Odds and Ends 002

So how do you guys handle these "dead spaces".  Just sit here like a fichin idiot and waste a half hour of my life waiting for some special hidden bonus track

Joe, i used a free program called audacity in conjunction with a how-to video . I thought it was rather easy.

 

I'm thinking of Jean-Pierre Melville's great 1969 film Army Of Shadows, which was never released theatrically in the United States until 2006

Of the six Melville films I've seen, all were at the very least really good. Presumably starting with his first crime drama Bob le Flambeur, Melville's aesthetic was continuously refined and tighten until it reached it's apotheosis in Army of Shadows, his masterpiece. An austere and brooding look at the French Resistance, with laconic characters overwhelmed by fate, it's a powerful film where form and content dovetail perfectly.

1990 ballot:

To celebrate the first year of EW (a bit in advance) I played a bit with my Stata:

_there has been 104 posts by Xgau, 21576 comments for a mean of 207 comments by post. But if we remove the first 18 posts who were very low-comments the mean is 244 by post.
_there was a first peak of comments at 560 for the 25th post about Old 97's. This was followed by a long downward trend that hit the lowest point at 106 for the 65th post about Nigerian Music. An upward trend followed that hit the highest point at 420 for the 88th post about Das Racist and we are currently on the downward trend that followed.
_Even if we remove the first 20 posts there is no correlation at all between the number of comments and the presence of a full A album.

As for the polls I'd gladly participate in some of them but two weeks is way too short for an entire year, a month would be much better.

Cam -- about the Stones Brussels bootleg release -- it's nice to have, and several of the songs are from a show that has never been bootlegged, so it's brand new even to collectors. It only cost me $5 in the US, dunno why you had to pay 6.  Their other best live show is Leeds 71 (broadcast on the BBC), followed by some of their 'punk' shows in the 60s.

As to whether polls are taking up too much room in this comments section, I'll leave that up to you folks to discuss. I'd like to point out though that as much as this sort of thing may be a turn-off for some readers, it can also be the hook that induces a more passive reader to get curious and get involved. You'd be surprised how many ballots I get from lurkers and semi-lurkers.

 

EDIT: Also, this:

2) I love the idea of intense, informed discussion of Xgau's reviews, but the reality is many of us haven't heard these releases yet and may have nothing interesting to say about them for months.  I think discussion will always veer to other topics about which we feel more comfortable speaking.

On Jackson's welcome comments:

 

1) A year-long moratorium seems rather long, but it does feel as if the polls seem less than a month apart.  Given that we are about to enter both the holiday season and the end of year season, I think not having another poll until January makes perfect sense, and it could be a 2011 poll.  Then maybe wait a full month or two until another.

 

2) I love the idea of intense, informed discussion of Xgau's reviews, but the reality is many of us haven't heard these releases yet and may have nothing interesting to say about them for months.  I think discussion will always veer to other topics about which we feel more comfortable speaking.

 

I would hate it, however, if polls dominated the discussion, which sometimes does seem to be a bit of a threat.

 

3) Still, I've enjoyed the polls and appreciate what Patrick and Bradley S (it was Bradley on the jazz poll, right?) have brought to the board.

 

4) I like that we hash these things out on the board rather than resorting to cliches about not having to read posts in which you are not interested.  I spend far too much time at this blog and in these comments, and in doing so I've revived a passion for music that had waned a bit the past few years.

The idea of the London Calling/Dean's List rule is just to have an easy, simple way of agreeing on a release year so that points don't get split between 2 different years. It's not like anyone has some sort of release-date fetish.

 

Speaking of which, Sonny Sharrock Band's 1991 Highlife got one vote and 3 runner-up mentions in this poll, so I imagine it'll do pretty spectacularly when/if we do 1991.

 

(re. Prince and Yo La Tengo and Salt 'n Pepa, I don't have the numbers with me, but I will post also-rans when I get home)

1. L.L. Cool J: Mama Said Knock You Out 20
2. The Pixies: Bossanova 18
3. The Chills: Submarine Bells 11
4. Sonic Youth: Goo 11
5. Blake Babies: Sunburn 8
6. Freedy Johnston: The Trouble Tree 8
7. The Clean: Vehicle  7
8. Pylon: Chain  7
9. Perfect Disaster: Up  5
10. Thomas Anderson: "Alright It Was Frank--And He's Risen From the Dead and Gone Off With His Truck"  5

I've really been enjoying listening to that Thomas Anderson album again after all these years.  Did anyone else vote for it?

Here's my take on release dates - critics operating in real time are of course forced to review albums as they are made available. Why music consumers decades later should hamstring themselves by the same rules, long after the fact of international release dates have ceased to matter one whit, doesn't make sense to me. I'm thinking of Jean-Pierre Melville's great 1969 film Army Of Shadows, which was never released theatrically in the United States until 2006. As a result, it made a lot of American critics' Best Film lists for 2006. But once year end lists made their proper appearances, nobody claimed it wasn't a film from 1969.

Greg, are you responding to the no-show for the Who's Join Together live album in our 1990 album poll?  :)

Regarding the year for The La's, supposing we do a '91 poll, I'd just want it to get considered and represented as if it was definitely from one year or another.  Patrick did make a good case for his "London Calling rule" regarding London Calling itself (that is, we'd regard it as a 1980 album despite a December '79 release in the UK), but it gets harder to justify as the number of months between UK and US release increases. 

Mike, I remember Gina Arnold having an 'A+' review of the album in Entertainment Weekly, just as it came out in the States, and I see online that this review is dated from the April 5, 1991 issue.  So that's the best info I've got as far as the US date.