(from the couldn't-resist department,
with apologies to Adrian Belew)
I do remember one thing.
It took listens and listens but
by the time I was done lambasting it,
I was so involved, I didn't know what to think.
I carried it around with me for days
playing little games
like not listening to it for a whole day
and then listening to it
to see if I still thought it sucked.
I did.
Yes repeat themselves under writer-block stress.
The more I listen to it,
the less I like it.
I do think it's poor.
The fact is
no matter how closely I study it,
no matter how I piece it together,
no matter how loud I crank it up,
It remains impotent.
(I wish I hadn't bought it so soon after it first came out because then I decided to get the European Tour Bonus Disc Limited Edition which has live versions of the only two tracks that I feel are passable, and even though the performance is less than stellar I enjoy them because I've always been a sucker for bonus discs with previously unreleased live tracks - and Steve looks good in the AGP video - but now I have wound up with a spare copy of The Ladder which, the name notwithstanding, does little to get me in high places but only manages to bring me down instead - maybe, who knows, because I wanted so much to love it in the first place yet the Ladder was not as high as my hopes. The poster's cute, though.)
Don't like it!