I like The War Against Silence because glenn, unlike many other music critics, is personal and unguarded when he discusses an album, as if he were writing about a good friend. However, friends betray you, or worse, get in with the wrong crowd. glenn takes it personally, and writes about it. For a good example, take the following searing accusation at A&M Records for screwing up Vanessa Carlton’s debut album:

But I don’t blame Vanessa for any of this. Look at her, she’s just a kid. You fuckers at A&M, you’re the ones I blame. Look what you’ve done to this poor child. She learned to play piano and sing, and she wrote her first world-class pop song when she was still in her teens, and what do you do? Do you leave her alone and let her mature into the real artist she might (might) have the potential to become? Are you patient enough to find out? Did you learn anything at all from Alanis’ two horrible dance records? No. No, you didn’t. You look at a child, and you see a sweet back-loaded puppet and you have meal-ticket taste. You find a piano player and you give her Christina Aguilera’s producer. (And let her take an executive producer credit on her own debut album.) You surround her with people who give bad advice and can’t leave a simple good thing alone, and when they’re done with her, you have a shitty record that bears her name and nobody’s soul. You make records like this, and then you wonder why kids would rather download the single than buy the album? You’re pleased with yourself, because you think there’s going to be a backlash in favor of Authenticity soon, and she doesn’t dance in her videos (a crowning irony: your Authentic non-dancer is a trained dancer), but a) there’s not going to be, and b) if there is, this manufactured garbage won’t spare you from the mob for a second. What? You care about her as a person and an artist? Fuck yourselves, look at the shoes she’s wearing in the picture on the back cover. Look at the photo on the second-to-last page, in which she’s huddled in a corner while an orchestra full of adults works on something she’s barely needed for. Would you have done this to a grown-up, or a boy? Maybe you would. You should be flopping around on the soft floors of your miserable offices, choking slowly towards death on your own regurgitated shame.

Here’s the entire review. I happen to agree that “One Thousand Miles” is one of the better things you might hear while subjected to our local pop station (G105, or “gee-one-more-time”). I guess the folks at A&M Records wanted to insert her into the Tori Amos Play-Doh Fun Factory and see if they could score some big payola.