Great albums Robert Christgau hates

If it ain't broke, etc. Leave Home and Nation of Millions didn't fuck with the sound too much either.

Evil Empire [Epic, 1996]
Three years late, it's the militant rap-metal everybody knew was the next big thing. Zack de la Rocha will never be Linton Kwesi Johnson. But collegiate leftism beats collegiate lots of other things, not to mention high school misogyny, and it takes natural aesthetes like these to pound home such a sledgehammer analysis. A-

No it's not. Jello doesn't sound a damn thing like Tiny Tim - he sounds like Ethel Merman, har! And basing half the review on a "I'm not sure what his background is but I am GUESSING he's a punk-come-lately" sort of thesis is stupid. And how can you even review that album without mentioning the lyrics?

The Daft Punk review isn't nearly as dismissive as what the Avalanches said (while being a lot funnier)

Well, this is more of a "this is one of the greatest albums I've heard and Rob just shat on it" thread than anything - "dumb crap"? "smart crap"? "ecological"? And what's with the jingoistic bullshit in the Daft Punk piece? Talk about butts being plugged...

dissing Christgau for dissing Clinton is like saying Joe Torre can't win in the postseason becuz he lost to the Angels (Christgau did list George Clinton as one of his best artist of the 70s, alongside Al Green and Neil Young, something not too many critics, nevertheless white critics, would have done at the time).

Yeah, but when did he name Clinton to that list? I'm pretty sure he wouldn't've based solely on the early acid-rock Funkadelic (which I admit to liking more than is probably recommended); he didn't give any Funkadelic record higher than a "B+" until 1975 ("But at this point I'm inclined to trust the music, which is tough-minded, outlandish, very danceable, and finally, I think (and hope), liberating"). I still think he's mostly wrong about their early stuff.

Walking With Thee has disappointed me more than any other album this year [...] so regurgitations that seemed really fresh the first time round merely seem regurgitated the second time out.

Yeah, it's disappointed lots of people, which leads me to wonder what the hell they were expecting - 12-minute free-jazz freakouts? It's their second full-length! The more people complain about how disappointing it is, the more I look for the great things about it, the more they stand out, and the higher it climbs onto my Best of 2002 list.
(I probably should have chosen less "revolutionary" examples and more examples of ordinary bands who continued to Not Suck when following up acclaimed albums with similar efforts. The Replacements' Hootenanny, maybe.)

Am I to assume you basically agree with his opinion of Abba?

I have better reasons for ignoring them besides "those fucking filthy evil Europeans like them".

Boy [Island, 1980]
Their youth, their serious air, and their guitar sound are setting a small world on fire, and I fear the worst. No matter where they're starting off--not as big as Zep, maybe, but not exactly on the grunge circuit either--their echoey vocals already teeter on the edge (in-joke) of grandiosity, so how are they going to sound by the time they reach the Garden? What kind of Christian idealists lift their best riff from PIL (or from anywhere at all)? As bubble-headed as the teen-telos lyrics at best. As dumb as Uriah Heep at worst. C+

Niggaz4life [Ruthless, 1991]
This is supposed to be where they finally slam nonstop. In fact, however, the music's just like the lyrics--market-ready. Catchy, yes, and funky in its laid-back electro way, but never hard enough to scare off the novelty audience. Which might be fun if they didn't outpig the LAPD in the bargain. Can Chuck D really believe they mean what they say? Sure they really hate women, and anybody else who looks at them funny. But unless they're even sicker than they seem, they're too greedy to murder anybody as long as they can make so much money fronting about it. And so they've calculated every rhyme to push somebody's button--to serve up the thrill of transgression to ghettobound and merely ghettocentric young-black-males, and also to the big score, culturally deprived white boys seeking exotic role models. That kids will take them at their word obviously doesn't concern niggaz who'll be hard-pressed to contain their pent-up hostility after the bubble bursts. It'd be nice to think they'll off each other when that great day comes, but I doubt they have the balls. So in the interests of public safety, pray they don't get taken by their investment advisors. C-

Just kidding. Means "on the money" (though I recently thought it meant "on the mark" - and originally "of the moment")

"Once there was a sensitive, conceited young fellow named Jonsi Birgisson who lived on a permafrost island surrounded by a cold, dark sea. Jonsi was a well-meaning person who loved music, and he yearned to put more warmth in the world even though he wasn't exactly sure what warmth was. Not just "throwing an electric blanket on the corpse of electronica," that he knew. Jonsi longed to blaze "inspired new avenues in sonic landscapes," to deliver "shamelessly tear-stained epics" in "the falsetto cadence of angels," to turn "4AD-styled, sepia-toned instrumental passages" into "awe-inspiring new-religious mantras." Stuff like that. He did all this and more on a thematically linked work where some of the sonic landscapes were entrancing (although not warm). Because he was conceited, sometimes he would announce that these soundscapes were destined to change musical history, and then sometimes mean people would make fun of him. But he always had the perfect retort. "You have to admit I'm smarter than Enya," he would say. And about that he was certainly right. B"

Hard to top that, really.

I am using OTM in this instance to mean I dislike the album, am annoyed by its good rep, and am glad Christgau slams it.

Certainly doesn't have a good rep on ILM...

And what's with the jingoistic bullshit in the Daft Punk piece?

Remember Nate, we are at CULCHER WAR! The American underdog must defend himself from the hordes of evil Europeans trying to shove Cliff Richard, Heino and Johnny Hallyday down his throat!

Hey, so when that kind of thing happens with various celebrities, do we assume that they find the reference of them using google? and since that type of response is relatively prompt more often than not, does that mean that they're googling their own names, like, almost every day!?

also he is unphased by Luomo's Vocalcity and DJ DB's History of Our World Pt. 1 and he is WRONG WRONG WRONG.

What, you DON'T?

Because he wrote or co-wrote the standard critical lines on the Stones, the New York Dolls, Al Green, the Clash, Public Enemy and any number of lesser-known artists of a similar level of achievement... More importantly, he and Greil Marcus brought SLEATER-KINNEY to the world's attention and thus is one of the greatest Americans not named Corin, Carrie or Janet.

The cultural war thing doesn't interest me much though, mainly because I don't listen to much self-consciously American music.

american music club -- falco -- the wipers -- screaming trees -- mudhoney -- the verlaines -- the proclaimers -- flaming lips -- the misfits -- swell maps -- pop will eat itself -- durutti column -- the primitives -- henry rollins -- the chameleons -- band of susans -- skinny puppy -- christmas -- social distortion -- talk talk -- squirrel bait -- felt -- everything but the girl -- gene loves jezebel -- swing out sister -- nitzer ebb -- the shaggs -- 24-7 spyz -- modern english

James : Assuming I know what you're getting at, given that in England an onion is a vegetable. The British use the word comes with an attmosphere of patrionizing derision (as opposed to "cunt" which comes with straight out agression)

B.Rad : This intrigues me. What are the "standard" lines on these artists? Is he famous because he invented lines everyone agrees with?

Tim : "Often when I'm listening to something and I'm struggling to articulate my reaction, I'll just read the relevant Consumer Guide entry and borrow Christgau's opinion wholesale." This is irony, right?

I have to admit that he does have a purpose: when he's slagging a band you hate, he is the Greatest Living Pop Culture Writer Ever.

(Just to make this clear, I do dig Christgau, despite his neurotic Europhilia)

He gave the Kinks notice at a time they were written off Stateside (ie the late sixties).

The Hollies, too.

& yeah xgau pretty much reviews them as they appear, but as the VV column is sporadic often he's a couple of months late.

Also, if you rip him (or other critics) on record he'll eventually give you a tongue bath of A's (see Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Public Enemy).

still makes my top five favorite critics.

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO PARIS CAFÉ MUSIC
(World Music Network import)
Great food, great wine, great countryside. Beautiful paintings and fine cinema. Bohemia soi-meme. Fairly belle langue. Cool esprit. But then, over on the other side, le snobisme, as epitomized by both the academy (a French invention) and "theory" (a French brand name). As for music, not so hot. In the classical world, nobody would rank France with Germany or Italy, and though chanson's structural and procedural contributions to pop are major, it doesn't travel, in part due to its lyrical raison d'etre and in part due to whatever gives Italians the tunes and Germans the big ideas. With help from Auvergne laborers and Italian immigrants, chanson evolved into the danceable accordion-equipped style called musette, which flourished in the '20s and '30s and has been compiled on a Paris Musette series I'll dig out again as well as two Music Club discs I'll now bury. This typical Rough Guide potpourri ignores intrastylistic continuities and favors revivalists (hiding the older, simpler stuff at the end). Droll, impassioned, tuneful, gay, its limitations are French limitations—too much cocked eyebrow, not enough baby got back. But as mood music for that mystery merlot or soundtrack for a drive to Quebec City, mais oui—just the travelogue a day tripper needs.

the idea that it takes a nation of millions to hold us back "didn't fuck with the sound too much" of its predecessor strikes me as a very odd thing to read.

But also, didn't he raise the grades on some of those Stevie albums? Does that mean the reviews should be taken with a grain of salt?

(It's also very true that he didn't exactly say he disliked it -- it's just that when someone for whom "Golden Lady" is among their top ten or so favorite songs reads someone calling it the worst song on the album, he immediately takes the defensive positon.)

Hey MM (I just sent you a classic out-of-the-blue you-don't-know-me email yesterday), what IS your favorite on the album now? For me, if it weren't "Golden Lady," it would be "Too High."

I wish Christgau hadn't tuned out on the DKs before Plastic Surgery Disasters (where "Halloween" now vindicates my initial, and long faded, fandom), but that's what you get for loving another mammal's scribblings.

Otherwise, sometimes when the Dean insults fans of a particular band, it somehow makes them (or in this case, me) feel honored to have his ear:

Imperial FFRR [Teenbeat, 1992]
You read it here first: the scattered actual "pop" songs on this 11-cut album--the one about eating pussy is the most enthusiastic--tend to break down into long, repetitive, self-consciously inept codas, which blend in the mind's ear with the scattered instrumentals per se. It would be wrong to call such passages drones, because drones propel, and propulsion would be catering to the hoi polloi--"patterns" is quite kind enough. Cool people whose hobby is inept bands seem to think these whatchamacallems apotheosize self-consciously amateurish charm. If you're among them, get a life. C

Propaganda [Island, 1975]
Admirers of these self-made twerps certainly don't refer to them as pop because they get on the AM--for once the programmers are doing their job. So is it because they sing in a high register? Or because a good beat makes them even more uncomfortable than other accoutrements of a well-lived life?; "Never turn your back on mother earth," they chant or gibber in a style unnatural enough to end your current relationship or kill your cacti, and I must be a natural man after all, because I can't endure the contradiction. C-

Of course, the thing that he somehow missed here is that the point of "Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth" was "Or she'll fucking stab you in it, that traitorous bitch." Which doesn't make it a great song (though it is) or Propaganda a great album (I'd give it a typical Sparks hit-or-miss B+), but does bespeak a lack of close listening.

Other than that, whatever. I agree with some things he says, and disagree with others. It happpens. I find my biggest general difference with him is that he admires a certain strain of punk -- The Vibrators, Fluffy, The Hives, The White Stripes, NOFX, The Pixies, Sleater-Kinney -- that I don't dislike but find overly foresquare (or perhaps four/four-square) for my tastes. Plus, he underrates John Darnielle. But who doesn't?

The only real problem with Christgau is that 10 other critics didn't have the intestinal fortitude to embark on the same lifelong listen-to-everything-that-matters quest that he did back in 1970, and so you're left with his opinions as being sort of a default consensus narrative. Given that, I'd say we're lucky that his opinions are as generally sane as they are -- as much as I enjoy Bangs or Marsh or Marcus, I shudder to think what they'd have come up with had they evinced the same dedication to completism. As for his writing, Christgau's my favorite writer in any realm ever, except for Charles Schulz, who beats him by miles. Guess I'm just a fan of atomized narrative, y'know?

What an asshole. These are just his superficial, idiosyncratic impressions, written in language that tries to render them universal and absolute. I know, I know, it's tongue in cheek or something.

Apologies in advance if this ends up getting posted twice. My internet is pretty dodgy at the moment.

But you still haven't answered my question, which had little to do with your "um...anyway" and everything to do with your calling my original Darnielle/Dylan/DDR post dodgy. Again, I'm simply curious: what's the dodgy part? If you haven't heard/experienced DDR, then it clearly can't be that, because you're way too smart (not sarcasm -- I've read and enjoyed your writing) to formulate opinions on things you've never heard. So was it my overenthusiasm for Darnielle? Dylan? If I were to take the joke out my original post and restate it straight, it would simply be: "Still underrated. Tallahassee is, with the possible exception of Love and Theft and DDR, my favorite album of this century so far." Given that this century is only a few years old, this doesn't strike me as any more shaky than any other statement of musical enthusiasm. So again I ask: what do you object to, exactly?

As for my cat, he is fine, but he thanks you for your concern.

In any event, I think the critical blind spot towards 'rhythm games' is an interesting subject, but it's clearly tangential to the original thread, so I'll shut up about it now. But if anyone else wants to start a new thread on the subject, I'm all ears. Or eyes, fingers, whatever. As for my mini-micro-imbroglio with Michelangelo, all I can say is that his original post just goes to show why, although I hate them just as much as the next message board poster, emoticons are sort of a necessary evil. One : ), or even :P, and I wouldn't have written a word in response.

Look, I know that Hathaway is the main classic soul man that rock critics bash, and I know that african american musical artists who arent trying to bling bling out are widely considered pretentious by white music critics. I understand that any african american person tries to express himself in a way that is outside a racial box is considered a freak and ostracized. But it bothers me when it the criticism becomes personal.

And I fine the perverse racial boxes that most " enlightened" music and cultural critics, just as damaging and harrowing as any aspect of institutional racism in america. If christgau just hated donny hathaway's music, the level of his critical denigration would have been strictly to his art. My problem with the " Lives on in duet after duet." is that it relates to his person. I know christgau doesnt like music from genteel white people either, but nearly everytime I have heard him talk about music and his critical dislikes, Donny Hathaway comes near the top of his list. Now coming from a man who has reviewed thousands of CD's over a 35 year span as a reviewer that's saying something profound.

My question is why? I'll be the first to tell you that his albums are flawed( sans his live one). But the core of donny hathaway's music and his motifs: were gospel influenced music and lyrical imagery, a kind of healing, a search for an innerself through humane gospel imagery, made flesh and all too human through one of soul's most powerful and arresting baritones. Now much of what I said is my opinion. But the work itself, Humanist Gospel influenced soul music, is what it is.

My question out of all the turgid, intolerable and inhumane crap that has been put out in modern popular music, in which one can listen to during a 35 year span, why would be someone like hathaway be on top of any sane person's list?

Lastly, I guess what sticks at my gut is that to lump him in the same boat with barry manilow as "genteel" and milquetoast overlooks or ignores the immense amount of pain, that any person with a scintilla of feeling can here in his music. I'm not saying that just because he committed suicide, either. " thank you master for my soul" is an entendred way of donny thanking god that he didnt kill himself that day. Or the way on " I hear voices" he tries to humanize schitzophrenia by contextualizing his voices in a hip fashion. Or " givin up" or " lord help me" or " a dream", to name some examples. What christgau,(and marsh and marcus who perversely rated him on that death scale he had) doesnt see is that hathaway's music comes from and is a link to the core of the spirituals and work songs, that it music made by a people to keep from killing themselves. IMO, to describe his music as genteel and milquetoast is assuming a freedom that hathaway, along with the millions of african americans who sing gospel or come from the gospel tradition, never had.

I know I will be and have already been piloried ( by a wonderfully sarcastic aide by vahid)for saying what I just said. And I know my way of thinking is quite reviled around these parts. But I had to say It.

"They bitch because everybody compares them to Joy Division, and they're right. It's way too kind, and I say that as someone who thanks Ian Curtis for making New Order possible."

DUDS:

Christgau

NEVER FORGET

-- Anthony Miccio (anthonymicci...), December 7th, 2002.

OTM

we all think shit like this at times, but why put it in print?

never cared much for donny hathaway myself, but the man upthread's got a point.

His "work" illustrates the perils inherent in doing that, as evinced by the fact that he has come to the wrong conclusion about nearly every record he has "listened" to.

you mean the one where he told everyone that if their comments appeared online they wouldn't be paid, so tell him right now if they don't want their comments appearing online and therefore not getting paid, which he would completely understand? that one?

god, I love that line.

I think this mindless statement says more about YOU and your lack of critical judgment than it does about your "criticism" of other critics on this thread.

and his nose doesn't fail him w/r/t aerial

some of you would be wise to lay off posting to ILM entirely, as you can't seem to do anything besides post caustic, lame one-liners

And ol' Christgau still gets suckered just as often as the rest of us. See his constant love for SK.

http://froogle.google.com/froogle_image?q=http://rockpopgallery.easystorecreator.com/images/images_29160/diamondcomics/cfdckcaf1.jpg&size=2&dhm=651b981&hl=en

ew
I'll choose to ignore that.

A C- does seem a little overboard even if someone's going to take that view of the record, but you know, "Oh no, a critic is slightly hyperbolic" - happens a lot.

Anyway, I like Black Sabbath a lot in general - but I'm not viewing them from the vantagepoint of 1970 as a VETERAN OF TEH SIXTIES.

sorry but heavy metal IS the greatest thing since sliced breads, bitch

That's not why Christgau's a hippie.

RM: If they sent you the ticket, rather than pick it up at the club, it'd be very easy to sell the tickets. I remember I sold Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

OTP: Dude, you passed up a Sabbath show?

x-post:

No, not really, but it's amazing that it works so well.

"'Never turn your back on mother earth', they chant or gibber in a style unnatural enough to end your current relationship or kill your cacti, and I must be a natural man after all, because I can't endure the contradiction."

The Ultimate Negative Christgau Review
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2011/08/the-ultimate-negative-christgau-review.html

A born liar, showing all the imagination of an ATM in the process, a certain petty honesty and jerk-off humor, a man without a context, a pompous, overfed con artist, a preening panderer, mythologizing his rockin’ ‘50s with all the ignorant cynicism of a punk poser, a propulsive flagwaver attached to UNESCO lyrics about people all over the world joining hands, a simpleton, but also a genuine weirdo, a spoiled stud past his prime, so that while he was always sexy he wasn’t always seductive, a stinker, from Jesus-rock to studio jollity, a tedious ideologue with a hustle, a tough talker diddles teenpop’s love button. Act authentic for too long and it begins to sound like an act even if it isn’t.

“Adult” grit and phrasing, affluent spirituality cum cornball romanticism from a florid New Age keyb maestro, ain’t nobody gonna boogie to the moons of Saturn. Air-kiss soul, alienated patriotic, all clotted surrealism and Geddy Lee theatrics, all form and no conviction, except for the conviction that form is everything. All he proves is that when you dwell on suffering you get pompous. An archetypal indie whiner.

Another Wu mood record, anthemic grandiosity, antiquarianism permits him to use such words as “withers” and “blackguard.” Anyone naive enough to believe there’s nothing more distasteful than a middle-aged man pretending his hormones are too much for him has never encountered a middle-aged man trying to act cute. Arbitrary ebullience.
Are there really adults who find sustenance in folk-pop that blurs all distinctions between the lyrical and the moony? Arrogant and enervated all at once, arrogantly catchy, artificially ripened singing, which goes down like a store-bought banana daiquiri.

Ass man, schlockmeister, cosmic slimeball. Attracts admirers by means of a principled arrogance that has no relation to his actual talents or accomplishments. Attributes not present: wit, joy, jokes, hooks. Auteur, whatever that means. Cocaine slanger, catchy on jezebels and dull on world peace. Close observation is still Creative Writing. Compares himself to Picasso whilst suing black people who sample his hooks.

Double-hoohah, doubly coy, doubly tonic, down from 48 percent to 35 at amiannoying.com, doyen of depression, dramatic paradiddles and sculpted streams of molten garage guitar, draws his phony drawl so tight he sounds like a singing penis.

Even his haphazardness is getting predictable, even his unnecessarily ideological heterosexuality is more an expression of mood than a statement of policy, even in 1968 he had too much dinosaur in him. He’s a case study in the moral inadequacy of authenticity, he’s a pomo sociophobe of a familiar and tedious sort, he’s about as hip hop as Christian Marclay, or at best the Art Ensemble of Chicago, he’s big on locations, spends an entire song convincing her to do it in a chair, he’s convinced me that I’ll get off on a white R & B singer from Savile Row the same day I give up Jack Daniel’s for sherry and join the Dartmouth Club.

Expert on tenderoni, expert trivialization of murder, explores realms of vocal inexpressiveness undreamt by Stephin Merritt or the Handsome Family. Limp aural satire, literary malfeasance, logical successor to Shaun Cassidy.

Fizzle-prone chart charges, flute solo and a middle-aged man gasping in the throes of sexual excitation. For a dumb tribulations-of-a-rock-star epic, this isn’t bad.

Funnier than the Chipmunks, give him that. Furious negativist then, goofy nature mystic now, fusoid, fussy as Streisand, ugly as sin, touched with grace. Makes much more than most out of waving his dick, expanding his mind, makes music for stewardesses if ever there was such a thing, makes the sex life of an aging punk in an overgrown college town sound active, raunchy, and not without spiritual rewards, making callow belligerence seem an unmitigated virtue.

Generic American hunk, only whiter because he’s Canadian. Likable protest novelties, like an English Grand Funk gone disco, like Ian hunter or Roger Chapman though without their panache, like Kinky Friedman with a sense of humor, like most hereditary bohemians was brought up to think he’s better than normal people, like protest singers, novelty artists put too much strain on the words, like Star Wars or Windows 95, he unlocks the gate to a luxurious passivity. Limited sentiment in any case.

The motherfucker realizes that metalheads will throw money at you long after your hip cachet has gone the way of your hard-on. Minor popster, major wiseass, and great lost indie-rocker. Genius teensploitation, genuine Americana, gets chicken grease on a young thing’s pantyhose, gets sloppier and samier as his adolescence becomes more figurative. More dreck from your unfriendly doomsaying hitmaker, more entertaining than Anthony Braxton and Wallace Stevens put together.

Gosh, what a terrific idea—a concept album about a cocksure rock and roller who Cannot Love. Manipulative pseudocertainty, manly empathy and world-weary remorse of the big-rock balladeer, the mess a lesser talent would have barfed up years ago. The modernizations of sometime coproducer Dave Stewart mitigate the neoconservative aura somewhat. Has Indie Lifer stamped on its copyright notice.

Hayseed manqué, he chose metal over Vegas because Vegas wouldn’t have him. He denoodled. He even has jowls. Maybe he’s better off not aiming for masterpieces.

He grooves his overpaid pickup band, he tells Jeff Beck what to do, he writes love songs for every occasion, he hectors like a crank politician would hector if the politician were a rock singer, he makes with the free-love smarm, he may yet give a fuck, he pixilates his pseudosex with studio sensationalism, he reclaims his perpetually threatened manhood.

He shrivels into irrelevancy. I find his success very depressing. The work of a man who thinks he’s too big for music. The reactionary stratagems of one more crappy pop star. The rich are always with us.

He speeds up the schlock and, it still sounds like schlock, he still can’t resist ballads, a big mistake for a man who spells l-u-v like c-u-m.

New jack love man, he’s even more adenoidal than his worthy forebears, he’s the worst singer I’ve ever heard. Nastiest wimp since Ron Mael.

Label-changing ceremony, laid-back contagion, leftwing, hyperemotional, supercompetent persona, legacy beats, less experimental beatwise, lesser clichés, lesser horrors. Lets you know he has balls by singing as though someone is twisting them.

His amused, mildly funky self-involvement at its sharpest and sexiest, his breakthrough is a mutation, not a fruition, his child-voiced consort, his foil-wrapped condom turns out to be Chanukah gelt, his follow-up crossed PG-13 thug and subpar Luther Vandross, his imitation of Joe Cocker’s Ray Charles imitation is almost OK, his life in the bush of a fully-formed middle-class music scene. His PG rating isn’t scruples, it’s cowardice. Suffers from Jackson Browne’s syndrome. They’ve let him put some of his art therapy on the cover. Thinks up reasons why the planet should adjust to his mental reflexes.

Theoretical dandy, sounded hot, acted cold, ran out of riffs, sounds as if there’s more to a man’s life than the parlous fate of his latest erection, sounds like a strangling werewolf commercial, sounds like he should leave his therapist, not his group, sounds like Jello Biafra discovered the Stooges in 1977, sounds like Steve Miller bunny-hopping with Gary Lewis & the Playboys toward the Isle of Wimp. Stereo potato into overweight lover. Stevie Winwood is no longer the best Stevie Winwood in the world, this no-talent is masscult rock at its most brazen.

Takes the aimless vapidity of ambient another step toward total stasis, talk-sings like a demented trucker, drag racer, or metal animal tantrum set to music. Ten years of falling-down flakedom only a cultist could love or even appreciate.

His productivity isn’t exuberance, it’s greed, his purity is a candid affectation—a standard variation on late alt’s agoraphobic cultivation of ineptitude as a token of spiritual superiority, his record is a case study in the Europeanness of English heavy metal, his seducerama is in the manner of an aging matinee idol who isn’t quite as famous as he thinks he is. His short-lived “new-wave” bent surfaces. Sings as if he’s doing sitar impressions, sings like there’s a cattle prod at his scrotum.

Serves up his progress in modest and reliable doses, oversinging like Michael Bolton at a Perot rally, raps better than Rodney Dangerfield, and sings dull tunes landscaped with eerie licks, odd bridges, and a hyperactive rhythm section. Over-the-hill blowhards gotta stick together.

Song-doctored fabrications, songs are as pissed off as a millionaire can be, packs the voice of Merry Clayton into the body of Gertrude Stein. His wet croon, nuanced adenoids, historical anguish, histrionic understatement and vague specificity, hologram soul, homemade Beatles, hostile but not asocial. Pussy comes so easy now that he no longer bothers to hone his come-on. How little guitar gods know of the world.

Jocularly misogynist, now officially a menace, just a handsome dilettante enjoying his easy tunes and found beats, just another case of “substance” as novelty. No matter what your voice teachers tell you, wackiness is not something to modulate.

Populist intentions far outstrips the depth of his populist perceptions, poseur maudit, poster boy of the American Agony Association. One thing alt-rock produces in superfluity is nice guys, one thing’s sure—this is shitty background music. Oneness with nature under conditions of artificial gravity, one-sided masterpiece. Ooze is embraced. Rock bricolage, rock-or-die drums, romantic egoist of the old school, ruthlessly atypical young careerist.

Scarcely less pompous when servicing the marketplace than when expressing himself in the privacy of his own throwaways—schlock has roots, too. Sci-fi ecopessimism, self-congratulatory, self-consciously Artistic, self-consciously noncanonical market ploy. Wiggy abstraction of his self-regard. Whatever his significance, a cornball is a cornball is a cornball.

Sixties Schmixties, slacker version of the pretentious asshole, slightly salacious humanism, slogging toward stardom for so long he never noticed what happened to Shaun Cassidy. Slowly receding into alienated resignation, small but engrossing orgasms stretching into an infinite future, smarmy piece of sexist pseudosoul. Too-idealistic-for-this-world straight-edge avatar, smarter than Cat Stevens, sexier than Norman Vincent Peale. So R & B that for incomprehensibility’s sake he outsources some patois.

Sociopolitical inauthentic, solicitousness that’s strangely chilling, somehow sui generis and foreordained at the same time. Sometimes I think the little girls don’t understand a damn thing.

Vaguely anti-authoritarian, vaguely irritating pop exotics. Very few listeners actually enjoy songs in which snobbish dandies trot out their sexual egomania—actually seems to boast about how fast he can ejaculate.

Vocabulary of grunts, squeals, hiccups, moans, and asides is a vivid reminder that he’s grown up. Voices promise whipped-cream sex that’ll taste of mackerel in the morning. Wallowing in otiose thug fantasies and bathetic hater-hating, hiring big names who collect their checks and go, he is indeed hateful if not altogether devoid of musical ideas.

Weak-mindedness passing itself off as spirituality. Weird and tricky—you’ve been middle-aged and liberal since you were fifteen.

From the comments:

Somehow this leaves out "On one tune, he turns into a salmon while masturbating in front of the fireplace."

His reivew of Neil Young's "Will to Love"?

I'm such a nerd.

My favorite mean Christgau review:

Pornography [A&M, 1982]
"In books/And films/And in life/And in heaven/The sound of slaughter/As your body turns . . ."--no, I can't go on. I mean, why so glum, chum? Cheer up; look on the bright side. You got your contract, right? And your synthesizers, bet you'll have fun with them. Believe me, kid, it will pass. C

That ultimate negative xgau review is awesome. I bet the musical version of it would be amazing too.

you know you're through the looking glass when you read that Ultimate Negative Review and think "b-b-but the 'do it in a chair line' came from a positive review!"

Would like to see a "Subterranean Homesick Blues"-style cue card throwaway video of that. With Weird Al playing Dylan/Xgau.

Is every barb in that Ultimate Negative Review directed at a male?

They're practically in alphabetical order

The female directed version would include gems like "I haven't found black leotards sexy since I broke up with Sheila in 1962."

HAHA MUSIC CRITICS

"Dud of the Month

DR. DRE: The Chronic (Interscope) The crucial innovation of this benchmark album isn't its conscienceless naturalization of casual violence. It's Dre's escape from sampling. Other rappers, as they are called, have promised to create their own musical environments, usually without revealing how much art and how much publishing fuels their creative resolve. But Dre is the first to make the fantasy pay out big-time. The world he hears in his head isn't the up-to-date P-Funk fools say they hear--that would be too hard. Instead he lays bassline readymades under simulations of Bernie Worrell's high keyb sustain, a basically irritating sound that in context always signified fantasy, not reality--stoned self-loss or, at a best Dre never approaches, grandiose jive. This is bell-bottoms-and-Afros music, its spiritual source the blaxploitation soundtrack, and what it promises above all is boom times for third-rate flautists--sociopathic easy-listening. Even if it's "just pop music," as some rationalize, it's bad pop music. C PLUS "

He also included Doggystyle a "Dud" in his dud list:

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/cg/cgv294-94.php

Illmatic didn't warrant a review or score from him , just a mention:

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/cg/cgv794-94.php

critics who have individual, often baffling taste > critics who have a knack for reacting to things the way the larger culture does

*the way the larger culture does will

critics who have individual, often baffling taste > critics who have a knack for reacting to things the way the larger culture does

― Treeship, Sunday, April 19, 2015 3:15 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As long as it's not for the sake of being different, I can see your point.

I'm not anti Christgau.

This is just a funny complete misreading of the deeper cultural, musical importance of what he was listening to. He wasn't with it. He didn't see it. Or hear it. He essentially didn't get it.

And I'm not even a big fan of Doggystyle and Chronic. They're not albums I have been interested in listening to that much. But to put them both on his "DUDS" list at the time? Indicates a general level of cluelessness.

He defines Dud as "A Dud (Dud) is a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought. At the upper level it may merely be overrated, disappointing, or dull. Down below it may be contemptible. "

5 mics in The Source aside, generalist critics all kinda dropped the ball on Illmatic at the time -- it placed at #33 on Pazz & Jop. that said, it is funny to see Christgau toss it out in a miscellaneous roundup behind the Flintstones soundtrack.

critics might not have grasped the enormity of illmatic but funny that all the people, musicians, that were involved in the album were totally aware of the hugeness of what they were taking part in. other rappers and producers looked at him as some messiah. even wu tang, and they hated everyone, especially rappers.

basically Christgau was just another music critic of the 90s that simply didn't get hip hop or its impending influence. they were still looking down on it as much as was possible. there were some visionaries but a major flaw of Christgau's career is that he was just another white music critic that didn't forsee and value hip hop as an artform. I'm reading through his other rap reviews of the 90s and they're all as clueless so far.

other classics i've stumbled upon that he didn't see as that great: gza's liquid swords, atcq's midnight marauders.

visionaries but a major flaw of Christgau's career is that he was just another white music critic that didn't forsee and value hip hop as an artform

That's an unfair, lazy criticism. He was very early with recognizing hip hop. Look at his ballots for pazz and jop...

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/index.php

Picking out random records that he didn't rate as highly as you do now is a bit unfair, to put it mildly. Criticize him all you want, but you don't get to paint him as a racist because he didn't like GZA.

racist?

i've checked the list, I don't really see what it is you're pointing out.

This argument is so old its like, "Chewie, we're home!" Except we never left.

"Picking out random records that he didn't rate as highly as you do now is a bit unfair, to put it mildly."

Check the thread title homie.

speaking of the dawn of the thread, i'm curious what lead you to reviving it. were you looking at xgau reviews, wanted to discuss it, and then searched for the appropriate thread? were you searching for christgau threads, found this one - started in 2002, last revived in 2011 - and then went looking for reviews that fit the bill?

Wasn't xgau notably complaining about rockism back in the late 80s?

i think just made someone change screennames

speaking of the dawn of the thread, i'm curious what lead you to reviving it. were you looking at xgau reviews, wanted to discuss it, and then searched for the appropriate thread? were you searching for christgau threads, found this one - started in 2002, last revived in 2011 - and then went looking for reviews that fit the bill?

― da croupier

i found this christgau site via wiki chronic page, and then searched for "christgau". why?

Hadn't noticed his thing or thang against Bernie Worrell until now, but will choose to ignore it, as one has to sometimes do with the Dean. In other words, Treeship otm.

i was curious, auk - there have been a lot of xgau threads over the years, and plenty in the last few months. for someone to open an old one with "HAHA Music Critics" with a piece of 20+ year old criticism - just wondered what would lead to that.

because music criticism is really all a big joke, it should be laughed at, because it's funny. i'm not saying i'm anti it, or hating on it, it's just a thing not to take seriously.

also not to say good music criticism isn't interesting. but when the most famous (?) music reviewer labels such albums as "duds" is funny.

lots of people think music criticism is a joke - that doesn't lead to them posting 20 year old examples on 3 year old threads

sorry, 13 year old threads last updated more than 3 years ago

but anyway, yeah - xgau! what an ironically dismissive clown. makes weird word choices, has obvious biases. only nerds like him can even parse his shorthand. xgau!

The scales have fallen

And I'm not even a big fan of Doggystyle and Chronic. They're not albums I have been interested in listening to that much.

Dirty Dancing [RCA Victor, 1987]
Five pre-Beatle classics plus six postmodern horrors equals the soundtrack to the world's longest rock video, a brutally depressing top-forty apotheosis. The comparisons are torture--revolting as the contempo material is, it sounds even worse in among the Five Satins and Mickey & Sylvia, who are in turn rendered unlistenable by the commercial manipulations that bring them back to commercial life. Even accessory before the fact Phil Spector sounds not just innocent but simple up against the technocratic ardors of Medley & Warnes's Grammy/Oscar-validated "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" or Eric Carmen's merely radio-validated "Hungry Eyes." The new songs epitomize AOR as CHR, turning everything rock and roll taught us about rhythm and emotion into the melodrama that prerock schlock left behind when it abandoned operetta and the drawing-room ballad. They're almost as good a reason to hate mass culture as Ronald Reagan. D

I'd hesitate to call the Dirty Dancing soundtrack a "great album", but that review is so incredibly wrongheaded and stupid that I had to post it here.

he did finally get Illmatic a couple years ago, enough to reevaluate:

Illmatic [Columbia, 1994]

In Mo' Meta Blues, Questlove describes "hip hop's funeral": the battle of the debuts at the Source Awards, when Biggie's Ready to Die buried Nas's Illmatic, already a critical and in-crowd legend, and he watched Nas "wilt in defeat" in the Tommy Hilfiger shirt his manager had just financed. Sez Quest to Black Thought: "He's never going to be the same. You just watch." And he was right. Nas immediately transformed himself into a hit-seeking faux gangsta of depressing conventionality and didn't make another good record for eight years. That still begs the question, however, of exactly how good this spartan effort was and is. Better than I thought at the time for sure--as happens with aesthetes sometimes, the purists heard subtleties principled vulgarians like me were disinclined to enjoy, especially beatmaking where Large Professor along with such fellow New York smoothies as Pete Rock, Q-Tip, and the great Premier convert samples into haunting looped groove elements. Also enjoyable is Nas's ability to transform simple lines like "I never sleep because sleep is the cousin of death," "I'm out for presidents to represent me," "The world is yours," and even "One love, one love" into de facto hooks. And my mind tells me that I have to admire how cagily he walks the line between doing the crime and hanging with homies for whom nothing else is "real" even if my heart isn't in it. All that said, however, Ready to Die still gets my vote. A-

And my mind tells me that I have to admire how cagily he walks the line between doing the crime and hanging with homies for whom nothing else is "real" even if my heart isn't in it. All that said, however, Ready to Die still gets my vote.

xp - I don't think he did.

If you think an ambivalent reaction is less interesting or honest than canned enthusiasm, then flap your wings, flightless wonder.

He placed Black Messiah at 17th best album of 2014. Above was things such as Azealia Banks, Beyonce and Kate Tempest mediocre run of the mills.

The man is not to be taken seriously.

If you think an ambivalent reaction is less interesting or honest than canned enthusiasm, then flap your wings, flightless wonder.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, April 20, 2015 2:35 PM (

Less interesting? You said he "finally got it". I said, he clearly states he didn't. And then compared it to his preference of Ready To Die. I declare: He doesn't get it.

we had a poster a while ago who would praise people for "getting it" and criticize them when they didn't "get it". people seemed to resent him.

The man is not to be taken seriously.

As far as xgau and nas/rap generally are concerned, arctic noon auk ... Otm

I've gone through a period where I've really disliked this guy; so many albums I've loved or were important to me have been dismissed with just a bomb or a scissors, kind of the equivalent of a guy rolling his eyes and going, "meh". And yes, his writing often makes no sense or makes you question whether or not he's actually heard the album. I only know him through the guides, which (similar to Allmusic) makes his grading system look silly, there are a lot of "really? you like this album and not that one?" moments when the reality is that it's more about how he's feeling on a particular day. But even I can't deny that he's a great writer who sort of conquered the concise-but-deep-and-thoughtful style of reviewing that nobody else I know of has done (now I think we'd call that 'Twitter-esque'). I'll still read what he has to say.

oh wow is Dirty Dancing up for rehab now too?

man, remember when frogbs was our raccoon tanuki

I've gone through a period where I've really disliked this guy; so many albums I've loved or were important to me have been dismissed with just a bomb or a scissors, kind of the equivalent of a guy rolling his eyes and going, "meh". And yes, his writing often makes no sense or makes you question whether or not he's actually heard the album. I only know him through the guides, which (similar to Allmusic) makes his grading system look silly, there are a lot of "really? you like this album and not that one?" moments when the reality is that it's more about how he's feeling on a particular day. But even I can't deny that he's a great writer who sort of conquered the concise-but-deep-and-thoughtful style of reviewing that nobody else I know of has done (now I think we'd call that 'Twitter-esque'). I'll still read what he has to say.

― frogbs, Thursday, April 23, 2015 3:05 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's just style over substance. No great connoisseur gets so much wrong in the way of taste as he does. It's like those art critics who dismissed Monet, turns out they were wrong, and clueless, and didn't get what they were seeing. The good ones get it. Xgau doesn't.

but what exactly is getting it "wrong" w/r/t musical taste? I agree that album to album he's weird, he loves the Beastie Boys (especially Licensed to Ill) and gives all their albums A's, except for Check Your Head which is a big ol' bomb

he actually gave check your head a "neither" not a bomb. dude loved jokey pop culture cut-ups, had several meters albums and didn't need one by these guys, though he grew to accept their noodling, judging by later reviews

there's basically a check your head review in the ill communication review

Ill Communication [Grand Royal, 1994]
Another you-gotta-believe record, just like Check Your Head--only less so, thank God, whose appearances herein are frequent and auspicious. Although once again it's short on dynamite, at least it starts with a bang. Two bangs, actually, one hip hop and one hardcore--their loyalty to their roots closely resembles an enlightened acceptance of their limitations. With each boy having evolved into his own particular man, the rhymes are rich and the synthesis is complex. You-gotta-love the way the ecological paean/threnody emits from a machine that crosses a vocoder and the p.a. at a taco drive-through, but their collective spiritual gains peak in the instrumentals, which instead of tripping up the Meters evoke the unschooled funk of a prerap garage band. If they've never run across Mer-Da's Long Burn the Fire, on Janus, maybe I could tape them one? A-

like, whether or not you agree, i don't think it's hard to get why someone who experienced the 70s as an adult dug licensed to ill and paul's boutique wouldn't have been happy when check your head showed up

so the frowny face is "indifferent"? didn't know that and yeah it makes more sense that way. and yes I get why, I just find it weird to praise that they've 'grown up' or that they're accepting their limitations here, when Check Your Head was basically where all that started, right? they're very similar records imo

well sometimes things take time to process - xgau def strikes me as the kind of writer where the grade for one album is sometimes a corrective for the previous

compared to say, a rolling stone album guide entry, consumer guide takes are mostly in the moment, though occasionally amended in hindsight for one of the books, but only in really egregious cases

I think that (correction of earlier grade) too --- the other explanation is that he is unusually considerate to late-career / post hotness offerings.

One of his more endearing qualities, although it messes with reliability (which, frankly, get a life critic-critics....write your own damn reviews, be better than what you complain about).

the other explanation is that he is unusually considerate to late-career / post hotness offerings.

haha yeah he's got a lot of "these old people are still full of life and just as vital as ever!" glances into the mirror imo

dude went out from the voice giving that first new york dolls reunion album (which is a decent new david johansen album even if the band sounds like paul schaffer's in it) an a+

he did it recently with Jay Z – reevaluated everything he'd underrated and missed.

Yeah his A+ just doesn't carry the same oomph later than the 70s book or at the very latest the 80s.

The time we had our first chat I gave him shit about the Dolls album and he got defensive ("What's the matter? It speaks to me!" or something).

yeah i never assume this shit is disingenuous - dude seems enough of an unrepentant screwball that his "and they mentioned Gore by name. A." shit represents an earnest salute to the cd player

Hey anybody who mentions Lesley Gore gets an A in my book.

oh come on, i clearly meant Martin.

exactly. I enjoy reading him even if I wouldn't take a music recommendation

" Like a lot of young black pop artists, Missy deals in aural aura rather than song, which means that even after you connect--as I did with "Izzy Izzy Ahh" well before "The Rain" hit MTV--she can take awhile to absorb."

I like that

Reminder that Christgau gave To Pimp a Butterfly the same score as Rae Strummond in the same week https://medium.com/cuepoint/robert-christgau-expert-witness-9fa87a06ebde

utter fool.

which of those two scores are you complaining about?

hehehe

That A- he gave Kendrick feels a little low for the review he wrote

Rob Unkut has been posting his reviews of classic hip hop stuff, just awful

SCHOOLLY-D (Schoolly-D) From the beginning, rap has been a music of aggressive, expansive possibility, claiming the world on beat and boast alone. This Philadelphia street tough claims only his turf. His powerful scratch rhythms are as oppressive and constricted as his neighborhood, and his sullen slur conveys no more hope or humor than the hostile egotism of his raps themselves. I'm not saying he isn't realer than all the cheerful liars the biz has thrown back to the projects, or that his integrity doesn't pack a mean punch. But he's still an ignorant thug, and he's cheating both his audience and himself by choosing to remain that way. B PLUS

Expensive Shit/He Miss Road [MCA, 2000] Dud

What a weird dude

I thought Damaged was the only studio album he liked from Black Flag, but he actually vouches for Loose Nut and In My Head in a later entry - he just never bothered to review them and admits he overlooked them. Seems far from the first time where he admits a lapse but you wouldn't know it if you were trying to look up a particular album.

jesus, that fela "review" if you can call it that.

I've found it immeasurably easier to dismiss Christgau's opinions about everything since he made the Moldy Peaches his #2 album of last year.

― Michael White, Saturday, December 7, 2002

I wonder what about that particular Fela album he disliked?

His recent appreciation of Louis Jordan on his substack was astute and informative.

Yeah, he can still do that sometimes. Also, George Smith---ilx alum, music writer, and muso (see Dick Destiny and the Highway Kings, in Stairway To Hell) said that the lower xgau rates something, the more likely George is to dig it. I wonder how low George goes? I haven't seen an F in there, but there are some Ds, also Es, I think (you can look stuff up by letter grades on his site).

No idea if they've been mentioned, but of the mere three Low releases he covers, he gives both "Things We Lost in the Fire" and "The Great Destroyer" the bomb graphic. "Christmas" gets an asterisk. His "Christmas" quip is "beats committing suicide, if that's your holiday fancy."

at least we were spared any sexual fantasies about Mimi

I wonder what about that particular Fela album he disliked?

Someone actually asked him this on the old Expert Witness site -- long gone and not completely archived, so this is coming from memory -- specifically because 2 of the 4 or 5 songs on the original reissue showed up on The Best of the Black President 2, which he gave an A-. He agreed it should not have been rated a bomb, and his response was something along the lines of, when you're reviewing a dozen reissues by an artist at the same time, these kind of slips-ups happen.

I haven't seen an F in there, but there are some Ds, also Es, I think (you can look stuff up by letter grades on his site).

He doesn't go as low as F, lowest is E- which I think he only used once (on a Kim Fowley record, that he claimed had no actual music on it, a la those old novelty "Wit & Wisdom of President Nixon" gag books where you open them up and the pages are all blank?).

The lowest grade I've seen him give was for GNR's "Lies," which got an E.

WtF, Bob, “patience” alone should bumped it up to a D

The review more or less says the EP is a C, but the, you know, racism and homophobia bump it down a few grades. Iirc he also more or less says they should kill themselves.

Axl's voice is a power tool with attachments, Slash's guitar a hype, the groove potent "hard rock," and the songwriting not without its virtues. So figure musical quality at around C plus and take the grade as a call to boycott, a reminder to clean livers who yearn for the wild side that the necessary link between sex-and-drugs and rock-and-roll is a Hollywood fantasy. Anyway, this band isn't even sex and drugs--it's dicking her ass before you smack up with her hatpin. (No wonder they want to do an AIDS benefit.) "One in a Million"--"Immigrants and faggots/They make no sense to me/They come to our country/And think they'll do as they please/Like start some mini-Iran/Or spread some fucking disease/They talk so many goddamn ways/It's all Greek to me"--is disgusting because it's heartfelt and disgusting again because it's a grandstand play. It gives away the "joke" (to quote the chickenshit "apologies" on the cover) about the offed girlfriend the way "Turn around bitch I've got a use for you" gives away "Sweet Child o' Mine." Back when they hit the racks, these posers talked a lot of guff about suicide. I'm still betting they don't have it in them to jump. E

Ok Bob you got it

Axl's voice is a power tool with attachments, Slash's guitar a hype, the groove potent "hard rock," and the songwriting not without its virtues.

I found "Sweet Child O' Mine" a more thrilling and frightening record than "God Save the Queen" but then I was 14. Still hasn't lost the power to thrill and frighten either.

Guns N' Roses might as well have been grown in a vat for Christgau to hate. They are the antithesis of everything he responds to and values in pop/rock music.

Well, there was this, unexpected by me, even before geezer POV curveball at end:

Dazed and Confused [Medicine, 1993]
But it's really great junk. Seventies AOR as hard-rock utopia, with all the El Lay wimp-out, boogie dumb-ass, and metal drudge-trudge surreptitiously excised, enabling the escapist to bask in history without actually encountering any Montrose or Outlaws records. A few of the selections are ringers--unjustly, neither the Sweet's "Fox on the Run" (too pop) nor the Runaways' "Cherry Bomb" (too chick) ever gained much stoner credibility. Most are by major artists (Skynyrd, War, Alice Cooper, ZZ Top) or indisputable legends (Sabbath, Kiss, Deep Purple, Ted Nugent). But only someone who suffered his first nocturnal emission between 1970 and 1975 will be motivated to collect the catalogue it implies. For the rest of humanity, this is an ideal way to enjoy what for all its high volume, guitar excess, and muddled longueurs remained a pop sensibility that harked back to the '50s. Jim Dandy to the rescue indeed. A-

The first two Montrose albums > Wussy's entire catalog