Nelson George remembers Greg Tate, who died yesterday at age 64. Encountering Tate’s work in the Voice during the ’80s—encountering his voice—was an excursion into new modes of thinking, writing, and listening. So much beautiful, mind-bending wordplay (which, trust me, is not faint praise; it’s the door to the building). In George’s words, Tate “understood rhythm, metaphor and hyperbole like a master musician does harmony, … Continue reading Greg Tate , 1957-2021
(Originally posted in 2005) By Steven Ward Matt Resnicoff crossed a line. The former Musician Senior Editor and Guitar Player and Guitar World writer is now a professional guitarist and record producer. During the e-mail interview below, Resnicoff talks about working for Musician (a magazine he once described as “The New Yorker of music magazines”), and the good and not-so-good aspects of interviewing and writing about musicians. Although he doesn’t miss his music-writing past, … Continue reading From the Archives: Interview with Matt Resnicoff (2005)
I could have done another fifty, but I’m sure everybody says that. These aren’t in order of preference as much as the order I remembered them; I did a similar list when I turned 50 so this cannibalizes that a bit. As my friend Chris Buck said about his list, the period when I really, intensely connected to music lasted roughly from the ‘70s till … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Rick McGinnis
This is not a very Rock Critic list of Favourite Songs. No Dylan, Stones, Joni, Clash, Prince, Husker Du/Sonic Youth, Beefheart, Bowie or Bubble Puppy (or even my friends Skinny Puppy). No Puppies. But on reflection I always thought my role was more of an editor/organizer than a cutting edge music scribe, even though NME / Sounds / CREEM / Trouser Press got me into … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Dave “Rave” MacIntosh
I thought of numerous ways to attack this. One included a single track from every genre or sub- genre I could think of. Another was three tracks from every four year period to sort of evenly cover 1955-2021. Tried to be eclectic. Thought of including jazz and classical. But it just all got too hard (at least for now), and in the end decided to … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Mark Fichera
So hard to choose! I am a bit sheepish that there are so few songs from the current century, but these are the ones that magically alter my mood and my heartbeat. Is it true that songwriting was that much more magnificent when I was young, or is it just because I was discovering new sounds and everything felt more exciting as opposed to my … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Mary Dickie
Critical Conditions is pretty great newsletter (via Substack) by former Creemster and Newsdayer, Wayne Robins. I’ve loved some of the writing in here, including Being the Billy Joel Beat, an extended memoir of sorts about Robins’s long time coverage of “Long Island’s biggest homegrown star” (with maybe the most balanced writing anyone has ever done on Joel), and a beautifully written piece on Jay Black, … Continue reading Today’s Recommended Read: Critical Conditions (Wayne Robins)
These “Best Music” lists are off-putting, whether they’re from Rolling Stone (that still feels like a boomer relic) or Pitchfork (that more closely aligns with my taste), or any other institution. But they’re damn fun to make, so here is mine. I was born in 1964 in Canada, then moved to New York in 1990. My window of following rock music closely ran from about … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Chris Buck
So, I live in Los Angeles, which means I spend an inordinate amount of time in the car. So my favorite songs are really my “favorite songs to listen to while I’m driving my car…dangerously fast,” because I used to drive an ambulance, and still have a weird addiction to driving too fast while playing good music real loud (which we did in the ambulance … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Lou Noble
Making this list was too much like an evening spent looking at the mirror. B-but I really do like and listen to and remember a lot of other kinds of music, honest! Most of it I get better in the context of an album, however uneven, as I imagine making a mix, a playlist, and now I see that habit in the segmentation and subsets … Continue reading Top 50 Favourite Songs: Don Allred
RockCritics.com 