The Critical Assertions Of Chris Gaines

The Chris Gaines podcast continues! This week, Ashley Spurgeon and I dive into the critical reception of the Chris Gaines project. Spoiler alert: it didn't go well. Regardless of your opinion on the music of the Gaines undertaking, it's also important to look at the project from a journalism standpoint. Most of the articles & reviews about the whole thing talk much more about what it is rather than how good or bad it is. There's definitely some brutal takedowns in there but, on the whole, people were just confused.

It's also important to remember that journalism in 1999 was led by large, legacy, print publications. Pitchfork wasn't the powerhouse it would become and blogs weren't really in the zeitgeist. Additionally, the Gaines album kept harping on that it was a "Rock" album but the majority of the songs are R&B based or ballads; hardly a good comparison to the Pearl Jam's and Days of the New hitting the charts at the time.

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