Responding to Friskics' response, and not having found the post yet that
originally took issue with the headline, the specifics of the layout are that
there's about a three plus inch light green header all across the page saying
Rock Solid, and in the middle of the page are a bunch of rock stars and Jimmie
Dale Gilmore.
Since I read Kot's stuff, um, a lot actually, I can say with some confidence
he probably gave what he felt was fair consideration to Steve Earle, Uncle
Tupelo, Dave Alvin, what have you. He's among the better ones about following
"stuff we like."
As for the Phair thing, Chicago or no, and whether it would have happened that
high on my own list independent of being reminded of it or not, and regardless
of what you think of how it sounds, "Exile in Guyville" sits right pretty at
number three, I think. I think it entirely sweeps the cojones category,
actually. Here's a li'l indie chick making her debut sending up one of the
top ten desert island picks of just about every rock critic on the planet.
More important, it was she who tipped the rest of the world off about the grit
in female lust, a theretofore very well kept secret even among rockers, and
what the lowlife male of the species sets up the rest of you for with their
cynicism. Now it's all so old it's practically boring and some young woman has
written a bestseller about wanting her femine mystique back, but at the time,
the fact that she was the first girl who sang "fuck" was a pretty major
symbolic milestone. That's Social Consequence, folks, not a claim that can be
laid to by many others on that list. Finally, Phair was among the thatch
thrashers of that now well-travelled road: make your own tape at home,
distribute it yourself, let people boot it as they please, and whoever likes
it, likes it. Not her fault she wound up on the cover of Rolling Stone.
All that said, I just love that record, too.
As for electronica, ambient, drum n bass, hip hop, trance, trip hop and rap--
they do matter. Deal. (and yer favorite band sucks <g>)
Then there's Bloque. I've tried hard to love this record, and I do, some, but
Kot and Margasak love it like--well, better than Belle and Sebastian. ?!?
It's mighty fine rockin' Latin from Columbia on David Byrne's Luaka Bop label.
Gritty ghetto/barrio poetics, which even translate into Englis as poetic,
gritty expressions of emotional politics and understandable frustration with
the status quo in their country. I'd recommend it to anyone whose booty can't
resist a Latin drummer. . .but it's probably not in my top 31 for the year let
alone the decade.
Linda
