Remember when artists, while sitting down to sequence their new album, would front-load it with the better tracks or the singles? It got ridiculous at times, and could occasionally unbalance a record, but the reasoning was sound.

And this was in the days when people would sit down and take in a record as a whole. Why, when the album-as-album idea is struggling, do so many of them let their record limp through the opening tracks?

Take the new Gorillaz one, Plastic Beach. Once you hit track 4, the gems come in a nearly unbroken string; but how many will get to track 4? I think some of the sniffy reviews it’s received have something to do with this.

Mind you, nothing else on it can match "On Melancholy Hill"; mind you, nothing much can. It's in the "This Is A Low" league.

Now, the Drive-By Truckers, there’s a band that knows how to kick a record off—Christ, their new one's good. (With the traditional flat patch two-thirds through, of course.)