[A] An interesting question that within a minute alerted me to two key facts. One, I write as a New Yorker, the best music city in the world during my lifetime. Second, ultimately I'm a record man, not a scene man. I'm intensely grateful I got to witness NYC punk close up plus been here for the very dawn of hip-hop plus disco at a distance and indeed the Monk-and-Coltrane jazz of the early '60s. And I'm also grateful to have covered other "scenes" journalistically: Monterey and the Summer of Love, Kingston in 1973 for Newsday, punk England for the Voice 1977, Akron for Pete's sake. Resided for eight months or so in both Chicago (Muddy Waters 1963!) and L.A. But I'm glad I'm such a New Yorker--it grounds me. And I'm glad too I've made album reviews my specialty, because strictly aural immersion in various regional musics has situated me virtually in Soweto and Dakar (though I'm also glad I've visited Africa twice), New Orleans and Seattle (both of which I've also visited more than once). I'm glad I've been so spread out. Because that spread is the most enlarging thing about music of all.

[A] Sure, but what else is new? I'm always pleased when my paper or a pal or even acquaintance gets a Pulitzer or comes close, as has happened a few times--it's good for their professional autonomy and their pocketbooks. Sometimes too a Pulitzer will have a progressive political effect. But the kind of journalists I hang out with don't take the Pulitzer that seriously--it's quintessential stuffed-shirt stuff. (I notice Pauline Kael got shut out, which is disgraceful even though the '70s weren't her best decade.) In my world the critic most unfairly shut out would have to be the great jazz-plus specialist (and my longtime colleague and friend) Gary Giddins, a dynamo of enormous range and productivity.

[A] I only reprint this benighted question--"consistently negative and demeaning" for reviews that include three A's and two more A minuses, for instance--to highlight the benighted notion that bad reviews ruined MJ's life. Reviews very seldom ruin artists' lives, and don't believe they have without plenty of corroborating evidence. Fact is, I very much doubt MJ ever read a word of mine in his life. Instead his ruin began with his abusive father, systematic mistreatment that was likely transmogrified into his own fucked up and very likely abusive sex life. None of which in my opinion diminishes the artistic value of his music, though it does make it harder to get with emotionally.

[A] Writing about Déjà Vu, a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young doc about Neil's CSNY Living With War documentary, for Film Comment, I found all three fifth wheels more likable than I once had. I was especially impressed by Stills, who electioneered for the Dems in his spare time. But I was also impressed by Crosby: "Older, wiser, and off crack, Crosby explains: 'CSNY is not a democracy. It's a dictatorship, a benevolent dictatorship. Neil is in charge not because he demands it. It's not because he bosses people around. It's because he thinks about this stuff All. The. Time.'" And in general Crosby too has been vocal politically, which I admire. But his supposed comeback album, 2021's For Free, lost me after one-and-a-half plays. Feel better. (P.S. I am highly unlikely to recall any response to second-rate jokes I concocted half a century ago.)

[A] Not a bad top 10, though any truly accurate good one on my part would require more relistening than I will ever have time for--for business or pleasure, there's just too much other music to listen to and will be till the day I die. Which goes approximately tenfold for the vault releases, about which I have a far less indulgent attitude than you do. Egomaniacal profit takers is the short of it, and the same goes for all the Stones outtakes digging and Dylan arcana and to a lesser extent Beatles remasters and for that matter reconstituted jazz geniuses. If mad fans and specialists care so much about an individual artist they want to delve into one or more of these options, they're welcome to do so. I did it with that fine Monk in Palo Alto thing myself. But what I treasure most about the music I've devoted my life to is its abundance and multiplicity, not its marginally differentiatable manifestations of individual genius. Will there be an exception or two sometime in my future? Perhaps a serendipitous one, like via some especially compelling word-of-mouth or special request. But in principle I don't care.

[A] The best songs for any wedding playlist, assuming music has been an important part of the couple's lives, are those they arrive at themselves. Brainstorm; replay stuff; keep a list. That said, however, I can name a few that seem relatively universal to me: Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell," Al Green's "Let's Get Married," and the Beach Boys' "Darlin'," although that's a more subjective call. Listen hard to Brad Paisley's "Then," as good a marriage lyric as I've ever heard, and see if it moves you. Others that come to mind are chancier. Etta James's version of Otis Redding's "Cigarettes and Coffee," for instance, has become a favorite in this household, but cigarettes being the noxious things they are could well seem beyond the pale in your case. Thelonious Monk's take on "Tea for Two" is great only if you're familiar with the simplistic "Tea for two/And me for you" ditty it simultaneously celebrates and deconstructs. And Kate & Anna McGarrigle's "Walking Song" carries with it the pall of the marriage it references, which is a major reason it's the only love song Kate ever wrote.