The Sugarcubes
The Great Crossover Potential (Elektra)
by Nik Rainey
The Adventures of Nik Rainey
Semi-Hemi-Demi-Professional Critic
Episode Two: “Use Your Allusion”
Intro: Next Exposition, Please
I’ve been hanging in a state of languid flux for weeks now – what the Catholics used to call “Limbo” before they closed it down, claiming all the bending backwards was too hard on their backs. Whatever sense of purpose being a music critic once held for me was lost, elusive, and as hard to grasp as a greased supermodel. All my efforts to expunge the worthless and overwrought parts of my syntactical psyche had merely left me hoarse, confused, and with paper cuts the size of the Marinas Trench from trying to speed-read my thesaurus in search of the fabled Lost Synonym for “Throbbing Bassline.” My pseudonym wasn’t much help – he pretended to indulge my misdirected soul-searchings for a few pages, then dropped me like a hot potato salad in the lobby of who he claimed was one of the world’s foremost authorities on critics’ block before ellipsing into oblivion in the back seat of a newspaper taxi with the crossword puzzle already done, incorrectly and in indelible ink, no less. Truthfully, that’s not exactly what happened, but I don’t care and I haven’t seen Jimmy crack corn in some time, although his half-brother Marty has been spotted around town breaking peas. Oh, Christ… get me out of this intro, somebody…
“Fine, then –The Sugarcubes, The Great Crossover Potential (Elektra).”
“Well, you know we were getting desperate for leper messiahs when we started looking for them in Reykjavik. We love our noble savages, don’t we? So much so that when the bayou dried up and the dole queue thinned out, we start combing dojos or even, in extreme cases like this, alighting on far-flung islands even the Norsemen wouldn’t touch and picking out elfin eccentrics with page-long surnames and first names that sound like a piece of salt beef being dropped into a vat of paraffin. Björk! But we’re a fickle lot, aren’t we, or maybe we’re just lazy – stamping our feet, pleading and cajoling at first: ‘Mommy, Mommy, I want that Icelandic pop group for Christmas!’ But once we get it, we realize it’s too much work – having to clean up all that messy imagery all the time, can’t get that tuneless Fred Schneider-type to quit yapping, and all your stuffed animals start chasing after the lead singer – until, even though they keep doing the same stuff that endeared them to you in the first place, the novelty wears off and you wind up putting the whole litter to sleep, except for the smallest, cutest one, which you relegate to a corner, smile at occasionally when it does funny tricks with your newer, trendier acquisitions – ‘isn’t that cute, she’s trying to get my hip-hop and my old Broadway show tunes to mate’ – but mostly just keep around as a prestige item to impress your friends before you head off to the mall to buy whatever new, disposable American-made item is getting used once then thrown away the following week. Not the happiest state of affairs, but as long as you keep that busted Third Eye Blind away from the almond-eyed nymph in the corner, it’s a circumstance you can live with. Anyway, I get the impression they came along at the right time – I doubt they’d get away with something like ‘Birthday’ in our current climate.”
“Because of the pedophilic implications, you mean?”
“No, because of that ‘they’re smoking cigars’ line. Have sex with minors and sew butterflies in their knickers if you must, but for heaven’s sake, don’t teach them to smoke!”
