Perry Farrell’s Satellite Party

Ack! I’m totally traumatized. What on earth happened to Perry Farrell? OK, I realize he’s almost 50 but this Ray Davies-meets-Bryan Ferry-meets-the wardrobe assistant from Purple Rain-look is just too much. Maybe he’s been morphing into this for some time and I didn’t notice… It would be less embarrassing if he was still sporting the braids and SoCal surfer thing (like Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks – who’s older but still manages to keep it real). The personal styling is bad and the music on Ultra Payloaded isn’t much better. "Insanity Rains" sounds like a band trying to sound like Jane’s Addiction (and reviewers are heralding this song??!!) and the version of "The Solutionists" is vastly inferior to the identical "Revolution Solution" on Thievery Corporations’ Cosmic Game (which is not the best T.C. offering, but certainly better than anything Satellite Party is cooking up…) . Despite all the negatives, I do like "Wish Upon a DogStar" which leads off the album – but a penchant for slick production and heavy bass lines has been a character fault for a long time now…