LEAST ESSENTIAL EGO STROKE PERPETUATED "FOR THE CHILDREN
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Unexpected Dreams: Songs From The Stars (Rhino)
Don't Hollywood stars have enough? It's bad enough that Juliette Lewis and Jared Leto had to go and start rock bands, but this compilation takes the ick one step further, allowing screen actors with halfway decent singing voices to drizzle sap all over songs ostensibly aimed at their kids. (That wasn't actual vomit, just a throw-up burp.) John Stamos (backed, as everyone here is, by the L.A. Philharmonic) takes a stab at a Billy Joel song, Lucy "Xena" Lawless delivers an ode to a newborn, and Nia "My Big Fat Greek" Vardalos sucks all of the mystery from The Beatles' "Golden Slumbers." From the liner notes: "Indeed, this is an anthology of unexpected voices doing unexpected renditions of songs with unexpected depth—a soundtrack to your own unexpected dreams." (Okay, it was actual vomit that time.)
LEAST ESSENTIAL SEQUEL TO A TOTALLY FORGOTTEN RINGTONE-BASED AMPHIBIOUS ARTIST
Crazy Frog Presents More Crazy Hits (Universal)
Those crazy Brits. They gave the world The Beatles, The Stones, and The Smiths, but their charts are consistently clogged with the most ridiculous crap imaginable. For instance, Crazy Frog, which became famous by turning the Beverly Hills Cop theme song into a ringtone. (Chew on that for a second.) Like a parallel-universe Andrew WK, the Frog makes huge party anthems aimed at getting the party started, but doesn't bother writing new material: He (it?) takes digestible stadium-sized hits like "We Are The Champions" and, umm, "Ice Ice Baby," and chews them down even further.
LEAST ESSENTIAL 2PACSPLOITATION
2Pac, Pac's Life (Interscope)
"Am I wrong 'cause I wanna get it on 'til I die?" 2Pac asks on "Untouchable (Swizz Beatz Remix)", the first track off Pac's Life, his latest posthumous cash-in. But the real question is whether it's wrong that he's still getting his new-record-release on a solid decade after he died. At this point, 2Pac has been dead so long that he's less a contemporary rapper than a historical figure like Jesus or Abraham Lincoln, neither of whom have released new albums in quite some time. Granted, Pac's Life isn't quite as inessential as previous Least Essential fixtures The Rose That Grew From Concrete Volume 2 (a second disc of music inspired by 2Pac's poetry) and 2003's remix collection Nu-Mixx Klazzics but a half-ass "2Pac Karaoke" vibe nevertheless reigns as guests like Papoose, Keyshia Cole, and Chamillionaire "collaborate" with an icon who's been dead longer than they've been around. Pac's Life's 14 tracks include two versions each of "Untouchable," "Playa Cardz Right," and "Pac's Life," all of which prove nothing can keep 2Pac from spitting hackneyed gangsta clichés from beyond the grave.
LEAST ESSENTIAL DOUBLE-DIP CONCEPT ALBUM FROM A PRETTY BOY
Tyrese/Black-Ty, Alter Ego (J)
With his jaw-droppingly misconceived new project, Alter Ego teen idol, model, Coca-Cola pitchman, and noted thespian Tyrese Gibson (2 Fast 2 Furious) finally gives the world of R&B its own Chris Gaines: Alter-ego "Black-Ty", a grimy doppelgänger and hilariously pedestrian rhyme-slinger. Alter Ego gives listeners one full disc of silky-smooth lover-man R&B courtesy of Tyrese, and one full disc of generic rap courtesy of this mysterious "Black-Ty" fellow and a roster of big-name guests (Snoop Dogg, Too $hort, Kurupt, David Banner, and many more) eager to prostitute their gifts for a fat paycheck. Let's just hope Tyrese never figures out that when guest rapper Method Man disparages "silly rappers" who are "really actors… yappin' their lips," he's clearly talking about Tyrese, who ends the album with a penetrating three-way dialogue between R&B heartthrob Tyrese, rapper Black-Ty, and movie-star Tyrese Gibson. Self-indulgentastic!
LEAST ESSENTIAL OBLIGATORY AARON CARTER ITEM
Aaron Carter, Come Get It: The Very Best Of Aaron Carter (Jive)
Aaron Carter has been a staple of The A.V. Club's Least Essential Albums features from the beginning: Our "Least Essential Album Of The '90s" featured the younger brother of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter losing to French toddler Jordy in the Least Essential Album By A Minor category in spite of the NAMBLA-friendly packaging of Carter's self-titled debut. Since then, such albums as 2000's Aaron's Party and 2001's Oh Aaron found their way into Least Essential-dom. Then… silence. Carter has kept busy with tabloid romances (Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan fought over him), the reality-show House Of Carters, and such hit films as Supercross. But sadly, his days of Radio Disney superstardom are now the stuff of wistful nostalgia. But at least we can relive such Least Essential pre-teen R&B love odes and questionably flowing hip-hop favorites as "My Internet Girl" ("she's my best-kept secret… My Internet girl!") and "That's How I Beat Shaq" ("O'Neal, you're in my house now!") on Come Get It. It promises Carter's "very best," and it delivers, to the tune of 12 tracks that barely top the 40-minute mark. And it comes on the heels of the more generous, 16-track 2003 collection Most Requested Hits, which only confirms Carter as a Least Essential king.
LEAST ESSENTIAL ALBUM OF 2006 (THE YEAR OF THE FISH IN THE BARREL)
Kevin Federline, Playing With Fire (Federline/Reincarnate)
Okay, it's easy to kick a man while he's down, but K-Fed—ahem, Fed-Ex—has crafted an album so ridiculously overblown and awful that its worthlessness is actually noteworthy. Playing With Fire is packed tight with clumsy rhymes delivered as if by an actor who's only superficially studied hip-hop. A backup dancer—for the likes of Pink, 'N Sync, and of course the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Federline, Britney Spears—Federline has zero street cred, but he comes on like a real Compton G. (When he brags, "I got 50 mil / I can do whatever I want," though, he sounds suspiciously like Eric Cartman.) It'd be pointless to single out bad lyrics—they're ubiquitous—but the big picture is hopeful: America has voted with its wallets, and the world's most blatant fauxmie (that's faux-homie) has been kicked to the curb, saleswise. Next stop: The Surreal Life? Let's hope so.
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