Universal Truths & Cycles was my starting point and it completely worked.  Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes can be slightly too fractured for beginners and the stuff after UT&C is maybe a little too polished. UT&C isn't their best album but has some great tunes and some of the weirdness - an under-appreciated high point.

While I get that he doesn't want to take on too much and have the reunion become overwhelming, my God they would fit well on the Jeff Mangum ATP bill along with Superchunk and Sebadoh.

While Arkham Asylum isn't a masterpiece, it's worthwhile trying to grab the fancy-ass anniversary edition before judging it too harshly, or at least judging what he actually wrote. The reissue has his original script included and there's a whole bunch of stuff - pretty significant details and information - that Dave…

Lobsters 1's solo Pollard picks are spot on. Compound Eye took me a while, as there's so damn much of it, but it's a great sprawling double album. The review seems to imply that Not in My Airforce is a consistently good album. It's really, really not. Maggie Turns to Flies, the opening track, is one of his best…

Oblivion
Has anyone ever sorted out properly the relation of Oblivion to this book? I remember reading somewhere that 'Incarnations of Burned Children' was originally a chapter of this, but I think this may have been mistaken. There is a reference (at least one, I'm only halfway through) to 'Mister Squishy' though,…

Hope this comes across as genuine and not being a dick, as it is meant genuinely - why don't you try watching some of Tim & Eric? It's one of those things that has perhaps a small audience but is proving to be influential, even controversial, and so will crop up in reviews and on sites like this, and is at the very…

Having come at Deerhoof with no real knowledge of general critical opinions, I enjoyed Reveille the most, but it seems to get little attention from what I've read since. Loved Offend Maggie though, and greatly looking forward to this.

I am so utterly ashamed to have said "All of read of" on the occasion an avclubber responds to my comment. *does a Mishima*

A Vote for Silence
On the basis that I know less about it than the other two, and I get the most benefit from this by reading the books I'd be least likely to pick up on my own.

I can think of few songs I hate more than "Beverly Hills." There's a lot of stuff on these compilations that I plain don't like, but I can generally accept that it's not aimed at me, or I'm not familiar with the genre, or, basically, that it's just not my kind of thing. It doesn't bother me. This, though.
I just…

An initial well-written and engaging take on the show, that I don't fully agree with but certainly find worthwhile to read, followed by, in this case, Ugh, WolfmansRazor and Shitegeist making valid responses that differ from the reviewer's opinions and provide a discussion of the show, is what I'm looking for when I…

Con: Blessed Black Wings is the Albini High on Fire album.

I'm fairly sure I picked up the L&R books after reading that Gateway to Geekery - the reason for my predicament!

Love and Rockets
Love and Rockets is easily the biggest hole in my American comics knowledge. I picked up the Maggie the Mechanic collection (first bunch of Jaime's stories) and I think Heartbreak Soup (first of Gilbert's) but really couldn't get into them at all. Does anyone have any advice? I feel like I'm…

On my English Lit. course, we were supposed to get 2 lectures over 2 days on Chopin's 'The Awakening.' On the first day, the assigned lecturer was unable to attend, for reasons I can't remember, and so another lecturer filled in. He spent the hour talking about how dreadful Chopin is, making fun of the language, of…

Those Storycorps videos are beautiful and made me cry
That is all.

"Third Wheel Legend," "Red Balloon," and "Milk Machine" for me.

Hi Cheesedick. Here's what's to get. I'm wondering how someone can have such a negative opinion of a video game that I found to be very good indeed, and which the vast majority of reviewers found to be very good also. I did this by pointing out what I thought was good about the game, and what I thought was not so…

Bit harsh?
Really quite surprised by the low grade. I saw generally very positive reviews over the last week and purchased it this weekend. Played through it over the last couple of days and even found myself going back to replay levels to beat time challenges and collect extra items before I'd even completed the…

Canceraids is clearly my own little personal apocalypse. Also Shrike - how fucking awesome is Hyperion! Thanks for putting that in my head.