COUNT ON DRACULA

I'm really surprised to see how unwelcome this album seems to be here. Why? Why? I ask as I shake my fists at the heavens and try to remember that there really is no place like home. But really such a low rating for Count on Dracula? I don't understand, but I do have a theory, and that is that very few people actually do the one thing that is required for a pure love bond with this record to occur: I can only assume the average listener doesn't REALLY *trust* the count. I suppose to make such an incredibly assumptive and arrogant statement like this means I must back it up, so I guess I will do that now.

Bullet Point One: This album is given most of it's incredibly heavy weight through the inclusion of three songs. These three songs of heaviness are:

1. Count on Dracula 2. The Rescue (Sometime in the Future) 3. Caterpillar

From the opening moment, the snarling organ, the awesome mixture of hard rock and funk, the absolutely bizarre lyrics that assure you that Bern really does trust the count, all the way through to the very end, this song just plain rocks. And maybe the plainness is what turns off many, I don't know, but I like the rocking rollicking quality of the song and the great vocals. A good opener that will soon be surpassed by probably the best song on the record...

And so the rescue went according to plan/ safe and sound safe and sound....The world is about to be blown up and someone somewhere is doing something to help someone get off it (maybe Ford and Arthur?) but it is a great tune, an excellent rocky almost danceable number that usually shakes my groove thing whether I want it to or not. It is true that the next couple songs are a little less exciting, but are they really? That, my friends, is not for my silly little self to decide because they do all rock nicely, groove ferociously and seem to be pretty wonderful in their own special way. "Pick on Me" was actually the single from the album and that they chose it as their single instead of either "The Rescue" or the (I'm about to talk about and gush all over) wonderful and quite gorgeous in its own way "Caterpillar" is a mystery to me and makes me think that Birth Control's lack of popularity had more to do with bad planning than any lack in the band itself! Because, whoa, what a song "Catepillar" is. Awesome lyrics, great music, a super fantastic better than anything Phil Collins ever made kind of song, that makes people who have never actually thought start smoking (from the ears) and people who have thought too much want to lay down on the ground and hurl donuts at the feet of the Virgin. Or that's what it would be like for me if I ever thought or didn't think.

The last two songs are rather nice if not the epic quality of the three I mentioned earlier. Plus, I mean, really it does have THAT cover...and nothing else really matters.