I'm not a professional reviewer. This is obvious, given the amateur venue through which I share what I laughably call my informed opinions. There are upsides and downsides to this. On the downside, I don't get compensated for my time, and few people care about my opinion. This is all done for the love of what I'm reviewing. But that's the first upside. Another is that I don't have to worry about the embarrassment of changing my mind to a broader audience. There is no broader audience, and so I have no issue revising previous statements. There are, after all, few consequences.
So it is with full confidence, and with nary a bit of egg on my face, that I tell you I was wrong about an album I reviewed last year. That's right. I'm fallible. I have moments of weakness. I only ask that you stay with me through them. I'm currently listening through The Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca, and I was mistaken. This is, truly, a great album, to sit alongside the very best last year had to offer. It is, at times, disarmingly gorgeous, and, at others, such as on the event of the title of this article, seethed over and over again with a backdrop of acerbic guitars, incredibly rough. It is always, without fail, idiosyncratic, but within the function of the form. This is not freaking out because we can, one of the cardinal sins; this is making slightly odd music because we know it is what we were made to do. And it's really brilliant.
So I was wrong. And I couldn't be happier to say so. I've never understood the refusal to be wrong, anyway. You gain knowledge, experience, and, in the case of reevaluating an album or a movie or a book, you gain something new to appreciate. And who doesn't need that?
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