Artist: Broken Social Scene

Album: Forgiveness Rock Record

Reviewer: Calum Marsh

Cokemachineglow, 2010

Writing Disorders: Scorn Disease, Idea Fever








Most Emo Phrase: “a sense of gravity that it doesn’t really carry on its own”

Irony: “insisted on inflation and indulgence so stubbornly”




Calum, I like your name. I can address you as an Amish man, rash ointment, or sexual plague without even saying so. Versatile.

Let me use a phrase so many of you do. To be fair, I was two snaps away from thumbing someone else’s 1,700 word review. She had a university spoon so far up her bottom, she actually footnoted her opinion of a Hole album. Even if you didn’t win that brown ribbon in bare knuckle fluffing, Calum, you still grabbed an honorable mention in the smug tug. Down this nine mile review, you laid down points an editor could have fit in fortune cookies.

Smear an art pucker tight as yours over too much space and it starts stinking quick. Take a whiff, Calum. You dealt it, so it’s only fair you smell it. These are your first words:

“That’s a contentious little rating perched up above this text…”

So right out of the gate — first move — you shout about treating music like we measure consumer confidence or oil life in modern cars. Percentages. I’m intrigued. Tell me more.

“(it’s)…the lowest this record has received from a professional criticism outlet by Metacritic’s count, and so let’s just acknowledge upfront that the position I’m defending in this review is an unpopular one.”

Dude, what is this? You tooting your own horn? That a horn I hear? What kind of man demands acknowledgment with his first sentence? Calum the Magnificent? I ain’t acknowledging figs, you fop.

And clear me on something here, son. We talking the same Cokemachineglow that serves 5 page reviews in point-11 font…on one goddamn page? What kind of meal is that? A hard to read meal is what it sounds like. This the same “professional” site that couldn’t get one of six editors to blot your pee stain down to maybe a thousand words? I don’t know what’s worse, Calum: refusing to whittle something that long, or actually editing down TO that length.

What was so brilliant you couldn’t spare one 95-word sentence in the explanation? You spent a third of the review braying like a mad ass about people only liking this album because it’s by Broken Social Scene. Same could be said about any album by any band if you’re cynical enough to see it. Thank God it only took around 900 words for you to finally OD on U2 demerits and your love for Ryan Dombal. Then I was lucky enough to spy a couple mentions of the album under “Record Review” in your heading:

“Forgiveness Rock Record doesn’t provide anything interesting to talk about in and of itself”

Right, and your first six paragraphs were diamonds in the dung. I’m sure right now Pulitzer’s applauding your decision to smother the only two songs mentioned under half a paragraph devoted to defining “pop.” You name more songs from previous BSS albums than the one you’re supposed to be reviewing. If that’s not putting corn in the hole, I don’t know what is. And as if rewriting the Magna Carta about an album wasn’t bad enough, you berate a battalion-sized Canadian indie band for not being minimal enough:

“musicians who continue to prove themselves unable to let a good idea breathe”

Now while you’re munching leafy greens to boost the irony in your blood, I’ll say this, Calum. Regrettably, I couldn’t locate your submission to “Canada’s Sex-Enthusiasts’ Journal” so alas I couldn’t learn the right way to let a good idea breathe. If breathing means writing something longer than George Clooney’s eulogy, I’m glad the whole world isn’t hooked on hyperventilating. Next time you’re itching to spread Calum, just skip to the infection.

I’m late for work.