THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

This was supposed to be a natural. So often I play a record I once knew well and hear it snap into place —suddenly, I feel that I’ve never really comprehended it before. Perhaps I find myself liberated from assumptions that seem absurdly limited or shortsighted in retrospect, or finally grasp the assumptions some prescient artist arrived at years ago—something that happens frequently with black music, where my understanding lags chronically because my familiarity with the culture it is part of is so secondhand.