For The Record: Jackson Browne

Open your eyes: Jackson Browne stinks on ice.

Of all the crimes ever committed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the 2004 induction of one Jackson Browne has to be way way up high on the list.

Not because Browne has never produced good music. He has some decent hits.

- "Running On Empty," despite being a one-trick, overrated Baby Boomer anthem that loses its appeal half-way through.

- "Lawyers In Love," cheeseball pop song with a awesomely horrid video

- "Tender Is The Night," not bad for corny AM radio slop

- "Somebody's Baby," accidental keeper from the "Fast Times" soundtrack. I'd never turn this off.

But overall this guy is just not Hall material. Or maybe he is based on who gets in year after year after year - lame, White Bread, nothing risky or edgy. He just kind of got the nod way after all the other deserving classic rock radio icons got in, floating in with other garbage like the Millennium Falcon hiding from one of those Imperial Cruisers in "Empire Strikes Back."

Five things really, really, piss me off about this guy:

1) His hair. It makes his head look like a penis. Get a freaking haircut man. It's not 1975 anymore. Even when it was 1975 his parted-down-the-middle mop made him look like a douche.

2) He's in, but yet Bryan Adams, who blows him out of the sky, will never even sniff a fart trapped in the Hall's front door. If you forget that Adams was overly pumped up by MTV as some kind of heart-throb, and pretend that he was really in a band like Big Star or something, then you have to admit Adams had some slammer pop gems. "Heaven" or "Tender Is The Night"? Come on.

3) Allegedly, supposedly he abused actress Daryl Hannah. This is an overblown rumor that is probably not true. But where there's smoke, there's fire, and at the very least Jackson was probably a major-league asshole to her.

4) Aping Bruce Springsteen. The Boss' down-home drawl is already kind of embellished, so ripping off a fake accent has to be one of the most ridiculous rips of all-time. Jackson is not an everyman, not a champion of the people, not a genius chronicler of our times and a voice of a generation. He's the guy who made the music that played when Damone porked Jennifer Jason Leigh in "Fast Times." Now that's Hall material.

5) The chorus in "Boulevard." I heard this kind of OK tune on the radio yesterday, and it is the singular reason why I'm writing this. It chugs along pretty fine in the verse and even pre-chorus - Joe Walsh-ish riffs, typical b.s. Browne lyrics and vocals, etc. Then it gets to that part when, inexplicably, a whole chorus of people come in with that "Nobody, nobody!" refrain. Why? How does that fit the song? This kind of lame shoehorning shows what a hack this guy really is, like you wonder if he hasn't had help all along on his good tunes. Screw you, Jackson Browne. Screw you.