latest
December 2024 'Albums Lost and Found, Part One: The Who and Frank Zappa'
September 2024 'Click Bait, Click Crit, or: The Sexiest Albums Alive'
May 2024 'The Multi-Format Splendor of Stereolab'
February 2024 'Heavy Metal Origin Stories'
December 2023 'A Discography Split in Two: The "Definitive" New Order'
August 2023 'Sun City Girls Discographical Dossier'
June 2023 'Amid Blue Öyster Cult's Fictions, Forsaken Godless Revolutions'
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Great Compact Discs: The Museum of Hype Stickers
View more of the consumerist detritus already illustrating some of the essays and like that seen above... and a seprate but related page: a Sun Ra discography featuring hype stickers, obis, and—from the early-Nineties Evidence reissues—colorful and psychedelic Compact Discs, as seen below. A work in progress.
More hype stickers are seen at certain Rockissue articles, for example the new scans now featured in the Talking Heads piece.
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Looking to listen to (lots of) new (old) music? How about 2812 albums and 2135 tracks (plus a lot of compilations) spanning the years, 1918-2024 (but mostly 1947-1993) created by 2535 artists? Peruse one person's inventory of songs and albums that he either already likes or wants to listen to more closely, accessible in the form of a single list, organized alphabetically by artist, or as a chronology.
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more Rockissue articles: nine each year, 2020-2022
The essays at Rockissue may provide overviews of an artist's work but most often discuss reissues and discographies. In particular, they explore the effect of the contemporary glut of reissues on our understanding of the artists documented by them and of the Rock era broadly. Reissues embody what is historical, after-the-fact, dead or dying. Those of us who prefer music of the past, no matter how much we try to listen to new music, can have only one response to the pillaging of that past music: document the reissues, providing transparency about what is available on them, and offer critiques of how the music in question has been presented and interpreted.
2022, December: ‘Capturing an Era, Evoking a Scene, Making Playlists: What Do Dayton and Athens Have in Common but Nothing?’
November: ‘Seas of Meaninglessness—Lyrics in Rock Music’
October: ‘Making Chronological Playlists: A Case Study: 1973’
May: ‘Rhythm and Blues Includes Early Rock-and-Roll: Setting the Records Straight’
April: ‘Stage Settings: The Residents' Commercial Album, Lost in Non-Music’
March: ‘Workaday Byrds: Turn! Turn! Turn!; Fifth Dimension’
February: ‘Playlist: Lou Reed’
January: ‘Refining Canons: Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham Albums Reissued, Expanded, and Reconsidered’
2021, December: ‘Another Hidden History of Blur’
November: ‘Alternate Histories: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes’
June: ‘On Second Note—Not Taking Things Seriously: Pavement: Wowee Zowee’
May: ‘Playlist: The Doors’
April: ‘Box Set Key: The Smiths: Complete. Complete?’
February: ‘Singles and Swindles: Morrissey’
January: ‘Alternate Histories: Pavement: Brighten the Corners’
2020, December: ‘Box Set Key: Neil Young: Archives Vol. II (1972-1976)’
October: ‘Less Would Have Been More: The Byrds: Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde; Ballad of Easy Rider’
June: ‘Box Set Key: Ray Charles: Pure Genius - The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1952-1959)’
May: ‘Clarence White Takes the Lead: The Byrds: Byrdmaniax; Farther Along’
April: ‘Remember It Better: Michael Jackson: Thriller’
Jarnuary: ‘The Byrds, Over- and Under-Rated: Sweetheart of the Rodeo; The Notorious Byrd Brothers’
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by way of an introduction to the Rock Annual lists
‘Archive Fever? Ready Reference Setpoint?’
‘The Rock Annual, an Imaginary Reference Book’
‘A Different Kind of Yearbook’
Within the "list"/ database, each year's list includes links to Acclaimed Music's albums and songs lists for that year. Of the several web sites that aggregate a massive number of critics', users', and sales lists, Acclaimed is superior. While one can access the individual lists at such sites, Rocklist is an oldie-but-goodie of internetland that collects lists without using mathematical mumbo jumbo to toss all the lists together.
Also provided are links to Playlist Research's and Tunecaster's documentation of that year's best sellers and the Wikipedia article covering that "year in music." Occassionally we will add, to artist entries in the index, links to vintage articles available online at the likes of Trouser Press and Creem that offer complete archives of their back issues as well as databases like Rock's Backpages and Newspapers. We immodestly encourage fellow Rock enthusiasts to read such old articles instead of retrospective accounts or the All-Music Guide's reviews, which, being undated and as such decontextualized, are of limited value regardless of their content.
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about me
I, Justin J. Kaw, am an amateur writer and a professional librarian/ archivist. I previously wrote about music at another self-published site, the "anthology-in-progress" Sweet Pea. I also have created a books database, Greater Books (read the FAQ there for more biographical information). Another web site, The World's Wide Web, connects these projects via varied writings, lists, discographies, and other leftover materials. You can reach me at jkaw1979@hotmail.com.
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