Music Reviews

We can live with the current album by GORILLAZ, Demon Days (Virgin). At least there are real artists behind this fake band - er, "virtual hip-hop group." Here, Damon Albarn, once again taking a Blurman's holiday, replaces Dan the Automator with Danger Mouse, he of The Grey Album.

We can also live with many of the entries in THE ROCKLOPEDIA FAKEBANDICA (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's), a fun book by T. Mike Childs covering fictional groups and musicians from American TV shows and movies. There's everything from the Ace Tones (Local Hero) to Zorak (sidekick of Space Ghost).

But we're having some trouble with BRATZ ROCK ANGELZ, a line of dolls who are getting their own "self"-titled CD (Hip-O). And we're really teed off (make that "toad" off) by CRAZY FROG, a cartoon based on a ringtone. At a time when the music industry is in deep trouble, this fake amphibian recently topped the U.K. charts - and now it's getting its own CD, too, Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits (Universal). We are not amused.