Welcome, dear reader.

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into...Garrett's blog!

It will come to a relief to most of you, perhaps a disappointment to some, that I will really only be blogging about one of the three items in the title of this fine blog. Guess which?

But, worry not, this is not a blog about Medieval literature-- although, as the study of it occupies most of my time, I can't guarantee that Chaucer and friends won't make a guest appearance every once in a while.

What is this blog about? For one, the actual third member of the triumvirate honored in the title. Now, by Rock n' Roll I mean, well, what do I mean? I want to say "popular," but don't want to exclude personal favorites like Pere Ubu or Amy Rigby. "Lowbrow" and "mass-culture" also come to mind, but again, they seem silly when applied to self-conceived "artists" like Sonic Youth and Kanye West, or to unabashed intellectuals like Paul Simon and Boots Riley. So let's just settle with "everything except jazz and classical"-- rock, soul, folk, country, punk, dance, hip-hop, electronic, alternative/indie.

But fuck it. I find genre-splitting both tedious and bootless; the best artists defy classification altogether, and besides, I don't want to end up writing something like “head-spinning cross-breed of trap-rap and cloud rap" (Pitchfork review of Young Jeezy), "post-Encore slumber, “Diane Warren-esque, rap-rock hyrbrid" (Ptichfork review of Eminem), or "quasi-noise/rock weirdness...proto-IDM and 21st-century freak-house... identikit minimal/deep pack...beats-and-bass legend" (Pitchfork review of M.A.N.D.Y.).

My goal is to review four albums each week: two on Wednesday, two on Friday. On Wednesdays I'll be writing about newish music-- something that came out within the last month or so; on Fridays, older music. To be fair to the artists, I won't review anything I haven't listened to at least thrice through, and I won't give a good score (7 or higher) to anything I haven't heard at least five times.

Finally, for those of you who are thinking, "two posts per week, but that's not nearly enough Garrett!" Well, lucky for you, dear reader, music reviews are only part of this blog. I'll also give adequate attention to my other preoccupations, namely literature (old and new), beers, and politics.