Weekend Reading: Christgau on the Decline, Spoon Holding Steady and Kismet on the Rise

Some found materials and reading collected while spending the weekend pondering the mind-numbing decline of Robert Christgau, Dean of American Rock Critics ((Truly a confounding title, no?)), who placed American Saturday Night by Brad Paisley atop his 2009 ballot for the Pazz and Jop poll. While I’ve little remaining appetite for further infographics, there’s likely an intrepid soul willing to take on the charting of Christgau’s decline in a format as easily-consumed as Paisley’s quasi-country-with-a-slice-of-the-21st-century pop. Until that day when The Village Voice takes a cue from Etsy and opens up its API, the Dean himself has made the data available.

Another Collector’s Love Affair

Having posted some days ago about Pittsburgh record collector Paul Mawhinney, I would be remiss not to follow up with another post about Joe Bussard, a 78RPM record collector of some renown.
Filmmaker Edward Gillen has profiled Bussard in a new short, being made available this week on Pitchfork.
The tone is decidedly different (much more optimistic) [...]