Xgau Sez: August, 2025

Thoughts on AI, advice to young critic, the Angry Samoans as dinner music, "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll" as ASMR, the road to humane politics, and 21 Louis Armstrong albums in no particular order.

I’ve always appreciated how you find unique ways to “unlock” music, and I often revisit your back catalogue to refresh my ears on records I love (for ex, your wry point about early Steely Dan: Palmer’s singing “fit[ting] in like a cheerleader at a crap game” is on-point, though you’ve forever ruined my enjoyment of “Dirty Work”:)) Another fave of mine is your quip about the Strokes’ fourth album: “You know how it is—the gym does more for your wind than for your jump shot”—a splendidly abstruse (and apt) line! It’s in these touches where I believe real value/artistry in criticism occurs. That said, I wonder what you think AI will reap in this particular context. Have you toyed with the tech at all? On a lark, I’ve asked it to imitate distinct prose stylists (Hem, DFW, etc.) & find that it can capture overt staples, but clumsily so; I had it imitate your style, and it broadly “got” you in certain touches, but somehow had you praising an Aimee Mann record. Your thoughts on AI and “unique voice”? — Jason Holtzman, Gainesville, Florida

As a well-read, self-taught writer who’s spent his professional life looking inside himself and figuring out whether and how the good feeling the melody or timbre or beat or verbal intellection/humor/expressiveness of a compelling track arouses in me entails physical pleasure, fresh insight, incisive humor, affecting emotion, and now I’ll stop until somebody pays me money—good money—to excavate further, I’m extremely skeptical regarding AI. For one thing, human writers have bodies. AI is certainly aware of this inconvenient fact. But that doesn’t mean it has the proper physical equipment to understand what it means. AI, it’s called, right? Intelligence does not happen in the body. It happens in the cerebellum, which AI presumably knows as opposed to understands is a different thing without having the intellectual wherewithal to “know” just exactly how it’s different.

As a young person that loves music and is very opinionated, I want to review albums and be a critic. What words of advice would you give to a young writer, or what advice would you give to your younger self? — Reagan Bussey, Starkville Mississippi.

First, don’t kid yourself about the raw appeal of your prose. Be relatively confident that some people out there enjoy your writing AS WRITING. Second, don’t fib about how much you yourself like or dislike the music in question, and even more important, why you feel the way you do. If the reasons aren’t vivid or interesting or significant or striking or of general social/aesthetic usefulness, review something else.

Whatever is to become of the Angry Samoans? Will humankind be able to appreciate the quick tempos, playful tunes, and clever outrageousness of Back From Samoa ever again? — Benjamin Barnes, Springs, Pennsylvania

Why not? I played their 43-track 1994 The Unboxed Set before dinner and it sounded undiminished, though it has its limitations as dinner music. Here’s hoping, though I’m not holding my breath, they do a concept EP about RFK Jr. fucking up American Samoa’s vaccine program.

In your review of Emotional Rescue you wonder aloud if this album wouldn’t sound more interesting than It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll should we take the time to compare/contrast in our respective retirement communities. I commend you for thinking you’d ever retire. Naturally, this thing of ours keeps pulling you back in. But in 2025, I wonder how all the post-Exile albums hold up to you and especially when compared to one another. You were spot on about Wyman coming down front and center like he’s James Jamerson throughout ER. The loudness wars felt in the Universal remasters (on CD, at least) often hurt the air in the Stones’ sound. Listen to “Beast of Burden” to hear it sounding rushed and unnatural in its over-compressed state. Maybe because the songs aren’t as great on ER, they benefit significantly from this approach. Wyman-Watts never sound more needed to making this material work. The needle hasn’t moved as much for IORR in its remastered form. Your serve.— Rob O’Connor, Hurley, New York

I just put on It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll when it was time for my nap—on Spotify, admittedly, wrestling vinyl out of my industrial shelves is not for 83-year-olds and the R’s are especially awkward. Dozed off for a while, woke up, wondered briefly what that was because until I truly awakened I didn’t know. Initial conclusion: no Exile, no Now! Duh. Subsequent analysis: I will never play it again. As for Emotional Rescue, I’ll stick with what I said when assessing Dirty Work the best album the Stones came up with post-Some Girls: “it peters out quicker than the side-openers make you hope.” And FYI, rerating albums can get pretty tiresome.

If there had been no influence of Christianity, do you think you would have become a left-wing intellectual? — Brian Eastman, UK

I try never to downgrade how crucial growing up in a fundamentalist church not just was but HAD TO BE as regards what became of me. But I don’t think fundamentalist notions of charity, which are real up to a point, led me on the road to humane politics. My younger brother has spent most of his life as a Christian youth worker. He’s been instrumental in bringing Christians of color, most of them Asian, to middle-class Connecticut, where he’s resided for most of his adult life. He’s built housing in poor countries. He’s honest and humane. But we seldom if ever talk about politics, and I very much doubt he’s any kind of leftist, though perhaps he is some kind of liberal the way such things are gauged in his world.

In a recent Louis Armstrong review you mentioned that you had 21 Armstrong titles on your A shelves. I have about half that many, most on your recommendations. Will your please list those titles? — Stiv, Texas

CDs only, in no particular order, alphabetical included.

• New Orleans Nights (Verve)

• Vol. 6: St. Louis Blues (Columbia)

• Louis in New York Volume V (Columbia)

• Plays W.C. Handy (Columbia/Legacy)

• Love Songs (MCA)

• Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines (Columbia)

• C’Est Ci Bon (Tomato)

• Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington: The Master Takes (Roulette Jazz)

• 16 Most Requested Songs (Columbia/Legacy)

• What a Wonderful Christmas (Hip-O)

• An American Icon (Hip-O)

• Pops Is Tops: The Verve Studio Albums (Verve)

• Satch Plays Fats (Columbia/Legacy)

• The Complete Town Hall Concert 1947 (Fresh Sound)

• Satchmo: A Musical Autobiograph (Verve)

• Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson (Verve)

• Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars (Columbia/Legacy)

• Louis Armstrong Volume 7: You’re Drivin’ Me Crazy (Columbia/Legacy)

• Satch Blows the Blues (Columbia/Legacy)

• The Best of Louis Armstrong: Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings (Columbia/Legacy)

• The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (BMG Classics)

• Ken Burns Jazz (Columbia/Legacy)