Pitchfork

Charles Schulz, creator of Peanuts, turned 75 recently. I read an interview with him and was stunned because, loser as Charlie Brown may be, you don't expect a cartoonist to be so morose. But Chuck's a sad guy who realizes that he hasn't created art that will transcend the generations like his hero Andrew Wyeth. There was an accompanying photo of Schulz getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Standing behind him were actors in oversized costumes of Charlie Brown, Linus, and Lucy.

The photo horrified me somewhat. Here was a man who wanted to make great, lasting art who instead gave into a legacy of good grief. I wanted to yell at the costumed characters, "Get away from him! You're suffocating his creativity!" But I also think about how Billy Joel and Paul McCartney are turning their efforts to classical music and how you wouldn't want Hershey's to start making crowned rack of lamb. Schulz's contribution to pop culture is significant, and if he ever had the chance to do fine art, the peak creativity that would be necessary had long since passed him by. We like him for Peanuts, and as they sang every week on The Jeffersons, "Ain't nothing wrong with that."

Which brings me to this fecund T.Rex reissue. This has been hard to find in America; why they trot it out now is anyone's guess. To the untrained ear, this sounds like shit: Faux-Detroit soul-pop filtered through Marc Bolan. To the trained ear that's heard a good T.Rex album, this sounds like a tragedy.