Rock Critic George Starostin
Written on September 7, 2010 – 4:16 pm | by acusuman
Simultaneously a fan of nothing and everything (you’ll find disclaimers on every page warning narrow-minded listeners to keep out), George Starostin has maintained “Only Solitaire,” a mecca of rock reviews, on and off for a dozen years. With about 400 artists and 2000 albums (mostly classic rock) within its pages, it’s easy to spend hours reading his conversational yet confrontational commentary.
Starostin utilizes a unique grading scale that rewards innovation and consistent greatness–the records are graded on a scale of one to 10 and the artists themselves boost that rating by one to five points–in other words, the best of the best (e.g. “Abbey Road“) score a 15. For every review you agree with (finally, a critic honest enough to admit that the Monkees’ debut album is pretty damn good), you’ll come across one that is so desperately wrong that you’ll wonder what the hell he was listening to (“McCartney II” is awesome, thankyouverymuch). Such is the frustration of rock criticism, but if you’re gonna read it, you could do worse than Starostin.
Like the artists themselves, Starostin is not immune to diva moments–in 2004, he took down all of the site’s content because he resented its popularity. The site reemerged last year in blog form, where Starostin is currently in the process of rewriting all his old reviews and adding new ones to the mix, going alphabetically by artist–sorry, Zwan fans.
2 Responses to “Rock Critic George Starostin”
Wow, I had never heard of this guy, but I really like his style – and finally a “rock critic” who shares my belief that Pink Floyd is one of the most overrated rock-bands of all time.
“What I honestly feel is that the Floyders are probably the most overrated rock band in man’s history.”
Though, I do think Glimour is a better guitarist than Starostin gives him credit for being.
Excellent post! This guy’s site is really fascinating. I am pretty amazed by his dedication. 10/10