Saw that review, Darren. Wow! What a hatchet job. AMG's a weird place sometimes.

Their functionality improved after the first week on the new site, which out of fairness I should've posted about but neglected to...but I still will never understand the compunction to fix that which is not broken. Especially when it involves spending money, which they obviously did, and it's a site that's free to users.

For as long as I've been going there--and using it in something resembling a professional manner, for research purposes (which I actually don't do anymore since the revamp), I've felt that I agree with their editorial stance something about 85% of the time, or thereabouts. A funny number, I know. It just sounded right. So I've usually been comfortable reading their reviews. I've heard professionals denigrate their site as 'amateurish,' and it's true to an extent; I think a lot of their writing is fine, but they do have so-called 'amateurs' submitting reviews, and while I like the idea of that, to an extent, there is something that bothers me.

It's not like reading reviews on Amazon, mind you, but every once in awhile I come across one that strains to get across an extreme emotion that it reeks of desperation. I get that with this one; I remember getting the same feeling in a wildly positive review of MeShell NdeGeocello's Comfort Woman. Now, that's a fine record, but I think it's a few notches short of the classic the reviewer seemed to feel it was. Language was used that suggested that there's something wrong with you if you don't like this. Similarly, I got the feeling that this guy hated this rec so much that he needed to make it known that he thinks there's something wrong with anyone who likes it. Fair enough, but I say he's nuts & dead wrong about the rec. Great lyrics? Perhaps not, but it's garage rock, not a Dylan record, for Pete's sakes. He said something like, for anyone who's never heard an MC5 rec...this is coming from a guy who lists among his Desert Island Discs the first Boston album, Journey's Escape, REO Speedwagon's Hi Infidelity...tongue-in-cheek? I wonder. He also professes a strong dislike for Miles Davis. All of which has nothing to do with much of anything, I suppose. He's the writer, not me. And while I'm not going to say this rec is a classic, I think it's the best thing I've heard in years, & this guy has his head up his butt.