Archive for the ‘Archival’ Category
Brain Salad Surgery
Posted by s woods on November 4, 2011
Richard Meltzer, Deborah Frost, Patti Smith, David Johansen, and Cindy Lee Berryhill all make an appearance in this weirdly critic-heavy edition of Billboard‘s Album Reviews section, May 1994.
Posted in Archival | 1 Comment »
Weather Report, Angry Samoans, Richard “Dimples” Fields, et al.
Posted by s woods on November 2, 2011
Posted in Archival | Leave a Comment »
Announcement
Posted by s woods on October 6, 2011
Billboard, Nov. 3, 2001
Posted in Archival, Obits, Tech & Leisure | 1 Comment »
Fusion Critics Poll, 1972, continued
Posted by s woods on October 3, 2011
Last week I reprinted the chart. Today, the individual ballots. (Will remove if some actual participant in the poll or former Fusion board member requests as much. That includes any of you former “Stone” critics.)
Posted in Archival, Polls & Lists | 6 Comments »
Fusion Critics Poll, 1972
Posted by s woods on September 29, 2011
A friend sent me this, so I’m posting it, a little nervously… more fascinating archival material.
Just one short comment: fairly delighted (and surprised) to see Pagliaro’s “Some Sing Some Dance” rank #6 on the Top 6 (!) singles list. To put this in some perspective, it apparently only needed three votes to attain that position. Still, we’re talking about a bilingual pop craftsman from Montreal, who never once cracked the Top 100 in the States. “Some Sing” has always been a personal favourite (it made my recent Top 100), and it’s odd to see it played back in this context. (Odd enough that even the Fusion eds felt the need to clarify in the introduction to the poll, “That Pagliaro song is from Canada, near as we can tell.”)
Posted in Archival, Polls & Lists | 6 Comments »
Back on the Street Again
Posted by s woods on August 12, 2011
Kit Rachlis on rap and black pop, from Mother Jones, January 1982
Posted in Archival | Leave a Comment »
A Farewell to Rock
Posted by s woods on August 12, 2011
“As a critic — and as a fan — Rock doesn’t seem to fill me anymore. I admit complicity in my own alienation. Events had denied all of us the social stability which Rock requires.”
Richard Goldstein, in 1969, demonstrating how weariness among rock critics set in early (was, indeed, I might even argue, built right into the profession).
Posted in Archival | 1 Comment »
Punk Rock Explodes in America
Posted by s woods on August 11, 2011
Via Billboard:
And with this, of course, it was all over. America would never be the same again.
Posted in Archival | Leave a Comment »
The Economics of Rock Criticism #387
Posted by s woods on August 10, 2011
Milo Miles in his interview with Steven Ward at rockcritics.com:
As to freelance writing, if you are not part of the scarce elite who get hitched to the slick-magazine gravy train you better be part of a two-income couple, as I am, if you want to get by at all.
And that was ten years ago, almost to the day, when there was still (or so it seemed at the time) a ground to stand on. (More on the economics of rock criticism here.)
Posted in Archival, Interviews | Leave a Comment »
Beefheart “Broadens his Mass Appeal”
Posted by s woods on August 10, 2011
Billboard, June 29, 1974
Posted in Archival | Leave a Comment »
King of the Delta Blues Singers reviewed in Billboard
Posted by s woods on August 10, 2011
As part of their ‘Spotlight Albums of the Week,’ October 16, 1961. (Along with Lucille Ball and Marshall McLuhan, Robert Johnson turned 100 this year.)
Posted in Archival, Record Reviews | Leave a Comment »
Critics to ABBA: We Take You Seriously
Posted by s woods on August 9, 2011
From a September 1979 tribute to Abba in Billboard. I have to wonder, if indeed critics “began taking the group seriously,” what was the tipping point? Also: “People magazine, Rolling Stone and several college and underground newspapers” — now that’s what I call consensus!
Posted in Archival | Leave a Comment »
