Scaruffi.com –— because the same God that would smite you with the smarmy music jerks at Pitchforkmedia.com and a roommate that wakes up to "Ignition (Remix)" every day has a sense of justice. One of the most controversial (he calls The Beatles overrated), knowledgeable (multiple books on the history of rock 'n' roll) and least well-known rock critics ever (were you able to identify him by name?) waxes philosophical (sans pretension) about downloads, Robert Wyatt and yuppies.

Before you review an album, how many times do you listen to it?

It varies wildly. ... [Some] need to be listened to over and over again, because the review changes all the time. ... It is scary how many times the review is completely different. To me, that is a sign that the album is really worth listening to.

People frequently romanticize the past either for better or worse. Do you think this is at work when the most recent album you gave a 9/10 to was released a decade ago?

The downloads will soon make the album and this discussion obsolete. We will start reviewing individual songs. A few exceptional artists will still make "concept albums," (i.e. strings of inter-related songs), but most likely the day will come that we will almost only review individual songs. After all, the album was a historical accident.

You praise Trout Mask Replica (by Captain Beefheart) for being 'decades ahead of the rest of rock music.' How heavily do you weigh historical context when delineating between 'good' and 'bad' music?

When something is done is not important, but "what" has been done before is important. So had Trout Mask Replica or Faust I or Rock Bottom been done 10 years later and nobody had done that before, they would still be masterpieces. Had they been done 10 years later after a lot of musicians had done the same thing for 10 years, I would not even mention them. ... I guess my scientific background has an influence on my definition of "invention."

If you write an article on Special Relativity today in 2007, I do not consider you as great as Einstein (who wrote the same thing 90 years ago). In fact, I won't even read your article.

Can a recording be enjoyable outside of any historical knowledge of music, and if so, what gives it this quality?

I believe that you enjoy or not enjoy something based on your personal history (besides genes). If you heard thousands of pop songs, you might be less impressed by a new poppy song. If you never heard a pop song, you might be thrilled by it. You are your past. Knowledge of the past influences your appreciation of the present. So the historical dimension is central to our perceptions. Now you may ask "Is ignorance bliss"? If one is totally ignorant of everything, he will probably enjoy just about everything. Simple people do have that privilege that we complicated people have lost a long time ago.

So, is there any quality that makes a recording timeless?

Alas, nothing is timeless. We are all going to die and be forgotten, humans and their artifacts, masterpieces included. It is just a matter of time.

Your taste in movies is closer to the critical standard than your taste in music. What accounts for this difference?

I think you are referring to "rock" music, not music in general. My opinions on classical music or avant-garde music are probably more "standard," too. The problem is that rock music is still being interpreted as pure entertainment and not art. Worse: Most of its critics and historians are kids with very scant knowledge of music in general and even of rock music itself. Do you know any critic/historian of classical music who is not fluent in the entire history of classical music? Ditto for poetry, fiction, cinema, etc. Rock music is the one "art" in which the vast majority of critics are fundamentally ignorant (of history, of art, of music and even of rock music itself).

I try not to be influenced by what has been written before and what other critics/historians are writing today. Otherwise, what's the point of my writing a new book on a subject that has already been analyzed by hundreds of people? Thus, my new book on jazz is a little different from the traditional histories of jazz, even though I respect jazz critics/historians a lot better than rock ones.

If there's one song or album that can that turn someone onto independent/alternative music and away from mainstream, what is it?

There are many independent artists whom I would not recommend, and there are a few mainstream artists whom I would recommend. So the use of the term "independent" can be a bit misleading. Using an "independent" attitude toward listening to music does not necessarily mean listening to "independent" musicians.

One can use his brain or the brain of a trusted friend, or one can use the marketing campaigns of the big recording companies. One can be influenced by what everybody listens to or not, etc. This is about the (independent) process of deciding what to listen to, not necessarily about the (independent) way the music was produced and distributed. The two may not coincide. At the end of the day, I might as well advise you to listen to Springsteen or read Dickens or watch Hitchcock (none of which was independent/alternative).

What's important to you?

Saving as many lives as possible in developing countries while making sure that those countries have the resources to support their populations. Mountain summits.

Removing dictators from power. The confluence of the arts and the sciences. Preaching to young urban singles of the U.S.A. that there is more than their job and salsa dancing (and, eventually, a bad marriage) to life.