[[it's harder to write at length about good pop songs than it is to brutally dismember crappy songs.]]

Not true of all forms of art criticism, however. I remember reading a piece in the New Yorker years ago about how the critic found it easy to write reviews of good plays because he would leave them feeling energized, whereas crap plays just sort of sucked out his soul.

[[it's harder to write at length about good pop songs than it is to brutally dismember crappy songs.]]

Not true of all forms of art criticism, however. I remember reading a piece in the New Yorker years ago about how the critic found it easy to write reviews of good plays because he would leave them feeling energized, whereas crap plays just sort of sucked out his soul.

Good reviews, however, are so much more difficult. You have to almost be clinical here, otherwise you sound either dispassionate (I guess you really didn't like it) or like a drooling fanboy (of course you like it, you'd like an hour of the band farting into the mic.) As a fan, you wouldn't want to harm prospects by misappropriating admiration, at the same time you want to put across that you actually liked the damn thing.

My advice: have Al Green write them. No one ever can argue with Al Green.

1. I wasn't intending to dis Al Green at all. Just saying this sounds similar to a couple of his other songs, and frankly, I don't mind. This isn't Rick Astley's producers recycling the same synth programming. This is a master of music revisiting the same themes.

2. I work for USA TODAY. We're brief. You have no idea how tough it was to write my thesis.

Actually — and I wonder if other Popdosers want to weigh in — it's harder to write at length about good pop songs than it is to brutally dismember crappy songs.

I really should expound on Jim Croce, though. I think I can name four of his songs off the top of my head. Two are irresitable catchy folk tales. The other two are brilliant ballads. “Operator” is an underrated classic — a great story of conflicting emotion told very well. For concise storytelling, can anyone top a line like “She's living in LA with my best old ex-friend Ray”?

The former contains a completely wack guitar solo that dropped in from somebody else's record by mistake–the sort of thing that you would expect to have killed Karen Carpenter merely by its rocking-ness. The Carpenters never recorded another record remotely like it. The latter is, quite simply, one of the perfect pop records of the 1970s. Sorry you don't hear it that way.

Good call on the “Free Bird”/Mac Davis thing, though.

The Zombies just toured America and Rod Argent, with his Argent bass-player regaled us with “Hold Your Head Up.” Their awesome 70s appearance on the John Denver Show is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkNA1H8ctEo

I love the scene in “Freaks & Geeks” where Lindsay gets stoned and reminisces about her childhood love of Mac Davis. “His hair looked so SOOFFT…” This is the only time I've ever seen an appreciation of Mac Davis within modern media channels.

I agree, this Chart Attack was too short! 1972 had it all, man.