Letters to the Editor
jTh.
Published Letters: 16 Editor's Choice: 1
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"righteous indignation"
[Read the article: Why is "Sgt. Pepper" so overhyped?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear Salon, music can be written about with credibility. Please find someone who can.
It's interesting what's missing from their perspective.
Missing an appreciation for the art of melody, and particularly SP's blowing those doors open "once and for all." The genie was truly out of the bottle.
Missing an appreciation that Beatles were a British band, and proud of it, long before modern era where the Atlantic has become almost imperceptible, musically.
Missing an appreciation for the art of psychedelia, that few artists to date have managed to pioneer further. (Perhaps only Kate Bush on The Dreaming? But something else may have slipped by me.)
Missing an ability to hear in context, how much modern music had its doors opened by SP specifically (besides by the Beatles generally). Genres distinctions were suddenly revealed to be completely arbitrary, and all paths could inform one another ever after.
Missing an ability to hear the deliberate act of creation that wove such a record from whole cloth, when people surely wondered how on earth anyone could follow up Revolver?
But most of all, I'm struck rather obviously that neither of the reviewers listened to Sgt. Pepper turned up LOUD.
No music should be critiqued without a best attempt at total immersion into it.
And Sgt. Pepper is a wonderland, if one is prepared to enter it.
It's true that few of the individual songs stand so strongly out of context, but context was the point, a kaleidoscope ever turning into a new permutation, usually before we've adapted to the last one. Truly literally breathtaking.
I'll never forget the first time that I heard Good Morning Good Morning as long as I live, as if a twentysomething had suddenly been shown that sex could get even better than I could ever have guessed on my own. Glorious.
So yes, if these people find "getting to the primal moment of listening" to be "very difficult," then I'd suggest it's a volume issue. And quit monkeying around on the computer, and close your damn eyes!
No, it's not my most-played Beatles album. That would be Beatles for Sale, actually, the unassuming sound of them stretching their wings toward Help! and the cascade of their future.
But to deny the majesty and ambition of Sgt. Pepper is ludicrous, even if you don't personally like it a jot. Anyway who can't hear that it has, in fact, become underrated, doesn't have any business writing about music.
Even in subjective criticism, there are objective truths.
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one significant inaccuracy...
[Read the article: A peek behind the veil (again)]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"All U.S. fast-food franchises operating here, not just Starbucks, make women stand in separate lines," is inaccurate and backward.
The "separate lines" are enforced for single men.
That is, a woman can stand in a line with other women, her children, her husband, other family members, and so forth. Single men are the ones who are segregated into a line of their own.
Culturally, "single men" are the wild cards, the potential rogues, the ones to be isolated from the contexts of "family gathering."
Now, it's not so black and white as that in practice. Many places know that their business IS single men, and will cater in that direction to the exclusion of women. No doubt. Segregation is working in both directions in different contexts.
But to suggest that it's the women standing in separate lines is substantially misleading. Single men (and unaccompanied married men) are the ones in line by ourselves.
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Waiting to see/hear...
[Read the article: Radiohead's new album: Choose your price]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]5 or 10 bucks, depending on the quality of the files. I'll wait to decide.
I *don't* p2p music, but the record companies deserve to get overthrown after doubling the price of albums in the 80's (in the transition to CDs) and never turning back. I'm sick of those ghouls laughing all the way to the bank on the backs of everyone (artists and consumers) who make their business possible. I'd rather they cried their way to their grave.
BTW, I'd completely endorse iTunes (and don't mind the easily-worked-around DRM) for giving 65% to the indie artists, if only they'd offer the best possible quality for the 99 cent rate. Generally, I hope any artist would bail on every other middleman and go the 65% route with iTunes. Win+Win+a big "in your face" to the parasites who deserve it.
Good show, Radiohead. Viva la revolucion.
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The underestimated accomplishment...
[Read the article: Apple's solid Macworld is kind of a letdown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Actually, I've been reeling for weeks at the implication that Leopard's Time Machine is * the most elegant backup solution in the history of computers * ...
And now Time Capsule comes along to put the icing on that cake. Same elegance, same functionality, serving multiple clients wirelessly with a terabyte drive...?
If you think, "Time Machine, so what?," consider: What's the biggest hassle of synchronized backups? Redundant files, especially if you've moved any from one location to another, so they get copied again as if they're new. But Time Machine pays that no mind - exactly one copy, and the location only changes according to "the day" that you view it in "hindsight."
Nearly idiot-proof backup on your primary system drive, and now wire-free! And the Time Capsule doubles also as a wireless router and a network server volume as well! Hell yes.