by Arsenio Orteza
Post Date:
May 10, 2003 Issue Date:
May 10, 2003

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Name: WORLD
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The Top 5 best-selling CDs according to Billboard magazine's"Heatseekers" chart, April 26, 2003

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1 WHAT IT IS TO BURN Finch

34 weeks on chart

STYLE What the caterwaul-loving, facially pierced young punk is listening to these days.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW To live is misery ("Let's pray for this suicide / And all these pictures falling down"), to pray is gain ("Everything is silent, I feel disconnected / As words turn to phrases, phrases turn to prayer").

OVERALL QUALITY Like so much caterwaul, it improves when the noisemakers have a little fun ("Ender").

2 SUMMER SUN Yo La Tengo

1 week on chart

STYLE Autumnal alternative rock.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW "You can only hurt the ones you love, not the ones you're thinking of" (possibly "not the ones you think you love") ... "I don't care what's wrong or right if you're not there by my side" ... "I want to make you feel OK right now."

OVERALL QUALITY Pleasant and sweet; just experimental and ironic enough to defuse accusations of wimpiness.

3 DRUNK ENOUGH TO DANCE Bowling for Soup

13 weeks on chart

STYLE Snotty frat-house brat-punk.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL Everything-except for "Where to Begin" and "Greatest Day," the only songs entirely lacking in coarse slang, vulgarity, coarse humor, casual blasphemy, and/or outright profanity.

WORLDVIEW Snotty frat-house brat-punks have a hard time getting and/or keeping the chicks of their dreams.

OVERALL QUALITY "Girl All the Bad Guys Want"-an "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" for the new millennium.

4 WAITING FOR MY ROCKET TO COME Jason Mraz

15 weeks on chart

STYLE Genre- (and generation-) spanning singer-songwriterese at its most hyper-verbal.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL "Curbside Prophet," in which the "rocket" in the album's title becomes the most obvious of double entendres.

WORLDVIEW A pun is the highest form of wit; cleverness is next to godliness (e.g., "We can keep chilling like ice cream filling / We can cool in the gang if you'd rather hang").

OVERALL QUALITY Surprisingly catchy, occasionally annoying, often charming.

5 Y TENERTE OTRA VEZ Pepe Aguilar

3 weeks on chart

STYLE Tejano.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW ?Que voy a hacer sin verte? / Seguro que sufrir. Preferible la muerte, / que dejar de tenerte, y alejado de ti. (Roughly: "What am I going to do without seeing you? / I'm sure to suffer. Death is preferable to no longer having you, to being far away from you.")

OVERALL QUALITY Knowing Spanish helps, as does liking Barry Manilow and Slim Whitman.

Arsenio Orteza

Arsenio is a music reviewer for WORLD Magazine and one of its original contributors from 1986.

@ArsenioOrteza

Bestsellers

The Top 5 best-selling CDs according to Billboard magazine's"Heatseekers" chart, April 26, 2003

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