COURTESY MAXIM You mean it's really not about the music?! Danish model Berit Bech's likeness is featured all over "Maxim Rocks!" a music compilation from Maxim magazine.

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Review by Gary C. W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.com

"Maxim Rocks!" Various artists UTV Records

In answer to your many feverish phone calls and e-mails on why the Star-Bulletin doesn't feature more female pulchritude, the lass on the left should satisfy all those men (and women ... I mean, who knows?) who'd rather skim than struggle with blocks of text.

That is, unless that text is offering you the opportunity to "learn a new vocabulary that tests your sports IQ and your sex life," or how to score some "new sneakers that will take you from the track to the nightclub" -- the usual fare from Maxim magazine.

The perfect accompaniment to gleaning this knowledge -- next to a beer -- is this CD, blaring away on your stereo speakers. But you expect more from Maxim, don't you? Well, the babe factor is filled out by pix of Danish model Berit Bech (downloadable, of course). And if you're one of the first 150,000 to buy this CD, you'll get a bonus disc with a demo version of the "NHL 2003" video game from EA Sports.

It'll be party time every time when you put on this slammin' CD. In all seriousness, this is a damn fine collection of tunes, starting with the one-two wallop of Andrew W.K.'s "She is Beautiful" and Saliva's "Click Click Boom."

There's more choice headbanging material here -- Theory of a Deadman's "Invisible Man," Hoobastank's "Pieces" and "Bullet (What Did You Sell Your Soul For?)" from Injected -- but, just to show some unsuspecting girl that I can be "sensitive" whenever it suits my needs, there's some melodic stuff right in the middle, like that big Ryan Adams hit "New York, New York" and a couple of tunes by Greenwheel and Rubyhorse with the girly titles "Breathe" and "Sparkle."

The rest of the CD's filled out with the best of older guys like Jerry Cantrell, Queens of the Stone Age and, fer Chrissakes, Bon Jovi, plus good songs from TRUSTcompany, Unwritten Law, Something Corporate, New Found Glory, Box Car Racer (Mark from blink-182's sideband) and American Hi-Fi.

But the song I relate to the most is Stroke 9's "100 Girls." It goes "100 girls or maybe more/who left me passed out on the floor/I know it might be wrong/I had to write this song for a hundred girls/and hundreds more."

Yep, life's tough when you're getting too much action, you know?

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