Ellroy has some conservative instincts, but I'm not sure I'd call him a conservative. I'm not sure he'd call himself that.

We shouldn't take life lessons from him anyway. Enjoy his brilliant novels, think about them, immerse yourself in them, but don't believe for a second that he or his characters are role models, or meant to be.

And read American Tabloid and LA Confidential (the movie covers about 1/3 of the book). Brilliant, brilliant stuff.

I sound all lecturey here. Didn't mean to!

That isn't what people are "whining" about.

What they are saying is, If a musician chooses to make a recording and place that recording in the public domain, that is his right! Just as it's the right of another musician to charge for a recording of the same piece.

Find one and go! Road trip if necessary!
http://www.drive-ins.com/

Some of my favorite summer nights were with the family, or family friends, laying on top of the car in a sleeping bag at the drive-in. I saw Star Trek II, Cinderella, and E.T. for the first time at the drive-in, as well as such gems as Soggy Bottom U.S.A. and The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper. (Also snuck peeks at the R-rated fare on other screens like Conan the Barbarian.)

Nearly two decades later, I took a girlfriend on a road trip to San Antonio just to go to the Mission Drive-in. We saw something or other and Species II. That drive-in finally went away a few years ago (there was too much light pollution from the city at that point anyway), but fortunately there are still several in Texas. Time for another road trip.

In a moment of insanity, I decided to set the Taiwanese animations of Al Gore's alleged misbehavior to the tune of his alleged mood music. The results were...interesting. I don't expect YouTube to allow this up for long, so check it out while you can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae-bRmXwynM

...."reads more like a self-absorbed kid's diary."

Well, yes. He's been quite up-front about the series being a revisiting of albums that he started enjoying when he was a self-absorbed youngster, or did you miss all of the bits about impressing girls?

"We're given very little real and relevant information about the B-Boys themselves."

Dude. He's reviewing records, not hanging out with the B-Boys themselves. There are other places to go for that. If you find a journalist who has done that and it's good reading, do the readers of the thread a favor and post it rather than just complaining that a record review isn't a brilliant insight into the lives of artists he hasn't met.

"...almost zero insight into the industry of the time." That is not the job of a record review, but, in fact, he's given plenty. See: Lollapalooza tickets and the general dismissal of Paul's Boutique not all that many years prior.

Ugh. I've been lobbying for more music reviews on this site, but I'm starting to understand why that's not likely to happen. The commenters who have something to add to the conversation are outweighed and derailed by the commenters who bring the bile.

Excellent insight. That bugged me too but I never quite put my finger on why, even though (now that you've stated it) it seems obvious.

Get thee to a bookstore, indeed, and I second the nomination for the annotated version.