It’s a celebration: El Debarge’s Second Chance.

El Debarge and Liliput have one thing in common: I would never have listened to them without the nudging of critics. Because I grew up with “Rhythm of the Night,” “Who’s Johnny,” and “Who’s Holding Donna Now,” these songs are beyond criticism — and beyond praise. As my teen years fade in closeness but not

Pazz and Jop singles chart: Abandon hope all ye who enter

Al Shipley examines the Pazz and Jop’s singles chart with a cold eye and finds a disturbing development: “Today’s Pazz & Jop electorate has a much harder time engaging with the charts,” as in, the pop charts: Granted, you may think that pop music is at a nadir right now, and critics are right to

Dean’s List

Robert Christgau’s eighty-two favorite albums of the year. The accompanying essay. His top two albums honestly surprised me — certainly I didn’t see Elizabeth Cook scoring so high (it’s in my my top fifteen, incidentally). Kanye’s high score — what else is new.

Fingertips hurt puttin that work in: Ghostface Killah’s Apollo Kids

I knew something was awry when Black Thought whipped Ghost on the latter’s own track. Named after one of his classic singles (albeit one released more than ten years ago), the brief Apollo Kids shows a rapper whose dense, rapidfire delivery remains as compelling as ever, but trapped in songs filled to bursting with guests

A Second Thought: 2010

The relatively sane people who don’t dedicate themselves to criticism must assume we’re born having listened to, watched, and read everything. The reality is more banal: we’re constantly playing catch-up. I don’t think we do a good enough job reminding our readers about discovering older stuff that we overlooked or for which we once had

The best of the rest

1. Taylor Swift – Speak Now 2. Vampire Weekend – Contra 3. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty 4. The-Dream – Love King 5. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening 6. Rick Ross – Teflon Don 7. Curren$y – Pilot Talk 2 8. Against Me! – White Crosses 9.

#1. Taylor Swift – Speak Now. My poptimist reputation notwithstanding, I was unmoved by Speak Now‘s predecessors beyond a handful of singles. Then I played this, and for eight songs in her singing, critical eye, and arranging skill (how easy to fuck up a hook as clean as the one in “Mean”; the banjo makes

#2. Vampire Weekend – Contra No longer merely signifing thoughtfulness, these guys begin an album with a self-parodic ode to drinking horchata and end with a ponderous development of  the title metaphor. I stand by this.

#3. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty Doc Zeus on Jeff Weiss’ blog: “You mean to tell me that two whole record labels filled with allegedly qualified music executives could have listened to the music that Big Boi was leaking for the better parts of three years and not

#4. The-Dream – Love King In retrospect I overrated last year’s Love vs. Money, a electro-stutter-plagued trudge through Terius Nash’ boring love life, for which he employed colorless Mariah and Kanye cameos.  Love King is yet another electro-stutter-plagued trudge through Terius Nash’ boring love life, with a crucial difference: he’s imbibed enough of his idols

#5. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening Neither Big Meech nor Larry Hoover — just an average guy whose above-average programming and melodic skills give him the right to indict his own attempts at bad poetry and audacious 1977-era Bowie rips. The only way a retro move as baldfaced as this makes sense is as

#6. Rick Ross – Teflon Don. He’s Big Meech, Larry Hoover, MC Hammer. He’ll go to the grave before he’ll be a bitch.  Self-made while the rest of us are affiliated, he’s recording “lifestyle music for escaping the state police via speedboat,” according to Jayson Greene. Impassive voice, meet impassive beats.