Back to the Miracle Factory: Rock etc. 1990s

Back to the Miracle Factory: Rock etc. 1990s
By Paul Williams
Forge Books, $24

Paul Williams has published his rock fanzine, Crawdaddy, off and on since 1966 as a vehicle for his homegrown rock criticism, and Back to the Miracle Factory collects his favorite pieces from the ’90s. Williams is a careful listener (especially to his favorite artists — Dylan, the Beach Boys, the Grateful Dead . . . and did he mention Dylan?), though he does try to stay current, raving about Apache Indian, Liz Phair and his (cough) girlfriend, Cindy Lee Berryhill. When he parses Smokey Robinson lyrics, it’s clear he thinks hard about how great pop works. But most of these pieces are unrevised notes-on-what-I’ve-been-listening-to-lately, often using a ramble through the track listing with sentence fragments about what each song sounds like — a trademark Williams device — as a weak substitute for having a point.
Douglas Wolk