To the Wire

By my clock, it's still September, and that means it's still time to get my proper monthly update in. Sorry for the delays -- getting settled into London (and sitting in front of my computer) has been more difficult than I originally thought. As recompense, I've got three new reviews up. The Oh No review is the most recent in a series of "remix" reviews I've been writing (another, for Donell Jones' Journey of a Gemini , can be found here... the sources for its lede can be found here (Frost) and here (Cappadonna)). It might disgust English scholars and/or hip-hoppers, but who said the canon was supposed to be hermetically sealed? I'd like to think I'm carrying on, in some form or another, a tradition that dates back at least as far as Jean Toomer and W.E.B. DuBois.

Granted, if you construct an elaborate enough theory, you can make even the most ridiculous stuff seem profound to yourself. As I've learned over the past year or so from trying to put together some other pieces that came out disastorously, having a theory behind a review doesn't necessarily make it a better review. So if I can add a little gloss for all my pieces on this site and elsewhere: take them for what they are -- attempts to come up with some new ways to speak about music and impart some form of knowledge and entertainment along the way. I try not to just give PR pieces, and sometimes, it backfires. Even missteps are instructive, however, and hopefully they lead to better writing down the road.

Interesting reviewing fact: Did you know that in the 18th century, it was considered inappropriate for a reviewer to express his personal opinion about a book? Reviews were, by large, just summaries of the contents of the book. That is tremendously boring.