Hello children, let me school you like mr. Kot-TAIR --

First-a-ly: liking Rodney's blog a lot, even though it's only one post old. I disagree with him about Stevie's "Sweet Little Girl," though. Where Rodney sees the "other voice" as an inexplicable embarrassment, I think Stevie is just doing what he does all over Music of My Mind: undercutting his own image. Until this record, he had never been allowed to have the creative control he had always craved. Sure, he was writing some of his own songs, trying harder and harder to make them relevant and deep. But -- like Marvin, like a lot of Motown folk -- Stevie had been chafing under the Berry Gordy lockdown. Now, after the success of What's Going On, Stevie gets the chance to take the reins. What has he done in the first two songs here? "Love Having You Around," a three-minute song that keeps going for another four point three minutes building up ambiguities in its music and in Stevie's voice, and "Superwoman," which morphs into that whole "where were you when I needed you last winter" hook that Lauryn Hill sang on that Common song that made me hate Common back then. As a deconstructionist (and a white guy) I tend to think that Stevie is just throwing in the fakey-ghetto voice on "Sweet Little Girl" to undercut the rest of the song's oh-so-motown-y sentiments, a way of taking the piss out of himself so everyone knows he was in on the joke the whole time. However, I see where Rodney might not feel that way...especially in the very last comment Stevie's pimped-out second narrator makes, right at the deep fade. So yeah -- this is a blog that can be learned from.

Second-ly, check out this other blog by Mordecai. So far, I like it, although I eagerly await the time when he decides, "You know what, screw P'fork and Spin and all lists, I wanna write about what I wanna write about." That will be fun. And he seems to pretty much like everything, which I admire (I do the same thing) but I don't trust (most days, I wouldn't trust me as far as I can throw me). One word for dude: if you're going to imply that Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, for example, doesn't mean a thing, then just SAY IT. You'd be wrong, but it's the bold step. Don't walk up to the edge and then just peer over, yo.

But both are smart guys and I reserve the right to argue with both of 'em in the days to come. I love them whippersnappers, but sometimes I gotta lay the (gentle and constructive) smackage down.

With a lame flourish
I rise from my comfy chair
World saved once again