Guilty of Noise Pollution: Blindfold Test #8

Did things a little bit differently this time — Instead of typing out notes while random-shuffling a 5000-song playlist at home, I handwrote out notes while listening to a 5000-song playlist in the car. (No I wasn’t driving at the time. I was waiting to pick my teenage daughter up from EMS Scouts.) In fact,…

150 Best Albums of 2018

The biggest selling vinyl album of 2018 had a picture of a cassette on its cover. It was also four years old, much newer than its closest competition. The Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 soundtrack sold 84,000 vinyl copies, according to Neilson Music, just barely inching out Michael Jackson’s 36-year-old Thriller for…

150 Best Albums of 2023

As the hottest year on record so far wound down to a holiday season portending what’s sure to be an even hotter and otherwise frightening on many fronts 2024, an article began making the rounds on what little social media I tune into wondering whether rock music is dead, over, kaput. In 2023, no less!…

150 Best Albums of 1957/’58/’59

Norman Mailer somehow managed to get through “The White Negro,” the monumental essay he published at just over 9000 words in Dissent in the autumn of 1957, without even once mentioning Elvis Presley (whose “Don’t Be Cruel” had just topped the pop and country and r&b charts in 1956), Jack Kerouac (whose On the Road…

Ronald Shannon Jackson review, 1987

I listen to jazz, particularly of post-bebop persuasions, much more than my writing would imply — check just about any of the “150 Best Albums Of…” posts on this site for specifics. But honestly, I just never really figured out how to write about the stuff. I did try some though, mainly in the late…