“It’s always that one song that gets to you. You can hide, but the song comes to find you.”
— Rob Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape)

I dislike Rob Sheffield for many reasons—his writing comes off as pompous, hipper-than-thou snark (and that’s just for the stuff he likes); his greasy, perpetual grad student look smacks so obviously of affectation; his voice on those VH1 shows sounds like he’s gargling bathwater with a tampon shoved up each nostril; and he made music writing safe for a whole army of people just like him (read Spin lately?). I also dislike him out of insane jealousy; in spite of all the above, he wrote one of the most moving books about music and music fans I’ve ever read. The bastard done really good. Go to Amazon now and purchase a copy, or borrow one from your local library, that most wonderful of socialist institutions.

A song I’d relegated to the leaky, cobwebby space in the back of my mind recently came to find me. I’d been in the mood to listen to some vinyl, and one of the hundred or so LPs I had standing at attention on a shelf in my living was Foreigner’s 1987 album Inside Information. Immediately, I knew which song I would drop the needle on first; I flipped the thing over to Side Two, and let my trusty old turntable do its thing. (more…)