Most Popular

  • Sexual Healing
    Sad stories and otherwise freaky tales from Florida's last sexual surrogate
  • Backbreaker
    A half-kilo of blow, machine-gun blasts, and a millionaire chiropractor. Does this make sense?
  • To Hug a Porcupine
    Three little boys set out to destroy the parents who loved them. This isn't how adoption is supposed to work.
  • Switch Hitter
    Before swinging a bat in a lesbian softball league, pick a side. Gay or straight? Or something else?
  • Unfinished Business
    A son denied becomes a festering campaign issue haunting Commissioner Eggelletion as Election Day approaches

Recent Articles

Recent Articles by Rob Harvilla

National Features >

  • SF Weekly

    Identity Plagiarism

    A blogger steals someone else's life story and calls it her own.

    By Ashley Harrell

  • Westword

    Fuel's Gold

    How William Orr's quest for better, cheaper gas became a crime.

    By Alan Prendergast

  • The Pitch

    McCain Girl

    I worked at Kmart with John McCain's director of strategy.

    By Alan Scherstuhl

Say Anything

By Rob Harvilla

Published on April 03, 2008

In Defense of the Genre, Say Anything's 27-song, two-disc quasi-concept album — which is twice as long and nowhere near as good as its predecessor, 2004's Is a Real Boy — is about Max Bemis' struggles with drug abuse and his very public bipolarity. (He was busted in NYC last year for screaming obscenities at passing schoolchildren, spitting in random ladies' soup, etc.) It's part of his deal, his arc, his art. (The last song on the first disc is titled "Sorry, Dudes. My Bad." It is addressed to his bandmates.) This is his therapy; we are his couch. Genre, as a consequence, sounds like you'd expect it to sound: hilariously overindulgent, borderline psychotic, wholly unnecessary, occasionally sort of fantastic. Overall, the whole thing is merely OK, except for the later stages of the second disc (around when they sample someone — assuming it's Max here — vomiting), which are just fucking terrible. But that's what you get when you allow Say Anything into your world. Good music at the expense of sanity.

Show Pages