or better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

Stanley Elkin's 1984 novel The Magic Kingdom has an unbelievably dark premise, even by the standards of the most bleakly comic tour-de-force imaginable, a description for which it certainly qualifies. The book is about a group of terminally ill children who are granted the privilege of going on an ultimately disastrous, if well-intentioned, trip to Disney World. Of course, it's no stretch for a prospective reader to imagine that this book, no matter how clever its indictment of Disney, capitalism, and artificiality, could be brutally smug and callous in its treatment of its cast of characters. In fact, for the first sixty pages or so I found myself grimly waiting for some precipitous and unspeakable terror to take place, some system of cruelties to begin unveiling itself - but the remarkable thing is it doesn't. Elkin never lets us feel pity for the sick kids, upon whom he bestows every endearing human foible imaginable. These kids are mean, they're sinners, and we recognize ourselves in them, we love them for their transgressions. Maybe it's a sad book, in the end, but it's ultimately joyful and life affirming.

Still, though, it was not the ideal book (if such a thing exists) to be caught in the middle of on September 11. Even as I received some consolation from finishing it up, there was a phrase that nevertheless hung in the ether of my mind: at one point, a character says he believes that it's sickness, and not health, that lies at the core of everything. And I arguably could have suppressed my feelings about the terrorist attacks for some time (the night afterward I saw the Faint, and so I danced and had fun with other people, despite a weird pall that hung in the atmosphere which none of us could shake), but about a week afterward I found myself gripped by the fear of death. It's not something we think much about a quarter of the way through our lives, and of course it may not be something we even need to think about at all, but I found myself obsessing over it. Sorority girls and fraternity guys walked around in droves and all I could think about was that they, we, whoever, were all going to turn to dust. I guess it wasn't death itself, I think now, but the fear of it that twisted inside my guts. I say this, too, realizing that I've already invoked two enormously unwieldy tropes in the space of a record review, thinking that you couldn't possibly imagine that I'm doing this for any other reason than to play Lester Bangs, to make these two records (which some people already think are way overrated, which some people have said spawned more hapless critics than the Velvets spawned imitative bands) or my review of them seem profound, and that all I'm succeeding in doing is being overwrought, but listen. I will phrase this simply, remembering that people who review records should talk about how the records make them feel. Here is why I am writing what I am: these two albums seem to speak to me about life - they are, to me, beautiful and fragile, and that's what life is. They make me want to live, live without fear.

The lyrics of almost all music (the most recent PJ Harvey and Radiohead albums, in particular) took on strange resonances - maybe strange in their lack of strangeness - in the wake of the tragedy, and this album is no exception. I could quote them, but I'd rather you hear them in context. The lyrics themselves, anyway, might not be that special. Pretty general, you know, if still pretty ("The sun, it shines on all of us / And we are one / In its hands"). But when I listen to "My Life is Right" and "Feel" and "O My Soul," these words fit into crisp harmonies and the spacious jangle of guitars, they bloom into melodies that resolve themselves with perfect grace, a grace I can't convey with stilted words. So when we strip aside all the drama I've invoked here (which I think I am about as eager to do as you are), we find that this CD contains two previously neglected, very finely crafted pop albums which were out of step with what was being released at the time. All the songs, a misstep here and there, are simple: at once creative and unpretentious and great. Or maybe they aren't. Say they aren't perfect - are we? If you want pure, unadorned (but immaculately produced) rock and roll, which often seems to me like happiness in its purest form, look no further than this.