In The End, The Sign Of Aretha

As A Performing Group, The Beatles Began By Playing Old Rock Favorites, For Dancing, To Tough Audiences In Liverpool And Hamburg. When They Began Writing Seriously, They Discovered That They Couldn't Compose In The Early American Rock Tradition.

Bob Dylan Was The Source Of Pop Music's Unpredictability In The Sixties. Never As Big A Record-seller As Commonly Imagined, His Importance Was First Aesthetic And Social, And Then As An Influence.

The Beatles Never Sounded Intimidated By Their Idols. They Never Interpreted Old Rock; They Simply Played It As Well And As Joyfully As They Knew How. On 'rock 'n' Roll,' John Lennon Does Nothing But Interpret Old Rock.

James Taylor May Be An All-american Boy But He Isn't Horatio Alger, And The Lionizing Of Many Rock Stars By The Rock Press Has As Much To Do With Old Fashioned Rags-to-riches Stories As Does The Straight Culture's Deification Of Its Idols.

On First Listening, Joni Mitchell's 'court And Spark,' The First Truly Great Pop Album Of 1974, Sounds Surprisingly Light; By The Third Or Fourth Listening, It Reveals Its Underlying Tensions.