Anti-Climacus

Love, "Alone Again Or" and "A House Is Not a Motel"

I don't listen to the radio. I stopped listening to it sometime in 1997, if not before. I have a passing familiarity with the radio hits of the present day as a result of a slightly higher rate of attendance at the sort of places that play today's radio hits, and whatever I pick up in friends' cars (the girlfriend has satellite radio, which is really just slight variation on an itunes/pandora playlist).

There are two consequences of this policy: I tend to listen almost exclusively to albums (some exceptions made for playlists, generally of my own composition), and I still learn about music the old-fashioned way--by reading what people write about it. Experimentation tends to be on the edges, things I know I should listen to but haven't yet; Robert Christgau is an invaluable resource in this respect, as well as many years of reading rock mags.

Love is one of those bands. Forever Changes is one of those minor-masterpiece albums, one of the highlights of pre-70s L.A. rock, psychedelic but not 'psychedelic,' pop but not 'pop.' And for possibly all these reasons, I've had a hard time convincing myself the album is worth paying money for. But the occasional, periodic listen of the two big singles off the album, above and below, is slowly inching me towards these idea of purchasing the whole thing. But we'll see.