Some of you may recall “The Rock Critical List,” a xeroxed (read: actually photocopied, on paper) screed about the state of rock criticism that made the rounds ten years ago via various record stores in North America and the U.S. postal service (for a short time, it was also available on SPIN‘s website — it was in fact one of the first things on the web I ever linked to). Thing set off a brief firestorm, resulting in a three part Village Voice feature [1, 2, 3] and much sniping among insiders about the true identity of the list’s anonymous author, “JoJo Dancer aka The Gay Rapper.”
In Same as it Ever Was, Daniel Nester marks the tenth anniversary of JoJo’s rant with a lengthy recap of the story along with interviews with some of the key players involved.
What follows (after the jump) are some comments I sent to Nester about the “RCL” after being asked for my two cents on the matter (I’ll spare you the jokes about the value of two cents CDN when placed up against the mighty U.S. penny). Unfortunately, the “RCL” itself is nowhere to be found online, though a badly formatted version of the list section (which is only one portion of the entire piece) can be found here.
