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Dubious selections for Unsung albums...
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keith a
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Re: Dubious selections for Unsung albums...
Feb 13, 2011, 12:49
Jasonaparkes wrote:
I'm all for leftfield takes on something - so a mainstream LP could be selected and I think I've argued that point before. I don't think the reviews of stuff like 'Journeyman' by Eric Clapton really added much to the site. I didn't have a temptation to discover the transcendental joys of 'Bad Love' and 'Pretending' again...

Written in Spanish or not, it's odd that an Earth LP out tomorrow is considered "Unsung" - and all the reviews I've read of Dylan Carlson & co's latest have been rather generous. The cliche of "best album yet" is even surfacing...

I can understand older Unsung reviews featuring titles that might very well have entered the vomiting inducing "canon" of classic albums as they may have been reissued since, or had a 33 1/3 book or something like that. But more recent reviews on classics seem a bit pointless - a review of Y by The Pop Group seems a bit pointless following its 2007 reissue and the prior excitement of a chapter in Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up & Start Again. Another Pop Group-release or something from Mark Stewart would make more sense. A review of Metal Box, Cut or Chairs Missing, no matter how passionate or well written, probably wouldn't cut the mustard now. Are we being told about a record that is under the radar etc? The moral considerations thing cited below is another reminder...and I'm sure that I've got carried away over something and posted on an LP that in retrospect wasn't that Unsung.

The selections may become harder with time, especially as everyone knows everything these days and lots gets reissued...but there are still titles that must be deleted or slipped through the net. I'd rather read those and have a chance of finding something that hasn't already been creamed over en-mass: there are fine Animal Collective albums prior to the last couple that got gushing reviews and found a place in the end of year polls...


Fair enough. Bit if I wanted to write about Chairs Missing I would.

It might be well known amongst many of us here, but it's hardly Sgt Peppers or Revolver, is it? In fact, I would put money on it that apart from the few people who share a similar taste to me, most of the people in my life will never have heard of it. Indeed, Wire seemed to have slipped through the net for so many people - I've had conversation with people who like their contemporaries like Joy Division and Magazine, but don't know Wire. Bizarrely I've had at least a couple of people who have thought about it a moment and then brought back a distant memory. Not 12XU or the almost hit single that was Outdoor Miner, but have said "Didn't they have one about a lion tamer?"

And in the last ten years or so it's been Pink Flag that has been getting all the attention from the media and - until the last couple of years - the band themselves who played sets consisting only of their new material and their debut. I felt that CM and 154 were being overlooked. And I don't think whether Simon Reynolds has included it in his book should be an issue either. Mind you, my copy is still waiting to be read - having had a quick peek and seen him being less than complimentary about certain things I love I'm not about to hold him as some great arbiter of taste!

As for the likes of Eric Clapton's Journeyman, well the liklihood in such case is I wouldn't read it and indeed I haven't that one. There used to be the odd thread about what had been reviewed which prompted me to go and have a read but that seldom happens these days so I just go on there occasionally and have a gander (or in the case of a Michael Rother LP I was considering buying I read the review there first - and didn't regret the purchase!). But maybe Journeyman is Unsung. Maybe - just maybe - it's an unsung classic waiting to be discovered. I personally doubt it, but I've been around long enough to see things go full circle.

It's all a long time ago, so I can't remember what you had here, but didn't you review things like Tin Drum? That was rated at the time, still is in certain quarters but if the author is moved to write about it and just one person who reads is inspired to buy it then it's job done IMO.

And if you don't want to read it - don't!
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Re: Dubious selections for Unsung albums... (Jasonaparkes)
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