Liner Notes

'I've always liked singles much more than albums.  A single has to be short, concise, and catchy, all values that seem to go out the window as far as albums are concerned.  But the thing I like most about singles is their ultimate shoddiness.  No matter how lavish the packaging, no matter what attention to detail, a '45 is still essentially a piece of crap usually purchased by teenagers.  This is why musicians feel free to put just about anything on the b-side; nobody will listen to it anyway, so why not have some fun.  You can clear the closet of failed experiments, badly written songs, drunken jokes, and occasionally, a worthwhile song that doesn't fit the feel of an album. This collection contains at least one song from each category.  It's not a record to be taken too seriously.  Listening to this album should be like browsing through a junkshop. Good hunting." -Peter Buck

Dead Letter Office has some awesome moments musically and some terrible moments musically, but it will always be remembered for having some of the best liner notes ever. My favorite, and a comic structure I've personally stolen many times over the last 25 years:

Burning Hell: Sometimes you write a song without even trying to.  Sometime those songs are the very best ones.  That's not quite the case with this one however.  

This of course does not compare to any of Paul Westerberg's liner notes from the debut Replacements album Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Ou the Trash.




The best "serious" liner notes are from Husker Du's Warehouse. And of course any liner notes are better than fucking Dylan's:

 6) Can we all finally get together and acknowledge that yes, his songs are genius, but Dylan’s self-penned liner notes on his 60s albums are complete loads of shit that no one on this planet has actually read or understood? Can we do this?