No more Dean. I guess I can live with Kerry. I wonder if I'll have time to vote for Edwards. Or, um, Kucinich. I also wonder, not for the first time, what the hell is wrong with our electoral system. Not that Dean should have won, but we should all have a chance to vote at the same time. A couple of thousand people in Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn't be able to affect political outcomes more than, oh, say, me.

On a much happier note, Kanye West's College Dropout is great. I've been listening to it a whole lot over the past week or so, and it's totally refreshing. Kanye is really twee, isn't he? And the album reminds me of The Chronic more than anything else, not for its content (obviously) but for the way both albums are put together. They both seem sort of slapdash, not attempts at classically constructed hip-hop albums but statements of presence that move haphazardly from half-finished songs to skits to absolute masterpieces. They're both producers' albums; they're rich with texture and detail and all that fun stuff, and they have hooks to spare. They both have some pretty amateurish rapping. The analogy isn't great - Consequence isn't exactly the next Snoop Doggy Dogg - but I see some symmetry, and I like it.

Another thing I've really been feeling lately is TV on the Radio's Young Liars. I didn't check for it at first because it seemed too Pitchforky, but it really is a great EP. The title track especially is huge and expansive, but it also has a real forward momentum. I can't wait for the full-length.

I'm very happy to report that spell-check wanted to replace "Kucinich" with "juiciness". So do I!