Cave Zone

I've been down on Robert Pollard lately -- or at least on his recent work -- and if you're looking for song zero, the one to which this antipathy can be traced, it's "Cave Zone." It's a plodding song with no real hook, but I'd forgive that (somewhat) if the lyrics were at all interesting. They're not. If I wanted to hear an old guy complain about the world trying to infiltrate his little man cave in the basement, I'd ask my dad to write a song.

Every time I hear the song (and that's not often, given the lackluster quality of much of The Crawling Distance), I sing my own lyrics, full throated: "Lame song! Someone turn it off, this old lame song!"

I've been an all-or-nothing fan of Pollard's who has stuck by him through thick and thin (I'm still trying to like Nightwalker... really), but the artist, who has issued so many great, boundary-breaking, hook-filled, genre-scoffing tunes that absolutely blew my mind on first listen, positively breaks my heart when he puts out dreck like this.