Chastity Belt, Bong, Ken Doll: A Rock Critic's Mail

"You get the most interesting mail."

You'd be surprised how often one of my colleagues says that. Of course, what the postman brings them is typical reporter stuff - news releases announcing National Mini Golf Week and the like - whereas my mail is usually full of CDs, cassettes and promotional videos. There's a lot of it, too; a 60-album haul is actually considered a slow week in the rock-critic biz.

This particular pile was larger than most, though. Having been out of the office for a week, I was spending a couple of hours catching up on my mail - not answering it, just opening it. What I was finding, though, went beyond the usual array of artist bios and new releases.

For instance, someone had sent me a chastity belt. That's right, a chastity belt. Another package held a box of See's Chocolates, while a third contained a copy of Al Gore's book "Common Sense Government." There was also a St. Anthony Prayer Candle and a Sparkle Beach Ken wearing a green Malibu Barbie dress.

As I put Drag Queen Ken next to the black leather chastity belt on my desk, a co-worker walked by, and gaped. "You get the most . . . interesting mail," she said.

Yes, I certainly do.

Why would anybody send such things to a music critic? Why, to get him to listen to their album, of course. So over the years, all sorts of odd things have turned up in an attempt to direct my attention to this album or that. A pair of Groucho glasses, complete with fake nose and mustache, to remind me of "The American Comedy Box." A ballpoint pen packaged like a hypodermic needle to make me think of Ice Cube's "Lethal Injection" album. A mock Campbell's soup can to promote the 3 Mustaphas 3 release "Soup of the Century."

Why do record companies go to such extremes? Are they really that desperate to get a critic's ear?

In a word, yes.

"Look, you guys are inundated with music," says Larry Jenkins, vice president, media, at Columbia Records. "You've been given electronic press kits, computer press kits, straight-ahead press kits, advance CDs, bios printed on funny paper, but basically, it's all the same. It's all variations on the same thing."

So when a record company wants to draw attention to an album or group, publicists devise some sort of promotional gimcrack or gewgaw, and mass-mail it to critics around the country. Some are functional, like logo-emblazoned pens or note pads; others are fun, such as the toy guitar - makes six head-bangin' sounds! - that Atlantic records sent out to celebrate the launch of its Code Blue subsidiary.

But for sheer, over-the-top wackiness, Columbia's campaign for the second Sponge album, "Wax Ecstatic," trumps everyone. This was why I wound up with the chastity belt, the See's Chocolates, the Al Gore book, the prayer candle and the cross-dressing Ken doll.

Nor was that all; over the following week, I also received a copy of "The Velveteen Rabbit," a set of "chattering teeth" with a Crips bandanna knotted in-between; a copy of the Ingrid Bergman/Yul Brynner film "Anastasia"; a Gerber talking-baby doll and a framed picture postcard of Divine in "Pink Flamingos."

Each item, says Jenkins, was chosen to tie in with songs on the Sponge album - the chastity belt with "My Purity," the video with "I Am Anastasia," the Ken doll with "The Drag Queens of Memphis" and so on. Sponge singer Vinnie Dombroski even helped the publicity crew come up with appropriate items.

But the writers had to make the connection between the gifts and the song titles themselves, because not a single, solitary item came with an explanation - or even a record-company return address. The only message enclosed was a set of song lyrics that would (if you knew the album) tie the trinket to a specific Sponge song.

"We wanted it to be somewhat mysterious," explains Jenkins, who orchestrated the campaign. "We didn't have any return address, because we didn't want it to be so easily identified. And it worked as we expected. I had journalists who had traced the packages guessing what bands it might be for."

Many years ago, some genius at Mercury Records decided that it would be really cool to draw attention to the Boomtown Rats' debut album by mailing plastic-wrapped rodents to record stores and a few lucky reviewers. Did this lead the lucky recipients to a lifelong love of the Boomtown Rats? No - particularly because some rats were improperly sealed, and wound up rotting as they made their way through the mails.

Writers aren't the only ones who get nervous about promo items. Several years ago, the thrash band Sacred Reich decided it would be cool to promote its album by having special Sacred Reich bongs (that is, plastic water pipes used for smoking marijuana) made up.

"Sacred Reich, as a band, liked to imbibe, and liked talking about it," explains Kim Kaiman, who worked on that campaign. "They were really active with NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and different pro-cannabis organizations."

Unfortunately, Sacred Reich's label, Hollywood Records, didn't share the buzz over the bongs - in large part because Hollywood is owned by Disney, a company not exactly keen on being linked to cannabis.

So the bongs were mailed out by the independent publicity company Kaiman worked for, with no mention of Hollywood Records anywhere. "You really had to think about it to make the connection," she says.

Clearly, some promotional items are appreciated, but it's hard to say how much influence - if any - they have on editors and critics.

"I never felt that those things helped in any way," says veteran critic Anthony DeCurtis. "Certainly, when I was the record review editor at Rolling Stone, they would just come pouring in. But I honestly can't say I remember any particular ones. And usually they're pretty hokey. I think a real appreciation for kitsch takes you a long way with a lot of this stuff."