YO, STRING!
WHERE'S DAVID WALLACE?! WHERE THE FUCK IS DAVID WALLACE, STRING???!!?!

Miller: If you search around online a bit, you be able to find used copies of the Hip-O Select boxes for a bit cheaper. I've even seen some used copies in record stores in New York at a decent discount. (I all but stopped buying any new music for a long while, as I wanted to save up my music budget to get these sets.)

By the way, lexicondevil, if you liked "Bye Bye Baby," there are a few other tracks from Mary Wells' first year or two at Motown — before Smokey Robinson smoother her out a bit — that you'd probably really enjoy. Check out "Please Forgive Me" (the B-side of "Bye Bye Baby"), "I Don't Want To Take A Chance" and "Strange…

Blasmo, I think there have been some better, more comprehensive compilations released on 60s Motown artists in the past couple of years, but you're right, the vast majority of "greatest hits" and "best of" collections out there are just a farce.

Gladys Knight's Motown career less than stellar? I've got to disagree. I know Gladys and the Pips have complained that the company didn't always give them the best material or enough promotion, but during the time they were at Motown, even the B-list songs were brilliant.

My tears for Levi Stubbs
I've been listening to the Tops all morning. Levi Stubbs' voice has never sounded more painfully passionate.

Einosunshine: Gladys Knight & The Pips. Without a doubt.

Whitfield is survived by…
"Pride And Joy" (Marvin Gaye) — "Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)" (The Temptations) — "Since I've Lost You" (Jimmy Ruffin) — "Too Many Fish In The Sea" (The Marvelettes) — "He Was Really Sayin' Something" (The Velvelettes) — "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" (The Temptations) — "Beauty Is Only Skin…

I agree that it's often easier to appreciate the scope of a musician's career if you weren't around to experience it in real time. And this what happens with lots of great artists, right? Their body of work often is not fully appreciated until much later on.

Another testament to Costello's greatness…
Reading through some of the comments, I've noticed at least five or six different albums that people think are underrated or got short shrift in this article (Trust, Punch The Clock, Goodbye Cruel World, Spike, Mighty Like A Rose, The Juliet Letters…)

Elvis on Rhino
I first got into EC when Rhino started reissuing his catalogue, around the time When I Was Cruel was released (I'm 25). This was a pretty brilliantly realized project and a really interesting way to discover the man's career, as the albums were reissued in thematic groups of three.

Oh, I'm definitely not making any arguments for objectivity. On the contrary. I'm mostly with Mr. Miller in claiming that, generally, the only objective things to say about music are the plain facts (i.e., "Iron Man" is loud, slow and in a minor key, to reuse Miller's example), and most the rest is entirely…

Slighted Jean-Claude Passeron and Miller:

Maybe it's just me…
…in that I think I've moved pretty far away from the general AV Club demographic in terms of what kind of music I listen to, but a lot of these features lately that seem to agonize (subconsciously or not) over the question of whether or not there's any such thing as "objectivity" in music seem…

Fear Eats the Soul
Is this really the English translation of the title of this film? That's pretty terrible. The whole point of Fassbinder's title is that it reflects Ali's bad grammar and broken German throughout the film. Something like "Fear Eat Up Soul" would have been much more evocative and capture a bit more of…

Title tracks suck?
Really?

Strobeylight
I really don't see how it's at all difficult to find ten non-jazz songs that are better with saxophone than they would be without. A number of folks have mentioned that saxophone was one of the primary instruments of rock and roll before guitar totally took over; there are tons of songs from the early…

Better than sax?
I gotta say, I'm really dismayed by some of the generalized saxophone hating going on in these comments. Perhaps I'm over-analyzing things, and the "only in pop/rock songs" clause is already implied in everybody's dismissals, but still. Coltrane, anyone?

Duckminster
This may not be what you're thinking of, but there's a great scene in Annie Hall (is there a bad one?) where Alvy Singer visits his best friend Rob in LA on the set of his (Rob's) new sitcom. They sit in the control room and Alvy is appalled as Rob tells the guy at the board what kinds of laughs he wants…

Hyden hatin'
Interestingly enough, I generally don't care for Steve Hyden's writing style or opinions, but his admission of JT love actually raised him in my estimation…