Ranking 1977’s Pazz & Jop album finalists

The revolution arrived, and when the smoke cleared no women had joined the battle lines — no women on this list who qualified as punks, which means, right, the McGarrigles, Christine McVie, and Stevie Nicks don’t count. Patti Smith charted two years earlier, and apparently not enough male critics had heard Blondie. So what we

Singles 6/7/24

Or: Bangers Week. We reviewed a lot of them. I don’t often award this many highs scores — ask my students (don’t ask them). Whether it’s Tommy Richman’s mumbly doggerel and 1986-era synth bass line, Cash Cobain’s surly vocoderized chirp and Ice Spice’s rejoinders, Billie Eilish’s wanting her face in a vagina, or WILLOW performing

Don’t know where it stays all over the place: Ranking Pazz & Jop’s 2003 albums

The idea of Yeah Yeah Yeahs excited me into writing a 2003 novel about a young man struggling with his sexuality while playing guitar in a post-punk-indebted trio unencumbered by bass and even rhythm. When a hard drive crash wiped every trace of the manuscript except a printed copy, the world proved too indifferent to

Lifers: Vince Staples and Sonic Youth

I’ll repeat: if you’re complaining about the dearth of good music, you’re not listening. If I hadn’t given Vince Staples a final listen after two duds I wouldn’t be writing about him here.

Ranking Pazz & Jop album finalists: 1974

For three years Pazz & Jop went into suspension. Then it returned with these selections. A strong year — how on earth could peak Roxy Music, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder (on his least appreciated major phase album), and, uh, Bryan Ferry compete with the year’s most winning and most influential breakthrough. I mean, of course,

Yes, the GOP is going after Griswold

Reviewing Ari Berman’s book about assaults on the franchise, I noted: “Conservatism as practiced by the Democrats until 1964 and by the Republicans today consists of empowering whiteness and espousing minority rule.” Implicit in empowering this whiteness is patriarchy (women can support patriarchy in the same way Blacks can support racism and queer folk homophobia).

Ranking Pazz & Jop album finalists: 1975

Two albums apiece by Bobby Zimmerman and Neil Young, both killers; two Roxy Music albums, with the one released in 1974 with the semi-nudie pics breaking top ten; a country album in my top five that breathes hellfire; Caribbean rhythms signifying on their own without Enoch Powell fan Eric Clapton’s blandishments — another solid year.

To the beat: Ranking Pazz & Jop albums: 2002

I could discuss the political landscape into which OOOH! and One Beat were released; instead, can we revel in the guitars and beats of Orchestra Baobab’s Specialist in All Styles, a record I didn’t discover until four years after release? Note to self: play “Hommage a Tonton Ferrer” on Noche Buena for relatives who discount

May 2024 reading

Conservatism as practiced by the Democrats until 1964 and by the Republicans today consists of empowering whiteness and espousing minority rule; often the two are indistinguishable. The Constitution as originally written embodies these principles, thanks to the so-called three-fifths clause and the election of senators from sparsely populated states by state legislatures. The Fourteenth and

Ranking 1976’s Pazz & Jop album finalists

My least favorite Stevie Wonder major phase record and least favorite Steely Dan album finished in the top ten the year the Nixon era officially ended. Blue-umlaut-over-the-o-Öyster Cult’s strong finish for releasing a denser Mott album was the biggest surprise, no less than male critics going ga-ga over the McGarrigle sisters and apparently forgiving Joni

The return of Eugene V. Debs

A hero after the Pullman strike of 1895 demonstrated what labor could do when organized and what powers the federal government could muster when beholden to big business, Eugene Debs went to prison for violating an injunction (a major Supreme Court case bears his name). He can the administration of Grover Cleveland for making him

I’m sittin’ on my watch so I can be on time: Ranking Pazz & Jop albums 2001 edition

But Old Man Dylan topped my list too. Such a collection of croaks, groans, wheezes, and howling, all in the service of a rutting goat whose self-regard the songs cut to manageable size with in-jokes and Charlie Sexton’s licks. A better profane response — American style — to the 9-11 attacks I could not imagine.