I've been sick, etc., but Tom Scocca was on the Sasha Frere-Jones/R.E.M. watch:

The turn of the 90’s is a tough subject for historians of rock music. What would become identifiable genres or market niches over the next few years—"alternarock," "indie," "grunge" et al.—were embryonic and imperfectly differentiated. You could find the Jesus and Mary Chain shelved under "folk rock." MTV didn’t have a handle on it; Rolling Stone really didn’t have a handle on it. Events that would change music history were being spread by word of mouth, cassette and the Trouser Press Record Guide.

So it’s not surprising that The New Yorker’s Sasha Frere-Jones ran into some trouble with his review, in the Jan. 17 issue, of concerts by aging acts from that era. Is it quite right, for instance, to say that R.E.M. "entered the mainstream with the 1991 hit ‘Losing My Religion’"? The edges of the mainstream were a little blurry back then, but The New York Times had covered a sold-out R.E.M. show at Madison Square Garden two years earlier, part of a nationwide arena tour. And the band already had a pair of Top 10 hits, the first in 1987.

Mr. Frere-Jones’ piece raised plenty of other debatable claims: The Pixies, he wrote, "never made a bad record"—well, maybe, but the set list on the band’s reunion tour flinched away from its last two albums. He also condemned the Pixies’ early videos as "almost unwatchable," which is more or less like saying Public Enemy never wrote a good love song.

But some historical statements are factually checkable: "Now [the Pixies] look like science teachers, and seem more at home in their geeky, aggressively strange songs," Mr. Frere-Jones reported. "Frank Black is fat, and, from the mezzanine at least, he looked bald."

"Now"? "From the mezzanine"? Perhaps if the band had made more watchable videos, Mr. Frere-Jones might have gotten a better look at them their first time around. For the benefit of the critic—and The New Yorker’s fabled fact-checking desk—Off the Record presents a publicity photo of the youthful Mr. Black (then going by the name Black Francis). He’s the one on the left.