[Jandek] Khartoum: Dusted Review vs. Paul Condon vs. All Music Guide Review

[Danen D. Jobe]

I'm a lot closer to Paul's opinion on 'Khartoum'  than Unterberger - but the big U has a history with Jandek so if he wants to be critical he's earned the right. Hell, I guess my six year old has the right to like it or not. Corwood never expects anyone to care; they just put it out there.

Still mulling the 'Variations' over. The version of "Mountain" really is so harrowing as to blow my mind. It IS a lot like some of Beckett's work (thanks for that, Paul, I don't think I'd put it in that context).

I think I'm gonna have a copy of it sent to the reviewer over at Dusted.  His name is Spencer Grady, and he has a very different take on this than Paul (or Unterberger, for that matter).  the link is here:

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/2634

The funny thing is how full circle this all seems to me.  When I first got into Jandek I remember reading a review in Option where the critic complained about them all sounding the same, and figuring he needed to get rid of a few Janky's to make room for more Jefferson Airplane. Well, the music that critic complained about is the music some are defending as his best stuff right now, and fourteen years later Corwood's still pumping out discs and now, for the first time, we can truly say we have an album that's almost exactly like the one before it (think about it - you don't get more Beckett than that!).

Still, I think Unterberger's opinion is valid and intelligent. I think Paul's opinion is valid and intelligent, and I guess even the Dusted guy has a right to his feelings even though they're far removed from mine (and a tad offensive - note I didn't modify them with "intelligent"). They're just opinions. We should be able to banter on this list as long as things stay civil, right?  

For that matter, (and this is my opinion), the term "troll" in an internet context is becoming so overused as to begin to lose meaning. We've had a few trolls on here as I would term them (self-glorifiers who want to disagree with everybody on everything, don't even like Jandek and yet refuse to leave the list - see the archives for more than one example).  I don't see anything like that right now.  Just my two cents.

Danen