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January 26, 2007
Blogorrhea
I actually received confirmation about this last month, but have been remiss about announcing it here, 'til now: look for my posts in the coming year on Crickets, the Chicago Reader's music critics' blog. I'm very excited to be able to contribute to this forum, not least because of the titular similarity with Cricket, the greatest lit-mag ever for precocious late-'70s era nine-year-olds.
January 18, 2007
Numbers
Here's my ballot from Idolator.com's inaugural Jackin' Pop poll. You can peruse all the results here, along with some top-shelf essays from the likes of M. Matos, Daphne Carr, and Jason King.
January 15, 2007
Respect the Architect
No, not Stanley Tigerman: the beat-makers profiled in Beat Kings: The History of Hip Hop, a new DVD documentary by Mathematics of the Wu-Tang Clan.
January 02, 2007
Sucking In The Mid-Oughts
Pretty dismal year for music, I think most will agree. Indie rock's soulless recombination of styles from the past thirty years continued apace. Lots more boring high-production pop star vehicles. Even hip-hop seemed to have run out of steam. For my Reader year-end music Top 5 (as Guy Caballero might say, "We need budget cuts! No more top tens! From now on, top FIVES!" -- thanks, Seth) I went more for "important" records, albeit what I considered to be the most universally enjoyable ones. (After the fact I worried that maybe my list was too middling, but after seeing the self-consciously obscure pabulum that some of the other critics picked, I felt a little more like I'd done the socially responsible thing. I mean, I'm not even curious about some of the weird-ass crap that ended up in a few of these Top 5s -- and I like annoying music -- why waste ink preaching to the converted?) Anyway, my Idolator.com "Jackin' Pop" and Voice Pazz & Jop year-ends are a little closer to what actually jumped my starter over the past 360-odd days. (And, of course, you can check Glenn McDonald's P&J Critical Alignment Ratings in February, to see where I and your other fave critics fall on the populist-to-obscurantist continuum.) Will post links...
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