THAT'S WHAT I GET FOR ACTUALLY BUYING MUSIC: Buzzed past Best Buy last week to pick up recent releases from two of my favorite artists, Morrissey and Lloyd Cole. Yes, I'm a child of the eighties. Lloyd has made a few good ones in a row, especially that last one with The Negatives, and Morrissey has this whole massive media push behind him again, so I was nothing if not optimistic about both records. Sadly, five or so days later, I'm not feeling great about either record. The unformed sense that keeps playing in my head is that both guys have come to understand their own brands so well -- Morrissey is the petulant, almost bitchy ne'er-be-happy, and Lloyd is the hopeless romantic with a taste for poetry and red wine -- they almost sound like they're covering themselves.

The production on the Morrissey record is uneven, with one song sounding bright and treble-soaked and the next one awash in guitars and blurry, compressed midrange. Oh, and I can't say I care how Moz feels about American politics, so there's that. He says something like "until the president of the United States is Black or Hispanic or Gay you've got nothing to say to me." Okay, great. Forget about democracy, we'll just appoint a deserving minority. Thanks, Mo!

The Lloyd record is, in a word, subdued. His vocal range seems to have been reduced to four or five notes, and where there was once a kind of piss-and-vinegar attitude we're now left with something more like salad dressing, nicely blended but not so special as a standalone item.

I'm hopeful the new Bee Gees compilation, purchased on the same trip, will deliver more bang for my music-buying buck.