I read a whole pile of articles & interviews yesterday about Scritti Politti, but leave it to Billboard (of all people) to put it plainly enough:

"Not many albums from smack in the middle of the "Big '80s" can be said to possess the quality of timelessness, but Cupid & Psyche 85 most certainly does. The innovative aspects of Cupid & Psyche 85 were not lost on other musicians, who absorbed the technological lessons therein so quickly that few, if any, critics stopped to take note of where these ideas originally came from."

Ah critics! I went back to see if CP85 got any Pazz & Jop love. No. None. Perversely this makes me happy, because now, now (really that can't be italicized enough) they like him. Well, better late than never I suppose, except there's a kind of bitterness in things happening so late; it's hard for me to figure out all the reasons why, in 1985, they didn't get many (if any) votes, whereas now Green is lauded critically. Is it because it (White Bread Black Beer's on an independent label and was basically done at home, by himself?

There are other issues here too, but they are so thorny...I came across and read a Simon Reynolds interview with Green that was just painful after a while; SR coming off like the cruel headmaster of Rock Secondary School, Green helplessly shutting up after a while because he can tell he's not being understood, SR metaphorically rapping him with his ruler before going off to sit with a nice cup of tea and listen to The Doors or whatever. (No offence, Doors fans!) If I had read this first I would have understood that looking for anything sympathetic from Rip It Up and Start Again would have been the dictionary definition of useless. David Toop, on the other hand, understands and actually asked useful questions and got me thinking and adding stuff to my wishlist. Very exciting!

In short, there really is enough for a book. I will work hard on an intro and get that done - write to people and see if anyone writes back and maybe even do some Billboard research here, if I can.

Not much else to report, besides. Still waiting to hear about my operation, about when UC will come by to pick up books, etc. But I can feel the natural sluggishness of the first week of the year wearing off - I'm getting a lot of sleep and thinking better, and that makes me happy.