A Letter from a Colleague

Dear Doc,

I saw your blog and had to get back in touch, especially after checking out the letters you were getting from Gruentag.

Sorry I've been out of touch - I've kind of been out of it since the Dead broke up, well even before that actually, 'cause they stopped using my sound system a long time before that (even you've got to admit the Gauss drivers were a nice touch). If you know anyone else who wants to get that kind of sound let me know, 'cause I've still got the chops, you know? I've got an idea for a nanotechnology tube amp that'll blow you away.

So I had to laugh about you and Gruentag trying to quantify rock intensity. I'm sorry, but you guys are so lame! It's a trivial problem. The real challenge is to quantify overall music quality using statistical techniques. Like, if you had those tools you could totally prove that OutKast is better than Fugazi.

I did some contract work for the web dudes a while back, and they've made a start on it. Through quantitative analysis of reviews from the web, we can prove that the three best albums of the past five years are:

• Smile, Brian Wilson
• How the West Was Won, Led Zeppelin
• Van Lear Rose, Loretta Lynn

Now, I know what you're thinking: how did Led Zeppelin get on there? Everyone knows about Smile (pledge bait for the New Millenium), and certainly the Loretta Lynn / Jack White partnership, resulting in a magnificent artistic triumph, is old news to you. But Led Zeppelin? OK, maybe it needs some fine-tuning, but conceptually this sucker works and you should respect that.

Now here are two more albums the model has identified as quantitatively superior. And if you listen with open ears, you're going to hear some great things:

• Chavez Ravine, Ry Cooder - Hey, remember when music was both serious and good? It's a concept album based on this book, and makes Buena Vista Social Club look like the Archies second album. Seriously, if you can handle Latin music at all, it's The Shit.
• I think you might have been the one who told me Dolly Parton was still alive. I heard that cover of "Billy Dale" she did with Asleep at the Wheel, but I thought it was a one-off. It wasn't - Little Sparrow is as fine a country-bluegrass album as you're going to hear.
  

Dolly Parton, man. Who'd have thought? But she's serious - she's a serious artist, man. I've got a quiet week coming up here - maybe I'll load up the bus and get out to Branson. I've got a sound system I'd like to show her.

- Kev