s I stood in the grocery store line, contemplating the intriguing juxtaposition of housewife magazines (“Lose 30 pounds! Look great for summer!”) and impulse-buy sweets (“New! Twice the filling!”), my gaze fell upon the cash register LCD display, which ran an endless loop of simple ads -- Oreo cookies, Cheez Its, etc -- as it refreshed and displayed a carefully-drafted, brilliantly simple Campbell’s Soup Can. There, in a Medford, Massachusetts FoodMaster, Andy Warhol’s art had been appropriated, reattached to its original context, and thereby drained of its meaning. The soup can was no longer a statement on the sad condition of our consumerist world, it had been taken down from its undeserved pedestal, reabsorbed into the advertising world, where no one would question its purpose -- to sell -- or their purpose -- to buy. Warhol recognized the trend towards an increasingly commercialized world, where consumers would praise advertisements as art and lose sight of the truly innovative, individual works, where creativity would become an industry, and the mechanisms of capitalism would produce millions of identical masterpieces for the teeming masses. But Andy Warhol lost the battle, it seems, and his screen printed testimonial has been reduced to ad-space pixels.


Our society is veering towards a dystopian future where everything is labeled, for sale, and everything from bands to cities become product, and logos take on lives of their own, as if a polished symbol can guarantee a certain level of quality. The result is a culture where quality diminishes, popularity begets popularity, and the cream sinks to the bottom, leaving nothing but homogenized mediocrity for all but the thirstiest sucklers. Some of us are already accustomed to our new lives as statistics, and attacks on our favorite brands affect us deeply and emotionally, and we cannot separate ourselves from the things that we buy. Some of us are so attached, we fail to see the intended meaning of certain sick and symbolic acts, and the fiery crash of one logo into another resonates not as an attack on an economic ideology, but as an attack on life itself.


In a world where every product is marked and inexorably linked to the conglomerate that backs it, factions develop, and brand loyalty reaches quasi-religious levels. Teens refuse to wear anything but J-Crew or Abercrombie, and those whose parents live on more modest budgets are forced to shop down, grudgingly accept the sub-par Wal- or K-Mart jeans, and take a direct hit to their self-esteem as they walk the high school halls with a lesser logo emblazoned on their back pocket.


The music industry is not immune to these trends. The constant war between indie and major -- the battle between art and product -- is waged daily in dorm rooms, on websites, and in “reputable” publications. The consumers are brainwashed; those with no time to seek out “art” are forced to accept the latest chart-toppers as such, and the “indiest” kids suffer because they are deaf to any music deemed popular by sales figures, crying “sell-out!” when a favorite band signs a pact with the perceived enemy.


The debut album from Andrew W.K. is a worthless piece of rock-product, 35 minutes of glossy, overproduced tripe. On first listen (and every time thereafter) it sounds calculated, focus-grouped, engineered. By its very nature, I Get Wet should be the punch line to every self-professed music connoisseur’s terrible-state-of-pop-music quip. Andrew W.K. realizes this. In the numerous interviews he’s given since stepping into the limelight, he acknowledges the fact that his music may be seen as a joke, and immediately shoots down the lofty pretensions. “The idea of a guilty pleasure? That's as mixed-up to me as calling somebody a poseur.” He tells The Onion’s interviewer. "‘You don't like this for the right reasons like I do.’ How awful. And the idea of, ‘I'm so ashamed for what I like.’ If you feel bad about liking something, then you don't really like it.” There’s a philosophy behind his simple words, but it’s a different theorem than that expressed in the album’s strongest tracks.


“It’s Time To Party” sets the formula for the entire record with its smooth combination of flawless punk rhythms, new wave keyboard cheese, and hair-metal vocalization. Having established the fact that it’s time to party, “Party Hard” concludes his first argument: “When it’s time to party / We will party hard.” With the endlessly repetitive choruses of these two songs the message becomes crystal clear.


The album is divided roughly 50/50 between these party-rockers, and musically identical “love songs” such as “Girls Own Love” and “She Is Beautiful.” This is rock and roll distilled, the excess of The Who, The Sex Pistols, but the sober precision of a symphony orchestra. Every note has its place, and there are no mistakes -- mistakes would mean failure -- and there can be no failure when there’s a message to be conveyed. The remaining few songs are a bit harder to classify. “Ready To Die” (chorus: “You’d better get ready to die / You’d better get ready to kill / You’d better get ready to run / Cause here we come”) plays like a warped Army recruitment ad, and “I Love NYC” is a catchy piece of dance-rock, only made surreal by the timing of its release.


Despite the sledgehammer party philosophy that drives most of the record, Andrew W.K.’s true message is gleaned from his interviews. It doesn’t matter if you think this is utter shit, he seems to say -- at least you’re thinking -- and it’s affected you, for better or worse. Once these songs have pounded their way into your head, you can’t help but pay attention. When your attention is focused, W.K.’s sincerity no longer matters. If this is a joke, it’s a brilliant one.