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I celebrate the guy's entire catalogue

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One of my favorite parts of Office Space is when the consultants named Bob talk to the character named Michael Bolton. The Bobs are smarmy douchebags; naturally, they love the singer named Michael Bolton. One of them says, “I celebrate the guy’s entire catalogue”. That line has haunted me for years.

So I was thunderstruck to see Josh Haun use it when discussing his status as Danzig’s #1 fan. That takes cojones. Mr. Haun is willing to defend every piece of music Danzig has ever done. That includes “slow song Danzig”, “dance club Danzig”, and “way-too-tight mesh shirt Danzig”. As I said, balls the size of church bells.

Of which metal artists do you celebrate the entire catalogue – against all good sense? You can’t be too cool for school and name bands with perfect records. You don’t get any points for celebrating Nasum’s entire catalogue, because they never screwed up. You do get chutzpah points, however, for sticking with Metallica through thick and (lots of) thin. Or supporting Celtic Frost so faithfully that you would wear a giant Cold Lake backpatch. Or publicly defending Blaze Bayley-era Iron Maiden. You get the gruesome picture.

For me, two bands can do no wrong, despite clear evidence to the contrary. The first is Prong. What’s that, you say? Nu-metal? La la la, I can’t hear you! The second is Darkthrone. Yes, I will stick up for the later stuff, the never-ending conveyor belt of lo-fi “metal punk”.  Admittedly, sometimes I want to tell Fenriz, “Could you guys at least try a little? Maybe spend more than two days on an album? Or at least as much time on the music as on the liner notes?”

But, yes, that’s me buying my one CD a year, which is always the new Darkthrone CD.  It’s because of the damn liner notes. At this point, the music has almost become bonus material. If Darkthrone were a hip-hop duo, they’d be FNCMD: Fenriz and Nocturno Culto Making Dollars. My dollars. I practically have them on retainer.

— Cosmo Lee
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