Review Round-Up: Have One on Me

Joanna Newsom's new album, Have One on Me, was finally released today and we are pretty pumped about it over here. But something annoying is happening in "journalism" where music reviews are concerned and that is lazy writing. Also comments on a musician's physical appearance...are male musicians ever described as "sexpots"? Anyway, how many times can you spot the following in any given review of this album?:

"pixie"
"elfin"
"dreamlike"
"indie princess"
"quirky"
"whimsical"
"freak folk"
"16th-century kewpie doll"

reference to Kate Bush
reference to Joni Mitchell
reference to Bjork
reference to Tori Amos (there are only 4 female artists, ever)

Now on to the reviews:

The one in Paste is annoying, but at least it's original.

The NYT review is probably the best piece of music writing of the bunch.

LA Times' write-up is pretty mediocre.

And I hate to say it, but Pitchfork is unassailable as usual. No lazy musical signposts, no complaints about the quality of her voice, no comment on JN's appearance or personal life.

And I straight-up hate the AV Club's review, mostly because of the comments discussing how hot she is, whether she or the girl from Beach House is hotter, what they would like to do to her, etc. Even a classy mention of DSL!

Ugh. If you can find any better reviews, leave them in the comments. If they exist, I wanna know!

iGoogle

Does anyone use iGoogle? Recently I have started using it to organize, and I wonder if others are using it. Am I out of the loop?

What I like about it:

• Fun themes - it really dresses up my emails. Currently using: Las Vegas Strip


• Blog organizer - able to see who updated all at once.

I'm on the fence about reading emails in this way. I like seeing the colors of my labels and being able to reference old emails. Also, you don't get the uniqueness of a website unless you go to click on the tab.