ALBUM REVIEW

Greatest Liner Notes

Various Writers

From Grammy-winning prose such as the notes by Johnny Cash for Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, to more obscure gems like St. Clair M. Marshall’s notes for the debut LP of Him, He & Me, Greatest Liner Notes is the first boxed set to skip music entirely.

You get George Martin describing how his 8-year-old daughter asked if the Beatles were as great as the Bay City Rollers (“Probably not,” he said), from the back cover of The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl.

You also get glimpses into the way people thought way back when. Elliott Murphy in 1974 in the notes to Velvet Underground Live states “The difference between movies and rock’n’roll is that rock’n’roll doesn’t lie.” Today, not only does rock and roll lie, it charges $350 to watch the lie from the front row.

Traditionally considered “less important” than the records they accompanied, liner notes have finally been given their due. So it is ironic that Greatest Liner Notes’ own liner notes are not great or even good enough to be included in its own collection.

– Dr. Lester S. Carboni

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The Recalls

I see you driving down the street

In your car or truck

Your brakes don’t work

Your gas pedal is stu - uh uh, uh - uck

Here it comes again

Unwanted acceleration under the starry skies

Here it comes again

The CEO’s going to apologize

My best friend’s Toyotas

My best friend’s Toyotas

My best friend’s Toyotas

They used to not suck

(The gas pedal’s still…stuck)

– “My Best Friend’s Toyotas”

The Recalls are a new hybrid of two new automotive genres, Japanese decline and American malaise. Whereas previous artists such as Chuck Berry and Bruce Springsteen celebrated the romance of the automobile and the call of the open road, the Recalls sing of faulty electronics systems and sticky floor mats.

Songs include “Let the Complaints Roll,” “Bye Bye Lexus,” “You’re All I’ve Killed Tonight,” “Just What I Bleeded” and “I’m in Touch With Your Customer Relations Department.”

This is the Recalls’ first CD and also their last, because all CDs have been recalled as well as the Recalls themselves.

A spokesman for the group said, “You have my personal commitment that we will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the trust of the people we have the most contempt for. I mean, our customers.”

– Dr. Lester S. Carboni

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