Oh, Manchester, So Much To Answer For

One of the reasons I love writing reviews for Stylus is because of what's become my place there: I seem to be the one who reviews the big, dumb commercial records, most often mainstream R&B and country. And Barbra Streisand (still one of my favorite reviews I've written). Stylus's tilt tends toward indie-rock and electronic music, with doses of metal (mostly courtesy of the great, great Cosmo Lee, who you really should read whether you care about metal or not - he's that good) and hip-hop (lots of folks write these reviews, even me, but of note is Ian Cohen, who's been on a tear lately). I don't even know who half the artists we review are, for pete's sake: Sally Shapiro? The Green Pajamas? The Escalators? And that's just today. Meanwhile, Mr. Uncool here has taken the latest George Strait for a spin... (I used to be a college radio MD. What happened? Dunno, don't care - am perfectly happy with who and where I am, musically.) I'm very happy that I've got an editor at Stylus who appreciates that I appreciate mainstream, commercial stuff; I'm one of Stylus's anomalies, it would seem, which is precisely why that's just where I belong.

Of potential/related interest, here's today's at-work listening pile:
Just because I love 'em:
Robert Plant, Sixty Six to Timbuktu
Freddie Jackson, For Old Times Sake: The Freddie Jackson Story
Re-listening to '06:
Bob Dylan, Modern Times
Journey Into Paradise... The Larry Levan Story
Tom Moulton, A Tom Moulton Mix
Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped
Thom Yorke, The Eraser
(Arctic Monkeys would've been in the stack, too, but I couldn't find it last night.)
Need to finish the reviews:
Vince Gill, These Days
George Jones and Merle Haggard, Kickin' Out the Footlights... Again

And on top of that, I may well take a break at some point in the day by listening to either Yahoo! Launchcast's 25 Years Ago: Hits of '82 station (I'm 36, you do the math) or my latest disco-very (thud), radioioDisco, a superb streaming disco station programmed by authority (and great critic) Barry Walters.

Or maybe I'll just listen to Freddie Jackson all day.