in Sociology in 1993. Music Frere-Jones plays bass, guitar, and various electronics. He founded the band Dolores during his time at Brown. The band made two full-length tapes: one in 1987 and one in 1990. After moving to New York in 1988, the band played for two years before breaking up. (Their only recordings during this period were two contributions to a compilation on Fang Records called Live At The Knitting Factory.) In 1990, Frere-Jones co-founded the instrumental, two-bass rhythm band Ui with Clem Waldmann. They played their first live show in 1991, and spent the following eight years touring across the United States and Europe, opening for bands like Stereolab and Tortoise. Career Frere-Jones debuted as The New Yorker'''s pop critic on March 8, 2004 with "Let's Go Swimming", an essay on Arthur Russell. He followed in the footsteps of the magazine's past critics Ellen Willis, Mark Moses, Elizabeth Wurtzel, and Nick Hornby. He has covered independent acts like Arcade Fire, Joanna Newsom, Grizzly Bear, Manu Chao, and Bon Iver, as well as mainstream successes like Neil Diamond, Mariah Carey, Wu-Tang Clan, Lil Wayne, and Prince. Three essays originally published in the magazine have appeared in Da Capo Press's Best Music Writing anthologies. On October 22, 2007, The New Yorker published “A Paler Shade of White", an essay in which Frere-Jones examined the changing role of race in pop, specifically indie rock and hip-hop of the last two decades. In the piece Frere-Jones charges indie with being too white and therefore not sounding black enough and hip hop for being too black. The piece was criticized by numerous pop music critics for Frere-Jones's seeming lack of knowledge regarding pop and rock music history, and controversial understanding of race in relation to music. It elicited responses from Playboy, The Village Voice, Slate, and Simon Reynolds, among dozens of other news outlets and blogs. The Stereogum music blog declared the controversy a 'war' between music writers. The New Yorker received more mail about "A Paler Shade of White" than it did for any other essay since "Escaping Picasso", Adam Gopnik's December 16, 1996 essay about Pablo Picasso. Frere-Jones published follow-ups to his article to address some of the criticism, including defending his description of Hall & Oates as "equally talented" as Michael Jackson (though he admitted his wording had been "slightly mischievous"). In 2008, Frere-Jones was named one of the top