The Best of the Jim Carroll Band

The Best of the Jim Carroll Band
CMJ New Music Report
Review by James Lien
4 October 1993

Anyone who witnessed the phenomenal crowds at Patti Smith’s poetry reading in New York’s Central Park this past summer knows that the interest in the punk poets of the late `70s has not dimmed. On the printed front, Jim Carroll’s Basketball Diaries is an essential component of the slacker literary canon. But except for a few budget-line cassettes, anyone trying to find Jim Carroll’s music has been out of luck; Carroll has long been one of those artists whose work fell too close to the “death” of vinyl to warrant a serious reissue campaign. Enter Rhino with The Best Of The Jim Carroll Band. As important as Jim Carroll’s albums were, they’re even better when distilled into one action-packed CD. A little like David Bowie’s late’70s work, its mixture of humor, anger and tinges of paranoia take on greater dimensions when heard today.