I’m like Bob Dylan: I don’t look back. I refuse to consider anything that happened in 2003, because those days are over. Oh, I realize that there were fragments of noteworthy events over the past 12 months (tigers attacking magicians, tigers living in Harlem apartments, the war, etc.), but as far as I’m concerned, anything that occurred yesterday might as well have taken place when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Those who ignore history are not doomed to repeat it; those who ignore history are destined to dominate the future with extreme prejudice (almost as if they are cyborgs sent from the future, programmed to become governor of California and possibly to kill the star of TV’s Beauty and the Beast). Tomorrow never knows, but I have a few suspicions. Here is everything important that will happen in 2004. This should save us all some time....
JANUARY: The year begins with a systematic realignment, which ?is always nice. On both the mouse-infested sidewalks of New York City and the snow-swept parking lots of Los Angeles, everyone is reflecting on the same refrain: "Long hair is back." Suddenly, every lead singer in America is trying to look like Chris Cornell circa 1991 -- except for Chris Cornell, who keeps trying to look like the grunge Clark Gable. Slaughter and Blue Cheer reenter the Billboard chart at No. 56 and No. 119, respectively. My Morning Jacket begin to sell 200,000 albums a week. Cultural pundits widely credit the follicle comeback to the Darkness, who respond with the single "Long Hair (Oh Yes, We Have Started the Renaissance)." They insist this song is not ironic.
FEBRUARY: The first great video of 2004 is released by the Strokes. "Between Love and Hate" portrays the Strokes (and Drew Barrymore) as a rogue New York City street gang trying to make it from the Bronx to Coney Island via the subway. Along the way, they battle an all-girl gang called the Lizzies (predictably portrayed by the Donnas) and a group of Louisville Slugger-wielding thugs called the Baseball Furies (inexplicably portrayed by Boards of Canada). Sadly, the plot loses momentum when the band emerge from the subterranean chaos at Manhattan's Union Square subway station and spend the next four hours in a Virgin Megastore.
MARCH: A new Weezer record debuts at No. 4, primarily because Rivers Cuomo is completely in step with the current fashion: He sports shoulder-length hair, a full beard, and -- somewhat strangely -- a monocle. The album, Second Cumming, is an angry rock opera, loosely based on the critical reaction to the Mel Gibson film The Passion. "I couldn't relate to the subtitles," Cuomo later admits. "It was cooler in Aramaic."
APRIL: The hip-hop reign of 50 Cent ends with the emergence of Leopard Slaya, a 16-year-old Omaha-based rapper whose debut album, Everyone I Know Is Already Dead, sells 116 million copies on its first day of release. Slaya is adored by the youth, partially for his hyperkinetic rapping style but mostly for his harrowing insights about "life on the street." He freely admits to having been struck by rocks launched from a medieval catapult on nine separate occasions (including once in the face).
MAY: Britney Spears continues her film crossover as the star of Southern Fried Chick, the story of a Louisiana teenager named Britney who becomes a teen pop star and then attempts to cross over as a film star in a movie called Southern Fried Chick. Spears insists the film is not autobiographical. Eyebrows are raised by the soundtrack, which includes the super-sassy Spears track "I Know You Want to Fuck Me, But You Can't Fuck Me No Matter How Many Times I Imply That I Might Possibly Let You Fuck Me." Spears says the single "shouldn't be sexualized" and is actually about "being free" and "feeling like a woman, which is always okay."
JUNE: "I Know You Want to Fuck Me, But You Can't Fuck Me No Matter How Many Times I Imply That I Might Possibly Let You Fuck Me" finally loses its seven-week stranglehold on TRL, replaced by the new Beyonce Knowles single, "Ka-Boom." The video for "Ka-Boom" features the actual detonation of a nuclear weapon in Syria.
JULY: In an interview with Kerrang!, Lars Ulrich claims that Metallica never actually cut off their hair when they made Load. The guys in Live grow back all their hair and promise to "get back to writing songs about placentas." Hair returns to Broadway (with Jack Black starring alongside that naked chick from Swimming Pool). Ryan Adams becomes a spokesman for Aqua Net and joins a summer package tour with Poison, Vinnie Vincent Invasion, Kingdom Come, and the re-formed Warrant 96. He blows them all off the stage (well, not Vinnie Vincent, but almost).
AUGUST: In the ultimate mash-up masterpiece, infamous hooligan Freelance Hellraiser melds the super-hot Britney single with a forgotten Smiths song, dubbing the track "You Know That Joke Where You Said You Were Going to Finally Let Me Fuck You But Then You Still Didn't? Well, It Isn't Funny Anymore." Metallica respond by suing Morrissey.
SEPTEMBER: Every blogger in the world agrees to simultaneously blog about the new Radiohead B-side ("Oxyacetylene Otter") on the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks to prove that the terrorists have (still) not won. Unfortunately, the agreement accidentally inspires a flash mob. Blogging ends forever. The terrorists win.
ROCKTOBER: No one is hurt more by the so-called big-hair revival than Billy Corgan, whose post-Zwan solo project is thereby doomed. As a career alternative, Corgan pursues poetry, releasing a 448-page tome titled Soundless: The Future of Sound. This is immediately followed by the 884-page Everything Written Is a Dream Once Forgotten. Neither goes platinum. Corgan elects to reunite the Smashing Pumpkins as a Mountain tribute band. Meanwhile, Fischerspooner break up, citing "creative similarities." The terrorists win again.
NOVEMBER: America has election fever! Polls indicate that Wesley Clark has a slim lead over the incumbent. But everything changes the day after Halloween, when George W. Bush suddenly drops Dick Cheney as his running mate and adds Jack White to the ticket. "It's sad to see young kids today -- they're sitting around listening to hip-hop or nu metal with a Sony PlayStation and a bong of marijuana," White tells The New York Times Magazine (again), immediately establishing himself as the voice of family values. A surge of GOP support in Detroit delivers Michigan's critical 18 electoral votes to Bush, swinging the election in his favor. White promises to push for the elimination of air-conditioning. "Why not just use electric fans?" he asks. "They work better than air conditioners because it's authentic wind. Sometimes you have to realize that technology is hurting you. Air-conditioning stops things from being real." Meanwhile, Bush explains that the war in the Middle East will last only nine more years.
DECEMBER: Axl Rose releases Chinese Democracy. It's awesome. Subsequently, China becomes a democracy. It's merely okay.
