New Christgau Consumer Guide From MSN Music

if 70-year-olds want to write about popular music, they should probably see some shows

he's easily one of the most plugged-in and active septuagenarian music fans in the world. being aghast that he doesn't spend more nights out seems silly. i'm less than half his age and already get out to shows a fraction as much as i did in my 20s.

if 70-year-olds want to write about popular music, they should probably see some shows

― mookieproof,

so long as clubs have space for walkers and wheelchairs

Christgau's wrong often but never in a reactionary "These crazy kids * shakes cane*" wrong. That's impressive.

http://media.tumblr.com/2ee3bba62225c308195bed3ba452ca09/tumblr_inline_msi040CEDm1qz4rgp.jpg

yeah, you can say what you want but dude DOES show up at clubs/shows/festivals and puts in the hours on the floor.

Christgau's wrong often but never in a reactionary "These crazy kids * shakes cane*" wrong. That's impressive.

not really

at seventy writing about music it sure is

he doesn't get a free pass for being 70! god bless him for being wrong often but not resorting to a terrible cliche; should we expect less from our dean?

it's cool that at age 70 he still cares enough to weigh in on the sexual proclivities of modern pop artists tho

Nobody's talking about a free pass -- you said that.

His presumptions about the sexual activities of pop stars have nothing to do with being seventy. The last few posts have been about his attending live shows.

those presumptions he expressed when he was 35

- often wrong
- yet not in a reactionary way with 'these crazy kids'

i guess in the grand scheme of things yes, maybe it is impressive that a 70yo bothers composing koans re: new music. still, it is ultimately no more impressive in itself than that a man unable to make a sandwich does so

i think what some of us are expressing admiration for is a willingness to go out on a school night and stand and wait for an hour for the opener to come on when you're in your seventies. I'm not yet out of my thirties and that shit prevents me from going out some nights even now.

which might well be read as "it is not how well the bear juggles" but that's less my intent than just being impressed at the tenacity if nothing else

"God knows what you’re getting paid for this, you poor motherfucker."

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/08/the_notion_that_no_current_popular_music_is_of_quality_is_philistine_robert_christgau_on_beyonce_kanye_the_ramones_online_journalism_and_bohemian_sex_lives/

haha that was the line which stood out to me too

2014 Dean's List is finally here.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/review/excuses-excuses-the-2014-deans-list

man, talk about a non review review

Confusion Is Sex [Neutral, 1983]
Back in 1970 I played Max Kozloff, a Cal Arts colleague of distinctly Yurrupean musical tastes, some singles I thought instructive--"Brown Eyed Girl," "California Earthquake," "Neanderthal Man," like that. The one he flipped for was "I Wanna Be Your Dog." So if you think the sonic cover here proves they're rockers at heart, you have a fine art critic on your side. The dull rock critic wants to mention that the cover doesn't rock too good. Of course, neither did King Crimson a lot of the time. C+

i wonder if this was before or after the live review that inspired "I Killed Christgau With My Big Fucking Dick"

I was wondering the same thing, haven't really been able to find anything on the timing of that live review.

Apparently the Expert Witness column at Cuepoint has been suspended. Tom Hull offers some speculation.

http://tomhull.com/ocston/blog/archives/2278-Music-Week.html

Thanks for posting. Hopefully the Consumer Guide will live on somewhere else.

Man this that is a depressing assessment of the current writing marketplace

it's not exactly accurate though

as in, it's very flattering to writers and editors to pin success or failure entirely on the editorial quality/organization of a site, but in practice the success has more to do with the business and advertising side

It has very little to do with writers anymore tbh

dunno if it has anything to do with readers anymore tbh; all about clickers

To quote Christgau himself, forgive the esoteric baseball reference, but the Consumer Guide is becoming the Bobo Newsom of rock criticism.

haha you'll have to explain that one for me

Bobo played for nine different teams, never seemed to hang around in one place more than three years:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/newsobo01.shtml

Which is pretty much the Consumer Guide since leaving the Voice. He was also one of two pitchers to face both Ruth and Mantle--there's probably a Christgau parallel there, too.

(You probably remember the original quote, from Christgau's review of Dylan: "if you'll forgive the esoteric reference, it's like watching Ryne Duren pitch without glasses.")

Not sure why Tom didn't just Google to see where Medium as a company was.

http://fortune.com/2015/05/21/medium-twitter-network-effect/

Key piece of executive claptrap from founder Evan Williams's very garbled post announcing the shift:
"That’s why I say Medium is not a publishing tool. It’s a network. A network of ideas that build off each other. And people. And GIFs (yeah, we have those, too — not our specialty, though, to be clear)."

So yeah. It's trying to become more of a "network," which means in the end that it wants content for which it doesn't have to pay.

Cuepoint was sort of doomed from the start for a lot of reasons aside from Medium's lack of business-model clarity; it was way overpaying for a site that wasn't supported by any sort of even indirect revenue stream, and I have heard nightmare stories about its editorial process from reliable sources. (Plus, employment of Christgau aside, it had near zero editorial vision, but what do you expect from a publication led by someone who's been programming Vegas clubs for years and not paying attention to the real strides that have been made in writing — not in terms of pay rates, sure, but in terms of perspectives represented and bucking of stodgy dude-led canons.) Medium's been tightening its belt for a while now, although I figured the brotastic verticals would have a little more wiggle room than they ultimately got.

And Christgau's contract at MSN Music ended in 2013 for the same reason that mine did: Microsoft got rid of all its freelancers in one fell swoop. The editorial strategy had zero to do with it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/12/us-microsoft-msn-jobs-idUSBRE98B10Z20130912

I agree with Tom that the presentation of our material was less than ideal (ask my about my record review archives! oh wait they never existed), but with certain (many, probably, at this point) corporations, you could be putting out genius work every week and it wouldn't matter one whit if the bean counters said it was fucking up their side of things.

do you folks own your reviews after the websites go belly-up? can you post them on your own blogs or sites at least?

near zero editorial vision

it was just kind of random and, yeah, canon-centric, but with the occasional pretty good piece. has it definitely been put to sleep? pieces are still dribbling out, but maybe that's just leftover stuff that was lying around?

it's still around although deeply cut down from what I've heard.

In a more recent post, Hull implies (perhaps after talking to xgau) there's at least a possibility the column will return:

"I don't have any idea how to get the attention of Medium/Cuepoint and apply any pressure to renew the column -- I gather this isn't hopeless at this point, even if the odds aren't great."

http://tomhull.com/blog/archives/2280-Rhapsody-Streamnotes-June-2015.html

i mean cuepoint runs stuff like "Keith Richards’ wild life inspired me to trade code snippets like guitar licks" with a straight face, cmon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdU4Vz39KsY

Yeah, Cue Point is kinda rough goihg. But they did have that cool article by Lou Reed's sister.

the next iteration of consumer guide will just be christgau reading his reviews aloud at the corner of st marks and lafayette

they may have turned off his column but the "expert witness" crew is back via their newly-implemented "responses" section.

Every critic needs his expert witnesses.

Bob's site has been updated with the following message:

It took a while, as new business models cough-cough always do, but as of June 25 what had seemed increasingly likely ever since my June 5 submission was put on hold became official: 10 months in, Expert Witness's run at Cuepoint/Medium is over. Editor Jon Shecter compensated me well and always gave me the freedom he'd promised, for which I'm very grateful--it felt so right to be reviewing (and grading) albums after a year's hiatus. But let me emphasize that both the compensation and the institutional home were part of the satisfaction--I like earning money for my work and I like being part of a top-edited periodical.

As with MSN in 2013, I have not been singled out here. Where MSN offed its entire freelance sector, Shecter's bosses have apparently decided that their music "vertical" will now feature what web publishers like to call "reader-provided" copy. Me, I think the term "unpaid" is more to the point. Having made a living as a journalist for more than 50 years now, I don't regard writing as a hobby, or as "self-expression." It's a job, and better for it. Having taken a teaching post in part because it's hard out there for a freelancer, I expended most of what little spare time remained between September and May keeping EW afloat. One sad thing about the timing of the Medium reboot is that with the spring term over I was going back to stuff I'd never fully borne down on and seeking out titles I'd missed. It was interesting--in fact, kind of exciting.

I'm still listening to current music all day and writing occasional reviews, but with less organizational purpose--often as a way to get my head around something I've immersed in deep enough. My basic theory hasn't changed. My working assumption is that popular music is of lasting artistic value, that the album format remains an excellent way to realize that value, that an album's potential often becomes more vivid when it's a physical object, and that my little reviews have proven of some importance in a complex historicizing process. If somebody wants to pay me to continue to publish these reviews, I'll definitely consider it, and it's possible the Witnesses, as I call the amazingly articulate fan base that crystallized when MSN turned the Consumer Guide into Expert Witness in 2010, will persuade me to go it alone in some format yet to be determined, although I have reservations about every one so far proposed. I can't see any way, however, that such a development will come to fruition before Carola and I take a two-week European vacation set to commence three weeks from today--although I do admittedly have a dozen reviews in the kitty and may even turn out a few more before we leave.

It's conceivable I'll see you in September--even August. Just in case, though, I figure I owe the Witnesses at least one small thing--the final listing in a file called EWMDEX in my WP51 files. It goes:

6/5 scaggs/cohen//nelson-haggard/giant sand/springsteen/bishop

"Vertical," "reader-provided"--how can publishers/editors say such stuff with a straight face (or without being struck down by lightning on the spot)?

although I do admittedly have a dozen reviews in the kitty

he never stops!

Having made a living as a journalist for more than 50 years now, I don't regard writing as a hobby, or as "self-expression." It's a job, and better for it.

O.T.fucking.M.

Still, I CAN'T WAIT to read all those user-generated record reviews. I'm sure they're going to be fantastic LOL

so pointless might as well go and post about music on a message board

u think?

My working assumption is that popular music is of lasting artistic value

yes and you had no small hand in establishing that

that the album format remains an excellent way to realize that value

not sure about this anymore myself but willing to play along

that an album's potential often becomes more vivid when it's a physical object

no! this is hindsight/nostalgia in my middle-aged opinion but whatever works for you

that my little reviews have proven of some importance in a complex historicizing process

no argument and thanks!