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Eric Feder of New York City laments that our book does not include the word “pastoral,” which, we agree, would be a worthy addition to our crit-speak entries, which include “corsucating” (p. 23), “lo-fi” (p. 63), and “seminal” (p. 109).

“The ‘pastoral,’” writes Eric, “is, I guess, a dominant trope in western art (Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, various English painters). It invariably crops up in reviews of mid-period Kinks and late-period XTC, but I feel like all it really means is ‘contains lightly strummed acoustic guitars and sometimes mentions nature.’ I haven’t properly defined it, but it just strikes me as another one of those words that has been robbed of meaning through endless usage (though not nearly as egregiously as ‘jangling,’ to be sure).”