For a number of weeks now I've been reading "Popless" by Noel Murray over at the Onion AV Club. The idea of Popless is that Murray takes a year off from listening to new music and works his way alphabetically through his collection, weeding and reflecting as he goes. I find myself scoffing at many of his critical choices but I enjoy reading it. I find his personal tastes rather tepid (too much bland pop and rock for me) but he knows his tastes and the limits they impose and is not afraid to be honest about it. Many critics could learn from this. I appreciate the reasonable character that comes through in his prose.
He must also be just about my age and his musical story sounds fairly similar to mine (some of the early parts anyway) so there's a fair bit of overlap there and it's fun to see how someone else reacted to many of the same records and trends I was reacting to. For instance, Murray acknowledges what a huge influence Husker Du was but then admits that he never listens to them anymore. Ditto.
Buried in all the writing about music from week to week is an autobiography of sorts, and while I might find that irritating and solipsistic coming from some critics, it works here, in part because it's in the background and in service of exploring the music and his necessarily subjective tastes. Plus, he seems like a nice guy, if a bit straightlaced at times. I could've been his friend in high school or college but I think eventually I would've gotten him in trouble or scared him off.
If you want to read back through it you'll have to search around the site a bit as there's no one archive for the feature. Which seems shortsighted somehow.
