Back From An Extended Vacation

Well, well, well, well, well...
Been a while, hasn't it?

Of all the things to be suggested to me last spring by my IMP committee, doing a blog exclusively dedicated to music reviews (and other stuff - note the proposed series of video game reviews that kicked this sucker off...) was a bit naive. How many new blogs are created daily? How many blogs are already out there?

Short of having an actual website, there isn't much in terms of structuring and organizing this page as anything other than a blog with seemingly random album reviews.

And yet now that I've graduated and I'm done...I'm back. Weird, isn't it?

I have a few objectives with this site:
1.) To review albums. (More below.)
2.) To do an episode-by-episode review of Monty Python's Flying Circus, ideally one a week for 45 weeks.
3.) NOTHING PERSONAL, NOTHING POLITICAL. It's one thing to say, "Many years ago I heard this album on a car trip with my Dad." No, no, that's totally acceptable. It's something else to say, "This album makes me think of how my parents are in the throes of a bitter divorce and I'm sad about it!" An obvious exception should be made if an album has had a significant impact on you - if London Calling is the reason you bought a guitar, or if Bringing It All Back Home inspired you to start writing songs, whatever - that's fine.

It's also one thing to say, "The political message of Preservation Act Two resonates just as strongly in post-9/11 society as it did in the era of Vietnam and Watergate when it was first released." It's something else to say, "The political message of Preservation Act Two resonates just as much today, in a fractured political landscape of illegal wars and covert CIA interrogation tactics. The corrupt capitalist of Mr. Flash and the wicked theocratic dictator Mr. Black each represent the two sides of George W. Bush."

To hit reason #3 first before going on about #1, I hate reading articles where it's got so much more to do with the author than the actual content. Nathan Rabin of the A.V. Club is a prime offender, and it irritates the shit out of me. He'll explain that he didn't catch The Office during its original airtime because of such-and-such, so he watched it on his DVR at 4AM on Friday, never mind the incessant references to the show's characters as "office drones" whose lives are pure "monotony" punctuated by the events we see on the program. It's an obnoxiously snooty attitude to have, considering what he gets paid to do.

Additionally, as far as I'm concerned, if you're writing a review, no one reading it gives a shit about your personal life, good, bad, ugly, whatever. Okay, be fair, the first review one writes after, say, the birth of their child or another major life event? Yes, by all means, have it in all caps for Heaven's sake. In any other case, though, shut the Hell up.

Actually, for the thing about album reviews...that just needs to be a separate thing altogether.

See the entry just below this one for details.