Frequently Asked Questions

What's an anagram?

It's a word or phrase created by rearranging the letters in another word or phrase.

Don't you have anything better to do?

Long answer: Of course! Apart from our charitable endeavors, such as teaching inner city youth to create anagrams, our favorite pastimes include acrostics, cryptograms, palindromes, rebuses, lipograms, ditloids and nonrepresentational origami.

Short answer: No, not really.

Why record reviews?

That's where the money is.

Do you ever suppress negative anagrams?

Sure. Like suicide notes and autopsy photos, some anagrams are not appropriate for public circulation. We strive simultaneously to inform the public, and to respect individual dignity and privacy wherever possible.

Do you ever suppress positive anagrams?

Only if they're obviously inaccurate. For example:

Ted Nugent's Love Grenade
Vegan's tender gluten ode.

How come there are so many more negative anagrams than positive or neutral ones?

It's hard to say! There are as many possible answers as there are philosophical and spiritual traditions. Generally speaking, we hold with Ecclesiastes 8:17 that "a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labor to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea further, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it."

How do you decide that an anagram is "neutral"?

It's a hermeneutical judgment call involving consideration of countless aesthetic and moral variables. As a simplified example, "Burton Cummings sucks cock" would be neutral. "Burton Cummings sucks cock in Hell" would be negative.

How can you say Burton Cummings sucks cock? My Own Way to Rock is a fuckin' classic album. I was just listening to it last night, and it totally mops the floor with whatever prissy art-fag bullshit you fuckin' snobs are into.

Please read our Disclaimer, friend!

How much research is involved in writing these things?

In writing them? None. The research comes afterward, when we try to verify the anagram's claims. For example, we'd never actually heard the Rolling Stones when we discovered this anagram. After listening to the album, we decided the anagram was pretty accurate.

I see you have a book. Is it any good?

Like many groundbreaking works, it relies heavily on intuition and unorthodox methods. We believe that subsequent research has vindicated its basic approach, while also revealing its flaws.

Will you do an anagram for my band's album? It sort of sounds like if you crossed early Pixies with Berlin-era Bowie and, like, circus music. But not new-age circus music like at Cirque de Soleil. More like Barnum and Bailey with, like, evil clowns on acid. Anyway, it's pretty cool.

You betcha! Of course, we have lots of other records to get through first. But we'll be happy to pencil your album in at the bottom of the list, right after Ha`i Kupuna by Kaumakaiwa Kanaka`ole.