perfidy

Eric Boehlert, Salon.com's resident music critic, has a long history of alternating wildly between prescient music-industry watchdoggery and tepid stabs at political writing. All that means is he's well above par for music critics, most of whom suck worse than Aerosmith's "A Night In The Ruts" and Korn bassist Fieldy's solo effort "Fieldy's Dreams" combined.

I can't argue with his latest column at all, which asserts that Dec. 20, 1969 was the greatest week in the history of rock. In terms of what the Billboard charts say, he's dead right. Check this out:

No. 1, "Abbey Road," the Beatles
No. 2, "Led Zeppelin II," Led Zeppelin
No. 3, "Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas," Tom Jones
No. 4, "Green River," Creedence Clearwater Revival
No. 5, "Let It Bleed," the Rolling Stones
No. 6, "Santana," Santana
No. 7, "Puzzle People," the Temptations
No. 8, "Blood Sweat & Tears," Blood Sweat & Tears
No. 9, "Crosby, Stills & Nash," Crosby, Stills & Nash
No. 10, "Easy Rider" soundtrack (featuring the Byrds, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Steppenwolf)

I dare you to find another week, ever, in which every single album in the top ten is still listenable, relevant, and awesome. No matter what you may think of CS&N or Tom Jones, they are a lot better than other chart toppers like Andy Gibb, Rick Astley, or Milli Vanilli. Go check it out... it's enough to make you pull out a zippo and hold it overhead.

Personally speaking, this chart has my favorite Beatles record, my favorite Stones record on it (which is not the same thing as their greatest), Led Zep's leanest and meanest LP, two of the best soul-funk records of all time, and "It's Not Unusual." Damn! Boehlert is especially powerful writing about the content of the records in the chart, their relevance to the violence of the time, and the symbolic passing of the torch between the 60's and 70's.

If the best music writing (like the best rock lyrics) is nothing more (or less!) than the creative deployment of impressions and evocative imagery to make your point, Boehlert has earned a great deal of goodwill with me to get him through his next quixotic attempts to prove that Bush lied ergo people died.