I think the contrast Goldstein makes in his NYT review between "She's Leaving Home" and "Eleanor Rigby" is illuminating.

You know, I love them practically more than anything, but don't even care whether they're together or not. I made no special effort to see them—the remaining two of them—on this tour.

"Nobody" is great, "Merry Go Round" is great, "Someone Take the Wheel" is great, "The Last" is great. "One Wink at A Time" is good, "When It Began" is good, "Sadly Beautiful" is good. The rest are at least OK.

A bad taste very much on display in this piece dismissing the Replacements' song "Merry Go Round," which she appears not to have bothered to understand:

By the way "I'd rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man" is of course a direct quotation from "Baby Let's Play House," the Elvis song. (Somebody probably already mentioned this.)

It's funny, a lot of the so-called "unskippable" ones from the earlier list to me would belong on this one, like "Bungalow Bill," "Rocky Raccoon," "Love Me Do" (which goes "Love love me do/You know I love you/ I'll always be true/ So please love me do" i.e. it sounds like it was written by an idiot).

Sexist, sure, why not?

Apparently this person's Ph.D is in comp lit., not anthropology.

You mean so great?

Sometimes I feel like comedians are the last people on earth you'd want to listen to if you want to hear something funny.

Replacements' Tim cover always seemed pretty f'd up.

I guess I don't know enough about Anderson's bio. From the Wikipedia entry (admittedly not an exhaustive source), it sounds like he was a middle-class kid who worked to make films and then had some success. But perhaps you know more about it than I do or Wikipedia does.

Careful, that argument you're having with yourself could make your head explode.

That's so interesting, I've never heard that before.

His songs are (intentionally) funny too. John Peel once said the Smiths were one of the few bands that could make him laugh out loud.

Nonsense. Their records were among the most important of their decade. "The Queen is Dead" has been voted the best record of all time by the NME.

I'm happy for people to think whatever they think. But just in case somebody hasn't made up his or her mind about "Merry Go Round," I'll express the opposite opinion, then you be the judge. "Merry Go Round" in my view is the furthest thing from schmaltzy treacle imaginable.