In his new book, Rock Critic Law: 101 Unbreakable Rules for Writing Badly About Music, Michael Azerrad takes on the clichés that pervade rock writing. His mode is tongue-in-cheek, with the book written as a sort of satirical ‘Strunk & White’ manual for album reviewers, to be followed at the writer’s peril. If you’ve written about music, you’ll find yourself nodding along in recognition at … Continue reading Rock Critic Laws
Roxy Music’s career can be neatly divided into three phases. Phase one includes 1972’s Roxy Music and 1973’s For Your Pleasure, tarted-up art-pop that absorbs “Telstar,” golden age Hollywood, Gil Elvgren calendar art, free jazz, and mutant-teens-from-outer-space hairstyles. The core lineup was Bryan Ferry (vocals), Brian Eno (synthesizers and tape manipulations), Phil Manzanera (guitar), Andy Mackay (saxophone and oboe), Paul Thompson (drums), and at various … Continue reading Roxy Music Songs Ranked From Worst to Best
Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion Edited by Barney Hoskyns The Overlook Press, 2018. Reviewed by Vic Perry “You can always look in the Steely Dan Listener’s Companion,” says Donald Fagen, helpfully answering a question about a lyric in an expansive 1977 interview with Sylvie Simmons originally published in Sounds, a British music paper. It was a good joke, but maybe Fagen just saw the … Continue reading Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion
A formidable question, posed by Mark Sinker at Freaky Trigger, and a fetching/daunting examination of its many contours and contradictions. The surgery begins with a complaint (from a friend of Mark’s) about Nick Tosches’ review of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid in Rolling Stone, I think because Tosches seems to not address the record itself. Which leads to a trail of thought that includes Flaubert, the Grotesque … Continue reading “what even is a review?”
Artforum gathers obits from Christgau, Greg Tate, Molly Haskell, J. Hoberman et al. The photo by Sylvia Plachy of Alexander Cockburn leading an editorial meeting is terrific; it provides the sort of romantic anti-romantic vision of what it must have been like to work at the Voice, at least in the minds of every writer who dreamt of doing such a thing. (I was lucky, … Continue reading “The destruction of the Village Voice” (Artforum)
5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Classical Music In which the New York Times asks several artists to provide an entry into classical for non-classical listeners. An idea which I’m sure has been done to death, but which is kind of irresistible anyway. And which in fact syncs up nicely with my own recent mission to finally explore the stuff. My exploration is two-fold—and … Continue reading Five minutes to ecstasy
“When I think about my two stints at the now-shuttered Village Voice—for which I freelanced regularly from the late seventies to the late eighties, returning as a staff writer from 1994-1999—one unexpected but apt word that keeps popping to mind is ‘fecund.’ My recollection that I worked for two or possibly three different papers all hawked under the same name doesn’t seem remarkable, because the … Continue reading “The Voice and Its Village”
The above appeared in the June 1975 issue of Stereo Review (formerly Hi-Fi Stereo Review), now archived here. The letters are in reference to a Bangs twin review, from March ’75 (one I’ve never seen before) of Harrison’s Dark Horse and Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna (a “metal-flake glow-in-the-dark music box”). More links to HFSR stuff ahead. Continue reading Lester on Ringo & George (Hi-Fi Stereo Review)
Some time over the next little while (hard to be more specific than that), rockcritics.com, in sharp rebuke to the current culture of downsizing and job redundancies, will be expanding its roster to three times its current head count (i.e., me plus two other guys). I’ll let Vic and Andrew introduce themselves through their upcoming posts, but I welcome other contributors as well. If you … Continue reading Come one, come anybody
Music Writer Roy Carr Has Died Roy Carr’s illustrated records from the seventies (Stones, Beatles, and Bowie all grace my collection) were enormously inspiring to me at a young age–a bridge in many ways to the criticism which eventually took over (really) my life for several years. The Stones book in particular: I think I memorized every page of the thing, from the unbelievable photos … Continue reading Roy Carr
