mind's on it, I'm also sorry about being snotty to the Creationist, because it would have been much more constructive to engage in a dialog with him. Cause at least he was pleasant to me until I provoked him. It wasn't very Christian of me.

I'm trying,

Mary

P.S.: You don't think diarrhealand is funny? I think it's funny.