Everyone I know has a musical origin story. You know, the one that goes, "Yeah, the first time my older brother played Joy Division for me, something in me changed." Or, "When, I was thirteen, man, I saw an all-ages Fugazi show, and there was no going back." Or even as simple as, "So once, I saw this woman sitting on a train on 120 Minutes, and I thought it was so cool I wrote down the info at the end of the video and went out to get that Sonic Youth record the next day." These kinds of stories are symptomatic for humans of our ilk; the music geeks, critics, record store clerks, Barnes & Noble employees, you name it-- we all discovered some band that pushed us out the doors of suburbia, or urbia, or rurala, or wherever, and into the welcoming, and "other," arms of music.

But not me. Sure, I was turned on to a few select "cool" bands in my youth by a close friend. But there was no band in particular that made me want to listen to more and different artists. No, what got me going then, and keeps me going now, is reading about music. Rock criticism. I have trouble justifying the purchase of an album unless I've read several engaging reviews of it. I used to think that there might be others out there like me, who must read before they listen. But then I bought Shuggie Otis' Inspiration Information.

Now I know there are others out there like me.

Never before have I seen a record so firmly ensconced in such a complex and complimentary latticework of words. The disc itself comes covered in a fold-over cardboard sleeve, featuring a rating ("9 out of 10") from Spin and a quote ("a singular, flawless album") from Revolution. Flip the jewel case over, and you're treated to paragraphs from acid-jazz phrase-coiner Gilles Peterson ("...took my fears away. It'll do the same for you, no doubt!"), De Lata's Patrick Forge ("...a West Coast superstar, a genius, a musical wizard of the highest order"), the High Llamas' Sean O'Hagan ("It's total eclecticism"), and, of course, Luaka Bop boss/pan-American musical booster David Byrne ("...D'Angelo meets DJ Shadow"). All this is just on the disposable paper covering, so it should go without saying that there are extensive and gushing liner notes, which make me want to say, "Hey, I just bought this record! I've opened it up and am listening to it! Why are you still trying to sell me?"

Or perhaps, more importantly, why is the marketing surrounding this reissue so focused on Shuggie Otis' "unjustly overlooked yet appreciated by the very coolest among us" status? My personal favorite among the varied written promotional materials surrounding the album appears on Luaka Bop's website; it's the transcript of a "roundtable discussion" that took place between Sean O'Hagan, Tortoise's John McEntire, and Stereolab's Tim Gane, in which they all wax white-male-music-nerdishly about the record as it plays (on a turntable, natch). A more desperate attempt at achieving indie credibility the world has never seen. It makes one wonder if the Sean-John-Tim trifecta were compensated for their time.

But I don't want to get cynical about this. I just want to call attention to the intense maelstrom of written critical support Otis is garnering, both from his label, and now, from the music press at large. This is a very well-reviewed album, and not just because it has such a force of acclaim behind it. This is a very impressive, well-crafted, and pleasurable slice of early 70's high-concept, sexy pop-soul. "What?" I hear you say, "He's actually going to talk about the music now?" Well, yes and no.

There are plenty of brilliant melodic moments on this release, not the least of which never actually appeared on the original album. "Strawberry Letter 23," which originally appeared on 1971's Freedom Flight, is included as a bonus track. It's a rolling California drive of a song-- later covered and made into a hit by the Brothers Johnson, and even later bit by OutKast and made into a hit again under the name "Mrs. Jackson"-- that slams all the right notes, leading you to believe that the hype about this guy might be warranted. As the ringing chimes, right-channeled sleighbells, echoed vocals, and repetitive guitars swirl at the end of the track, you can hear Shuggie's "visionary" status coming to life, prefacing later work by Prince, Tortoise, and Dr Dre, among others.

But these melodic moments are tempered by a certain sense of experimentation, which could be what afforded Otis his "overlooked" status. "XL-30," "Pling!," and "Not Available" all wander into a forward-looking fugue of vocal-less esotericism that's much easier to appreciate some 27 years down the line. Which is where I'm actually going with this: it's wonderful that an artist as talented as Shuggie Otis should finally get his due with a lovingly crafted reissue, a resurgence of critical support, and an increase of cashflow to the man himself, who is still alive and well, playing music up and down the west coast. What sucks is that, in between the sheets of my criticism compulsion and the bedcover of fetishized buying trends among indie-music consumers, what Inspiration Information actually is gets lost.

"So, long-winded one," you sigh, "What is Inspiration Information, really?" Well, although there's no need for me to construct yet another layer of words around this man-- and because Otis' own words, through the miracle of mysterious marketing, are absent-- let me attempt to peel away some of this hyperbole by pretending to be a "music critic." Inspiration Information is a record that was never widely heard when it was originally released, but not for the reasons Byrne would have you believe. It wasn't that the world wasn't ready for it, or that Otis' genius was so prophetic as to be incomprehensible to his contemporaries, or even that some evil executive quashed it as radio-unfriendly. No, the reason it was overlooked is much more simple: it was designed to be.

Inspiration Information is a stubbornly small album, free of the grandiosity and posturing of similar records of the time, like What's Going On and Superfly. There are no social issues at stake here, and no 60-piece orchestras swelling our hearts. There's just the sound of one extremely talented young musician exploring his craft's limitations, and his own.

While I never did have that moment of musical inspiration which spurred me on to greater heights of artistic appreciation, I can pinpoint what it was that started me on my music-buying binge, and brought me to where I am today. It was a record review. Specifically, Ernest Hardy's review of Massive Attack's No Protection, a Rolling Stone four-starrer that I immediately tracked down and listened to intently. And, while the information that Hardy provided didn't prevent me from never really liking the record, and eventually selling it, his criticism did forever cement my relationship with records and the people who write about them.

If it takes this barrage of high-powered praise to force someone like me to track down Shuggie Otis at my local suburban superstore, well, I guess it's good. There's just something unsettling in the way Otis has been suddenly sanctified-- something that makes me wish the blurbs had been more limited, and allowed me to discover this album on its own terms. What I'm really trying to say is that Byrne had me at "amazing."

-Jonny Pietin