Poll: What is your favourite essay in Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island? (ed. Greil Marcus)

The Lester Bangs piece was one of the first pieces of music criticism that I really fell in love with, and really convinced me to look at that album as something other than a record my dad listens to. I would now count it as one of my favorites, and I don't think I could do that without Bangs' essay. So yeah, that.

A tough one, I love at least half of these. I clicked Tom Carson, but could just as easily have gone with Bangs, Smucker, Frith, Willis, or Tosches (those are probably the top-top choices for me).

I never read much affection for Rockwell's Linda Ronstadt essay, which did more to reawaken interest in her work than my mom's record collection. A huge inspiration on my own penchant for re-evaluating purportedly bad albums and neglected masterpieces. It's so generous!

Yeah, I liked Rockwell's essay a lot, and for the reasons you mention (it's definitely the boldest choice in the book), but just haven't gone back to it as often as the others.

Not sure how I'd feel about Marsh's piece now -- haven't read it in a long time either.

Marsh's piece is kinda dopey. "lol wanking"

There are still a few things in here I've barely read in their entirety btw (Lichtenstein, I'm talking to you... actually, I guess an Eagles record is as bold a choice in its way as a Ronstadt record).

In some ways the most impressive piece of writing is the Smucker in that I feel almost zero connection to his disc of choice and never felt an urgent need to investigate it -- I just really liked what he writes about other stuff.

Marsh's thing was funny at the time, but...

You should read that Lichtenstein again. I feel it's a better piece of "passionate advocacy" than the Rockwell/Ronstadt essay. in fact, I probably prefer the essays by people I hadn't really heard of before (Lichtenstein, Swartley/Springsteen, and that awesome M. Mark overview of Van Morrison) to some of the big names (Frith, Marsh) efforts.

M. Mark's Van Morrison piece, especially the album blurbs therein, is terrific too. I'm not as fond of Christgau on NY Dolls – a tad longwinded.

the Trout Mask essay

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Would easily vote for the appendix if I could, and would probably change my vote if I re-read the book, for now I'm going with Winner on Beefheart. (Never loved the Bangs as much as a lot of his stuff; always thought Carson was great on bigger context but less great on the Ramones themselves. And my hunch is that Marsh is at least as good as Tosches.)

Winner's piece is very funny. Mark's piece on Van as powerful in its own way as Bangs. Frith, who I had never cared for in other pieces, came across strong. Swartley, Carson, Willis...solid. Never cared for Christgau's NY Dolls and not sure why. Admittedly haven't read it in years but usually even when I'm confused or disagreeing with him (and I'm not saying I am with this piece) I still enjoy his style. I remember Marsh's piece being a surprise since I never associated him with that lightness of touch. And Nelson, whose writing I enjoy, I'm drawing a blank on...

Marcus' appendix falls in another category entirely and I think a follow-up volume of all those writers doing their own appendixes might have been something worth checking out...but I have to vote Tosches in the end. There's just something about his rhythms. I can delude myself into thinking I might be able to write something like some of the other writers (I'm easily deluded) but not Tosches. I don't know HOW he does it. And maybe that means if we're assigning musical likenesses...then Nick is actually progressive rock or something, the dexterous session cat who can mimic the classics...but hopefully that means he's Fripp and not ELP or Yes...or is he Eno?

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I have never read a single one of these, and they're all supposedly really great. Are they online anywhere?

Incidentally, in the intro to this book Christgau says that everyone was paid $750 for their contributions. This is 1979, which is about $2,200 in today's money.

Now guess how much the contributors to Marooned got paid.

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