THE nightmare looms ever closer. Indeed, there can only be weeks to go until the first one suddenly turns up somewhere near you. Yet, despite the worrying effect this trend will have on the lives of every single reader of The Ticket, you have yet to read about the doomsday scenario which is coming down the tracks. There has not been a flurry of speculative articles nor a round of vox pops nor the usual crop of letters to the editor. It's all been too quiet.

Until now, that is.

We talk, of course, about the scourge of the SSIA albums.

The what, you say? The SSIA albums - CDs recorded and produced using SSIA savings.

You think I'm joking, don't you? You think that Discotheque was stuck for something to write about and turned on the radio, heard an ad from someone trying to get their hands on your SSIA money and had a brainwave. You're probably thinking "he's going to have great crack trying to get a column out of this". You may be muttering "why doesn't he stick to writing about 2FM?". You could even be wondering "is he ever going to do another column on Morrissey?" Oh ye of little faith.

There are precedents for the horrors which are about to unfold, and I'm not talking about this column. Cast your minds back a couple of years to when the internet goldrush was in full effect. Everyone was working for a dot.com or, at the very least, a company who paid an identity consultant a ton of dosh to simply add a dot and a com to their name. It was great gas altogether, the very best of times.

Not so for those who make their crust rating and slating music for a living.

One downside of everyone having loads of cash in their pockets was that there were more albums in circulation, produced by bands who shouldn't have been let anywhere near a recording studio. Even bands who were barred from studios had a go, thanks to the easy availability of recording software and hardware.

So, because of both the economic boom and advances

in technology, every four-piece who wanted to sound like Oasis covering Radiohead had the wherewithal to record, produce and manufacture an album. They couldn't be stopped. Recording studios and CD manufacturing operations weren't going to say no to the business.

One thing led to another. Albums were made. Albums were sent for review. Albums were reviewed. Strong opinions were expressed. Strong opinions were not appreciated.

The SSIA album will probably follow a similar trajectory. Money which was intended by Charlie McCreevy to be splurged on a new car, an exotic holiday, decking for the semi-detached gaff in Portarlington and a vote for Fianna Fáil will instead go on pursuing the rock'n'roll dream.

Armed with their windfalls, many musicians will step into a vocal booth and transform themselves from "Rory in accounts" into "the voice of a generation". These acts will hire PR companies. They will look at Mundy, Paddy Casey and Declan O'Rourke and elevate themselves to sit on a bar-stool alongside that gang of happy campers.

These acts will think it'll be only a matter of weeks until they, too, are comparing chips on the shoulder with The Walls. These acts will consider a two-star review in The Ticket and an indepth Lorraine Keane feature on the TV3 news to be their birthright. After all, wasn't that what Dan Breen's fight for Irish freedom was all about?

The SSIA albums will wreck havoc with the delicate eco- system in second-hand record shops and cause untold damage to the entertainment industry's carefully maintained socio- economic structure.

We should really be getting regular warnings from the likes of Eddie Hobbs and the Central Bank about this. But, of course, they have other fish to fry. Instead, it's left to the likes of this column to set the alarm bells ringing. Consider yourselves warned.