The Marshall Mathers LP exemplifies literary tragedy. One can’t help but feel the sense of loss on the record.

Listen: The Way I Am [See post to listen to audio]

The original version of this article ran to almost 10,000 words. In order to submit it to a well-known music magazine (an overture that was subsequently rejected by said magazine), I cut the length in half. Some of what landed on the cutting room floor was a long, wandering, personal reflection on my own experience with the album in 2000 and 2001, completely unnecessary reading and not at all germane to the quality of the album (the rest of what landed on the cutting room floor was just plain awful writing). However, I like the longer version for the context it sets—one can much better appreciate Eminem juxtaposed against the glamourous madness that was the pre-9/11 music business, and I happened to be young, callow, and living in the nexus of the glamour during those two years. I offer here the uncut version, for those with too much time on their hands (the extra material runs from pages 2-8): Losing Slim Shady, the director’s cut

I prefer the kind of guitar playing that feels like an extension of the lyric—to have sung all you can sing and helplessly look down at your hands for a new avenue of expression.

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Listen: Be Here to Love Me [See post to listen to audio]

Listen: Wrecking Ball [See post to listen to audio]

Listen: Interview with Roman Candle’s Logan Methany [See post to listen to audio]

Brooklyn is the first truly post-modern music scene because it represents the first conglomeration of bands of the iTunes era.

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Listen: Halfway Home (TV on the Radio) [See post to listen to audio]
Listen: Enough to Get Away (Joseph Arthur) [See post to listen to audio]
Listen: Two Doves (Dirty Projectors) [See post to listen to audio]

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Listen: Come Saturday [See post to listen to audio]

In The People v. David Lee Roth, the court examines the question of whether one can attain rock god status on a technicality.

Listen: Summer Nights [See post to listen to audio]

Undeep Thoughts on the Meaning of Van Halen
By Jim Naftel

In The People v. Sammy Hagar, the court decides whether rock and roll can make space for self-awareness, sentience, and synthesizers.

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Listen: Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love [See post to listen to audio]

The video for “Treat Me Like Your Mother,” the raucous fifth track from the Dead Weather’s first album, Horehound, begins with a tight shot on a cannonball, fuse lit, spinning toward the inevitable.

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Listen: 60 Feet Tall [See post to listen to audio]

Listen: Frank Sinatra sings The Christmas Song [See post to listen to audio]

The world never really got over Michael Jackson’s strangeness, and while I think I can sympathize with that, it also saddens me.

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Listen: The Way You Make Me Feel [See post to listen to audio]

Other than fleeting glances in headlines, most of what I had heard about Kings of Leon was ambivalent, or at least it caused me to be ambivalent.

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Listen: Manhattan [See post to listen to audio]

And then, out of nowhere, Cracker did what they always do: they came back. They slouched their way right out of my speakers, made me pay attention again. Made me feel Cracker soul again.

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Listen: One Fine Day (Live at the Highline Ballroom) [See post to listen to audio]