¶ Some critics have a weird prejudice against box sets. I know because my NPR producer, Virginia Prescott, invited Robert Christgau onto a year-end box set roundup discussion, and he declined saying he "doesn't cover boxes." His readers "don't have the bucks it takes to keep up with them," or some such, and he flatly refused to talk about it. This seems a fairly UN-nuanced opinion from one of our best critics: aren't there good box sets and bad box sets? Sure, it's a boon to labels that raid their shelves and produce expensive packages without … [Read more...]

Before the year goes out I want to mention one of my favorite reads of recent months, even though it's copyright 2001 (now in Da Capo paper). James Harvey's MOVIE LOVE IN THE FIFTIES (Knopf) had me hankering for the nightly pre-sleep read, and it's added a score of flicks to my rental list. Harvey is author of ROMANTIC COMEDY: IN HOLLYWOOD FROM LUBITSCH TO STURGES (which I haven't read), and this one clearly underwent a title change to make the marketing dept. happy. It could have been called ROMANTIC NOIR, as it covers the other side of that … [Read more...]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: The Hitler Diaries (Beatle edition). … [Read more...]

I've been listening to Dave Holland Quintet's EXTENDED PLAY, a magnificent twofer on ECM, recently nominated for a Grammy. It's heading straight for my list. The recording alone is masterful: each instrument beautifully placed in the spectrum, and the drumming is beyond crisp. Even in slower passages, Barry Kilson is attentive to the point of exhileration. Here's John Fordham in the GUARDIAN: "This remarkable double-album is, surprisingly, the bassist's first live recording for his regular label, ECM, in 30 years. Recorded over four nights at … [Read more...]

After listening to UNEARTHED for a couple weeks, I'm convinced it's not only all the stuff that Rubin should have released originally, it's one of the best box set concept/executions yet, and if you come anywhere near adoring Cash, make sure it's under your tree. Greil Marcus is tough on the whole (it was underway well before his death), but entertainingly rhapsodic as usual (yeah, right, radio's gonna get behind this). Plus, how do you trust a guy who best his reputation on NATALIE MERCHANT and COUNTING CROWS? Milo Miles has a much better take … [Read more...]

Yeesh, once again I disagree with everybody, even the redoubtable Jan Herman. The reason ANGELS IN AMERICA never worked for me, in ANY medium, was simply because it's a) too long and b) unfocused. I'll give any show SIX HOURS, but Kushner's original EIGHT were anything but poetically structured, even though I admired his a) humor (which is a BIG compliment) and b) pretension. I worry that because this work is simply too "politically correct" to criticize, it's much easier for everyone to simply jump on the bandwagon. Here's the original lead I … [Read more...]

¶ Double Dipping: yesterday on HERE AND NOW discussing Remastered Rock, tonight on ON POINT, discussing box sets with NPR's Tom Moon. ¶ If I'm lyin' I'm cryin': I just heard this Starbucks longhair sincerely proclaim Tom Petty one of the "great singers" of his era. ¶ The Hours and The Clicking: Celebrity Crank Calls http://www.ebaumsworld.com/morepranks.shtml 2003 List Links http://www.fimoculous.com/year-review-2003.cfm Useful Noise "The Whipperwill of freedom zapped me right between the eyes." http://usefulnoise.blogspot.com/ Blog … [Read more...]

They don't sell classical music like they used to. Back in the day, if piano titans such as Rudolf Serkin or Artur Rubinstein hit a rough note in the middle of a concerto, engineers would simply patch it up to make it sound perfect. It's called "sweetening," and the practice has become such a routine part of the music business that many performing musicians look down on recordings as artificial and illegitimate. Now for the predictable retro backlash: it has become chic to put the wrong notes back in. The latest Vladimir Horowitz release is a … [Read more...]

Here's a shamelessly immodest excerpt from Ron Rosenbaum's current OBSERVER column, which also wins LEAD OF THE MONTH: ...Anyway, all of this was running through my mind before the delayed murder charges. (The death occurred last February; Spector later told an Esquire writer, Scott Raab, that Clarkson shot herself while toying with the gun. Now the D.A. says Spector murdered her.) Shortly before the charges were filed, a third Phil Spector development ensued: There arrived in the mail a galley of the new book from Tim Riley, Fever: How Rock & … [Read more...]

MYSTIC RIVER intimidates even the most admirable of critics (Fallen World, by Geoffrey O'Brien in the NY Review of Books). It's hard for him to justify how "Victims will become victimizers, and victimizers themselves come to be seen as the helpless agents of a destiny just beyond their control," since the Tim Robbins character is TRIPLY victimized: as a boy, husband, and finally Sean Penn's "false" friend. O'Brien harps on how the story's events are out of control, out of these characters' grasp, and unraveling without hope of reversal, which … [Read more...]