Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

EX-SENSITIVE is Ben Jolen’s love letter to the earth. Oh, wait a minute, I mean to The Earth. That pretty much tells you all you need to know. This is one of these records where The Artiste shares his concerns over the environment as he flies around the world recording his CD, using up great gobs of petroleum and electricity and natural resources to lecture you and me and everyone how we should be reducing our carbon footprints. Dude, my carbon footprint is about to get intimate with your behind. The CD jacket has pictures of The Artiste sitting at his expensive electric keyboard, wondering whether he’s going to compose something or nod off first, and the interior has a shot of The Artiste watching television, while the cover shows The Artiste as a baby with his mother hugging him.

The music? That’s what you’re here for, right? Overblown, self-indulgent, self-absorbed Elton John 1970s pop. You might have heard “Where Do We Go” before --- I think I’ve heard a snatch or two of it on the radio, just before switching the station before I go into insulin coma --- but otherwise there is something so cloying, so irritating about this disc that I wanted to throw it into the skeet pile before I was halfway done with it. Look at the credits…The Shaolin Warriors of Kung Fu Gardens on backing vocals? Where are the happy slappers when you really need them?

Ex-SENSITIVE sounds like the type of parody you hear on SOUTH PARK when they’re making fun of rock stars. I mean, I was hoping that “Just A Little” was a cover of the Beau Brummels’ tune. It wasn’t. I’m either gonna explode this disc in five minutes or open a vein. And I’m out of razor blades. KA-BOOM!!!