Oh yeah, it should also be said that if you’re planning to sign up for Amazing Pop Game (Hurry Hurry! Only 12 places left!), then don’t expect instructions or explanations until Pete and I have written them. It probably also helps if you have some interest in the British music ‘scene’, but if you didn’t you’d surely have got sick of FT by now.
Enough hype: what of a link? Via the evergreen (well, everpurple) Pearls comes Rocks Back Pages, a collection of archive pieces by rock criticism ‘legends’ about rock music ‘legends’. The presence of Shaar Murray, Reynolds, Savage and Toop in the line-up prevents this from being too much of a washout but they’re not represented with their best writing and for me the whole concept smells a bit fusty. But then I’m bored of so much rock writing – where’s the snap, the excitement, the self-indulgent joy? I don’t want to hear about which records are good, I’ve got friends and Napster for that! I want rock writing where you can’t guess what’s coming next from the first fucking sentence.
There’s some original content, by Barney Hoskyns as far as I can tell. Whoever it is, they’re hardly stretching themselves or us with their neat and boxy out-of-ten roundups of 2000’s great and good. Who’s this site for, Martians? Also, any website which feels the need to tell its readers, in 2001, that hip-hop “isn’t going away” is not speaking my language. This stuff is going to a subscription model (they claim) so check it out now and then go back to rockcritics.com which is free, lively, and has people like Frank Kogan, Phil Dellio and Mark Sinker writing for their interactive bits. Colour me envious.
The other thing you should read – and quite probably already have – is Fred’s short but moving eulogy to James Carr.