“But make no mistake about it: PopOdyssey is not retrogression to pre-irony pop spectacle. It is the dialectical answer to U2’s (and alternative rock’s) attack on spectacle. It is pop in defense of itself … Anyone who saw the MTV “Making of the Video” episode about ‘N Sync’s “Pop” now knows that this is definitely no clean-cut band. If anything, ‘N Sync is losing touch with its audience’s needs, and “Pop” (certainly an inferior single compared with “Bye Bye Bye”), with its lyrics of “What we’re doing is not a trend/ We got the gift of melody,” may ultimately prove to be a case of pride before the fall, of Nero choreographing a lavish, beautiful and thoroughly entertaining dance as Rome burns around him.” – Neil Strauss on the dialectical materialism of ‘N Sync, New York Times, today.
DERBYSHIRE AWARD: “When you look at the state of modern morality, it’s hard to avoid the impression that it’s a sort of photographic negative of the morality of the 1950s. Back then, well nigh everyone smoked and drank. The great majority of citizens thought that sexual promiscuity was shameful, that abortion was a form of murder, that homosexuals were pathetic freaks, that bastardy was a disgrace and that black people were morally inferior to whites.” – John Derbyshire, the one and only, National Review Online.
The Dish 