Eustace Tilley in 3-D by ELMARIELITO

Sasha Frere-Jones, The New Yorker’s pop critic is enthusiastic about Dangerous Minds in 2012!

He writes on The New Yorker “Culture Desk” blog:

Anyone who grew up in record stores knows the cast: the guy who stood next to the register and talked, without surcease, to whoever was stuck behind the counter. The army-jacketed loafs who kept trying to shoplift the same album. The girl who would walk in every day, ask for a single and then walk out, disgusted, until the record arrived. And the guy, sometimes older, who would walk up quietly during a pause in the not-very-active action and say “Have you ever heard…?” Invariably, whatever he was asking about was the most obscure thing you’d encountered that day. Much better, some of these things were worth tracking down and learning from: Sun Ra’s “Disco 3000,” the full-length version of Television’s “Little Johnny Jewel,” or Siouxsie and the Banshees’ cover of Ben E. King’s “Supernatural Thing.”

You’ll notice that the original 1975 seven-minute-plus version of “Little Johnny Jewel” isn’t on YouTube, and neither is the 1981 B-side version of Siouxsie’s “Supernatural Thing.” (Both are on Spotify, though, and I’ve put them on this list, which will change throughout the year and attempt to hold your attention.) But if they did show up on the Web, Dangerous Minds would find it before you. Footage of Morrissey appearing on “Pop Quiz” in 1984, and knowing more about Billy Fury than any American would? Got it. Deborah Harry playing trumpet with Blondie on German TV in 1977? Check. The site leans towards pop detritus from the seventies and eighties but also dips into political commentary and cultural zingers such as this fantastic video about a beauty product called “Fotoshop, by Adobé.”

Read more:
Enthusiasms 2012: The Minds Behind Dangerous Minds (The New Yorker)