Stephen Mejias

In a sense, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist are music historians and preservationists. In "The Hard Sell," they take us on a scratching, mixing, looping journey through musical genres and fads, from the wildly obscure to the completely commercial, while employing not one, not two, but eight turntables and a collection of original 45rpm seven-inch singles that would make Mikey Fremer's hair go straight.

It’s been an unusually stressful couple of months here at Stereophile, thanks in large part to a succession of unusually demanding endeavors. Preparing our October issue was difficult for the usual reason (“Recommended Components”) and our November issue was particularly exciting for me, as it includes my first full-length review (VPI Traveler turntable), but nothing could prepare us for the intensity that came with producing, in a single month, both our December issue and our annual special issue.

Really, one issue per month is enough fun; two is cruel and unusual. In previous years, we created a Buyer’s Guide, but this year, we opted for something a bit more extravagant: 10 Years of “Recommended Components.”

I walked into a highly compressed modern rock recording. Worse than that, the song itself was horrible, dreadful, unimaginative, bad. I mean, it really, really sucked.

I was tempted to blame it on the system: