I have now listened to Tinted Windows' amazing debut album -- brilliantly titled "Tinted Windows" -- for the very first time, and so after due consideration, I am now willing to answer the pleas of a blogging nation and weigh in on perhaps the great debate of our times. Yes, Virginia, I will compare and contrast these two promising rock groups and once and for all decide which one of these bands really is Bigger Than Jesus.
For the record, here's how I reached my reasoned judgment:
As I see it, The Cute One in Tinted Windows is Taylor Hanson, arguably the most fabulous of the Fab Three in Hanson. For the Beatles, Paul McCartney is the Eternally Cute One in the Beatles, but the more and more dashing Ringo Starr must now be considered an increasingly Cute One too. Two Cute Ones beats One Cute One, at least without a stimulus package.
To their credit, Tinted Windows features the excellent Bun E. Carlos, a member of good standing from Cheap Trick, arguably the second greatest group ever produced by George Martin. Yet here too the Beatles edge out Tinted Windows by featuring Ringo Starr behind the drums and by being the first greatest group ever produced by George Martin . . . or Phil Spector . . . or anyone else for that matter.
"Kind Of A Girl" -- the fantastically infectious first single from "Tinted Windows" written by the group's brilliant Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne and Ivy -- is actually getting airplay, an amazing achievement for a track that sounds more like my blessed Raspberries than Lady GaGa. However, my research suggests that here too those upstarts from Liverpool take the lead. Apparently, the Beatles have already reached the toppermost of the poppermost, and will rise even further when their remastered catalog reappears later this year. Advantage: Fabs.
Tinted Windows get added credibility for featuring guitarist James Iha, a former member of Smashing Pumpkins -- a group that helped define alternative rock. Unfortunately for Tinted Windows, I have just been informed that it was John, Paul, George and Ringo -- and some guys named Elvis, Fats, Chuck, Richard, Bo, Buddy, Phil & Don -- who helped create the alternative to rock in the first place.
And so, by the power invested in me by the Huffington Post, it is hereby my official duty to declare that it is those lovable moptops the Beatles who remain eternally Bigger Than Jesus. Tinted Windows are perhaps comparable in size to Jesus, but no larger or wider. On the other hand, Tinted Windows does appear to have one Jew in the band - which by reckoning givesw them another tie with Jesus.