[A] Since you live in Romania, it's no surprise that you're not familiar with what a joke the Grammys are to most critics--much more than the Oscars, which is saying something. "Technical prowess"--sure, to an extent. Respectable, undisruptive aesthetic with a patina of creativity and BIG SALES--really the point. Also, the voters are mostly white and old in an art form still commercially dependent on the young and beholden artistically to over a century of disgracefully, scandalously, exploitatively under-rewarded black creativity. As it happens, I've written two 21st-century pieces on the Grammys, the first of which I might have crammed into Is It Still Good to Ya? if I'd had a good place to put it (toward the end of the first section might have worked fine). Here's a 2001 Voice one. And here's a live-blogged 2009 thing I did for the ARTicles blog of the National Arts Journalism Program.

[A] Here the distinction between "listened to" and "heard" comes into play. My hours are far more impressive if we equate hearing, which requires little or no mindfulness, with listening to, which requires concentration and engagement. I'm willing to guess that I've heard more different albums than any other person on Earth, but that's a far more limited claim. Anyway, people in radio and at record companies also hear a tremendous quantity of music. And never underestimate how much music musicians hear in their lives. Classical musicians practice for hours a day and hear every note they play, but pop and jazz musicians' lives are soaked in music as well. Obviously I'm unusually voracious, and I've probably reviewed more albums than anyone. (There are about 15,000 reviews on the site.) And yes, I'm proud of these things. But musicians live music, and consumers like me and you are in debt to their dedication.

[A] First, all musicians these days are underemployed, with the decline of studio recording more than the live scene the key reason by me; for that matter, musicians have been underemployed approximately forever. Second, having written one fine Thelonious Monk essay and some good briefs does not render me an expert (and btw, I couldn't have written my description of that Johnny Griffin solo, which I've recently learned is more legendary than I'd dreamed--there are jazz musicians who've committed it to memory, I'm told--without detailed coaching from my trumpet-playing brother-in-law, a retired attorney who plays out frequently in a variety of styles and makes little or no money doing so). Third, I never believe anything Terry Teachout says, for reasons I explain in the Armstrong piece which (like the Monk) is in Is It Still Good to Ya? and go into further in an NAJP ARTicles blog diatribe findable on my site. Fourth, Nate Chinen has a new book on 21st-century jazz that you should probably read. Fifth, I don't think there's a fallacy in any kind of public-school arts instruction (work for musicians, after all) and see no reason not to believe that it will plant a few seeds, but I also very much doubt it will reverse larger historical tendencies--such as, just as an instance, the decline of the jazz audience.

[A] What an interesting question. My first thought was Spanish, and that might be best--vast quantities of major music (albeit also dreck) in that tongue, from Los Van Van to Ruben Blades to Victor Jara. But then I thought Portuguese even though I'm not a big samba guy. I'd get my beloved Tom Zé to start, and finally connect to Veloso, and many of the other tropicalia legends were renowned lyricists. And hey, how about Lingala? Or French, which I supposedly speak but actually only read (some). So I say . . . Portuguese! (I think.)

[A] I greatly prefer medium-fi to lo-fi and think the fetishization of certain lo-fi recordings--Beatles in Hamburg is my usual example--is for obsessives and professionals only. On the other hand, Ramones cost $6400 to record, Have Moicy! less than that, and both sound great. As for early Mountain Goats, I delved around in there a fair amount and never found anything as compelling as John Darnielle's later work. I love the guy, but not quite that much.

[A] Lucidity signifies clarity as a transcendent ideal, which like most transcendent ideals ain't for me. But I do believe I'm clear while both cracking wise, sometimes via jokes those who don't share my context or grok my sensibility won't get, and exploring complex ideas that are nevertheless far more accessible than those of "theory," in which clarity is regarded as a lie by definition, because the world truly understood is such a recondite place. Also, I deploy a rather large vocabulary, which insofar as clarity requires precision and entertainment thrives on variety, as I believe they do, can be daunting for some but doesn't in my opinion make me less clear.

[A] This is both an impossible question to answer and a dangerous question to answer, and I can say right now that in the case of Michael Jackson I'm just gonna have to wait and see, while in the cases of R. Kelly and Ryan Adams the abuse was something I already heard or at least sensed in their art, which I never much cared for much anyway, in part for that reason. (My Kelly piece in Is It Still Good to Ya?, written in 2005 and selected for that book long before he finally got a small portion of what he deserves, addresses this question.) But I will say this. James Brown and George Jones both abused women, as I've specified in critical appreciations of each. That did not and does not stop me from admiring and indeed loving their music. For that matter, John Lennon wasn't always so great to women either.

[A] It's all too catch-as-catch-can. I'm on plenty of PR lists and always check my email, still get things in the mail (the Americana business remains very CD-oriented, also jazz and world), and regularly get tips from a few friends who know my tastes. The way Pitchfork organizes its reviews render it a useful source--I regularly check 'em out, locate anything that sounds vaguely promising on Spotify, playlist it, and then listen either on my phone at the gym etc. or when I don't feel like getting up and loading and programming my wonky changer. Fewer than half of these get more than one play, but the Diana Gordon EP in this week's Expert Witness, for instance, started that way (the Amber Mark was a friend's tip). Nonetheless, I miss a lot of stuff, and Carola's illness in 2018 had a distracting effect. Just from the most recent batch of Xgau Sez questions, for instance, I found out that not only did the Cloud Nothings have a 2018 album but that--somehow, some way--I missed Nicki Minaj's Queen. I'm streaming it as I write.

[A] Thank you three ways. One, for the compliment. Two, for an exceptionally well-written query sans question mark--I deleted one unnecessary word but otherwise ran it as is. Three, for your advice, which I hope to try whenever I have the time and gumption to extract my changer from under the preamp I never turn off and the tuner I never use. I also expect to enlist an advisor who can instruct me on laser location and access.

[A] In the Subjects for Further Research appendix to the '70s Consumer Guide book, findable on my site, appears the following entry: "Nick Drake: I'm not inclined to revere suicides. But Drake's jazzy folk-pop is admired by a lot of people who have no use for Kenny Rankin, and I prefer to leave open the possibility that he's yet another English mystic (romantic?) I'm too set in my ways to hear." This was fairly audacious in 1980 and I'm certainly aware that it's a lot more unconventional now. Drake is admired and beloved by many, so many that I'm sure he was an artist of real originality and, for many, appeal. Last time I tried to improve my attitude was when he was reissued to some fanfare I think in the '90s, but to no avail. Although there've been a few exceptions, I've never been attracted to hypersensitives or depressives, and Drake is both. I make no claim for the objective aesthetic value of these tastes. If you enjoy and admire him, go to it with my blessings--you have lots of intelligent company. Just not me.

[A] It's a long list. I'd put Rakim first to this day, but there are so many others--off the top of my head, Chuck D, Biggie, Jay-Z although it took me a while to hear how brilliant his offhandedness is, both members of OutKast, Eminem, Lil Wayne in his highly unregal way, probably both Nicki Minaj and Jean Grae (although she's faded in recent years), for a while I would have said Mr. Lif but he's faded too, the highly unregal ODB. Most regal would be the early masters, Rakim and Chuck. What makes Kendrick's unregality so striking is that, unlike Wayne or ODB, there's nothing weird or goofy about him--not close. Both his accent and his timbre are so unprepossessing--he always sounds like an ordinary guy with a knack for rapping. Getting more specific would take hours of straight listening and lots of comparison--the kind of thing I reduce to a sentence or two or maybe a graf after most of a day's listening and checking with my gifted vocal consultant Carola Dibbell.

[A] For sure where you grow up affects your tastes, as do all kinds of other biographical details. The South seems especially sticky musically. Moreover, I'm very much a New Yorker. But the thing about New York in particular is that the city's culture isn't just strong, it's broad--multicultural, both Hispanic and, especially, Jewish long before the post-1965 immigration wave that has gradually been making white people a minority here. And not only is it broad, it's aggressively cosmopolitan. For that reason especially, it's a magnet. Lou Reed and the Dolls were native New Yorkers, but Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell were not. They were arty rebels from cultured families who were drawn to New York and made their own New York music from what they found here. Ditto for Kim and Thurston and Sonic Youth. Would I have come here if I'd been brought up elsewhere? Who knows--as I explain in Going Into the City, being stuck in a class full of smart Jewish kids in 1953 was a revelation for me. Then again, one reason it was so earthshaking is that I was the rare white New Yorker who was brought up in a fundamentalist Christian church. Which in turn probably attunes me to non-cosmopolitan American musics as other New Yorkers are not. And so it goes.

[A] You and me are lucky fellows, David Springer, because you give me the chance to simply quote a few sentences about Kael's 1965 I Lost It at the Movies from the introduction to my forthcoming Book Reports, due from Duke mid-April. Ahem. "Not yet at The New Yorker when it was published, Pauline Kael was deeply into movies for love alone. I met her once at the Algonquin and didn't dig her queen bee act. But her secular intellect and honed prose, her brassy candor and democratic gusto, her nose for the laugh line and love affair with American English, her ideas as juicy as her descriptions, and her enthusiasm for artworks from The Grand Illusion to The Sugarland Express all rendered her an earthshaking critic. And except for Raising Kane, initially a very long New Yorker essay, every one of the dozen-plus books she published was a collection. I'm no Kael--nobody is. But I've always figured that if collections were good enough for her, they're good enough for me."

[A] I'm going to overlook the fundamental silliness of this question--bands are among other things about personal synergy, which is why supergroups suck--and also stretch your guidelines because, I admit, you got me musing anyway and I thought it would be fun to answer, only answer my way. I'll start with bass because it's easiest: James Jamerson. His great disciple McCartney probably ended up knowing more about harmony, but he's the man and always will be. Drummer: Charlie Watts on the one hand and Ziggy Modeliste on the other plus let us not forget Jabo Starks and Clyde Stubblefield, so to subsume them all I'll choose an LA studio drummer who cut his teeth in New Orleans: Earl Palmer. Lead singer: John Lennon, who will also play some rhythm guitar, only on rhythm guitar-plus we also want Lisa Walker, who by the way we'll also let sing, although not so as to get in the way of Carola's nominee, the fetching Etta James. Lead guitar: Robert Quine. And since you granted me keyboard space I'll pick a piano man who might also sing and even pick up a guitar now and then, quite possibly overwhelming all our other guitarists in the process. Fellow who goes by the moniker Prince.

[A] It's less now than at the beginning, but generally several a day, many of which seem too specific to bother with, although what I choose can be pretty impulsive--if an answer just pops into my head I'm liable to pursue it. I cut down to once every three weeks not because there weren't enough to engage my interest but because I work pretty hard at my Noisey column, am promoting two books, have lots of the kind of health and family obligations that accrue to the elderly, and just spent a year in which I didn't see enough of my friends. So now I'll ask you a question. Who the hell is Thor?

[A] As I've said before in this space, I am not an audiophile. At 76, I never will be. I actively dislike luxury goods and prefer my couture from L.L. Bean. Perfect sound forever means nothing to me. Vinyl may be "richer" than CDs (and may not), but I love CD convenience. I do have a professional audio advisor who thinks the Boses are fine for my purposes, which he understands well. I have now owned four Sony CDP-CR375 changers (and hence now own four remotes, which is useful, they get mislaid), two or three of which I bought used. My only complaint is crucial, however: after a while they stop recognizing CDs, need to babied into it by manipulating the stop button and other fussy stratagems. That machine fits perfectly in my very cramped workspace, plus I really know how it works. FWIW, I still write when possible in DOS-based WP51, a superb word processing as opposed to self-publishing program that dates to 1991. I convert to Word--7 I believe--for email purposes.) My email service provider is AOL because Gmail insisted my handle be at least six characters. I never have been and never will be on Facebook. Etc. Any practical suggestion regarding how I nurse along my actually existing CD changer would still be greatly appreciated. Or maybe I need to buy a new one I won't like as much.

[A] Counting just stuff I've caught and enjoyed--I can't fairly speak for, say, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band or Ruth Brown, who I suspect might have managed to reach fair-minded nonfans better attuned to their skill sets than I am--I note four: Boz Scaggs's moderately astonishing 2015 A Fool to Care, which I've mentioned before here; the terrific 2009 album Asleep at the Wheel did backing Willie Nelson; the first good album I ever noticed David Bromberg making, 2016's The Blues, the Whole Blues, and Nothing but the Blues, which is so much fun I wouldn't be surprised if there were other gems lurking in a catalogue I never paid the slightest mind; and the Lady Gaga-Tony Bennett album, where Gaga is superb but Bennett definitely pulls his weight.

[A] Obviously naming the instrumental interludes after seasons refers to the cyclical nature of life. But this is a dark album, and by announcing spring, the most cliched symbol of rebirth, and then going silent, I expect Fiasco meant to imply uncertainty and possibility simultaneously. The final song of the Winter section is the ambiguous but ultimately positive "They.Resurrect.Over.New," the title a play on the Pete Rock & CL Smooth mourning song "They Reminisce Over You." The "Spring" interlude includes playground sounds, so I'd say it stays positive. But he'd still rather listeners fill in the blank on their own terms.

[A] A Google search of my site indicates only three hits for "Heinz," all of which concern beans. You're referring to the legendary sportswriter W.C. Heinz, perhaps because the boxing writer in question also has a double-initial sobriquet: A.J. Liebling. I like all of Liebling's writing, but the boxing book you have in mind remains one of my favorite essay collections, and I do love essay collections: The Sweet Science. I was never much of a boxing fan, however. Got into basketball during the Patrick Ewing and Jason Kidd years, then slacked off, and watch tennis occasionally--it was my father's sport and my sister is a big fan. But basically I'm a baseball fan who only recently--basically with the advent of MLB's Gameday feature--stopped listening to every Yankee game on the radio while he also listened to music, which was not a healthy habit. I read baseball books occasionally, but it's been awhile, and read coverage mainly in the Times, which has neglected the sport shamefully in the past few years (unlike Rupert Murdoch's rag, the Post). Football I never liked and hockey I hate, both for the same reason--a glorification and, in a way worse, normalization of violence far exceeding boxing's. And although I'm obviously a Yankee fan for life, I wasn't altogether disappointed when they got whipped by the Red Sox. I had more important things to do last October, in particular paying as much attention as possible to my cancer-stricken wife--who is, to answer another question, in a remission her oncologist calls "better than remission." This doesn't mean there won't be a recurrence--with multiple myeloma, there probably will be unless the cure they say is in sight arrives. But it will be treatable.

[A] Funny you should ask, because it's the perfect excuse for me to link to the Book Reports intro Duke just put online. But because you were generous enough to give me this opening, I'll add that I think everybody should read a little Dickens--Bleak House and David Copperfield are the masterpieces, but if you want something a little shorter Great Expectations is wonderful--and that in the last 16 months or so I've read seven long novels by science fiction titan Kim Stanley Robinson. His Mars trilogy is magnificent and I just got knocked out by Aurora, a big chunk of which is narrated by a computer that/who learns what love as it learns to write. Now here's that Book Reports link. I hope the table of contents is of interest too.