New Christgau Consumer Guide From MSN Music

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!

Wait, scaggs? Did Boz had an a- coming?

Or maybe ricky

Oh wait Ricky's name is SKaggs

So really dug boz's new one

i don't think the user-generated content coming to cuepoint is going to be reviews per se

Anybody managed to access the final "gift"?

I think it's just a list of recs for Witnesses; not a hidden column, sadly.

i'm sure somewhere the witnesses are debating the meaning of the double backslash. does it separate A records from lesser grades? is "cohen" the new leonard cohen live album, as opposed to the studio one he's already weighed in on? ok i'm a geek.

i still find it kind of weird that christgau has such high-minded ideas about the import of his work but (aside from that recent memoir) hasn't decided to write a book about one of his favored artists or genres.

that said, i wish him the best. mostly i hope he's reasonably financially secure for retirement, because i don't wish impoverished old age on anyone.

New home on Vice: http://noisey.vice.com/blog/expert-witness-with-robert-christgau-1

!

Nice!!

Is he still doing pieces for billboard? He wrote an "I'm old but I like derulo!" intro for them too not long ago

And he starts it off with three straight A- grades, which he seems to give to 90 percent of the albums he reviews these days.

on one hand, he's promised to do as such for about 25 years now. on the other, it does suggest the irrelevance of "grades" for his "albums i like" blog

if its really important to distinguish between "good" and "really really good" i'm sure the language in the blurb will do it

but considering how long the dude's been grading and how hard it's been to keep a steady home, i can't expect him to drop his trademark shtick

Is he still doing pieces for billboard? He wrote an "I'm old but I like derulo!" intro for them too not long ago

― da croupier, Friday, August 14, 2015 6:44 AM (1 hour ago)

it looked like it was going to be a monthly feature but it stopped after just the third one. (the one where he was like "i bet iggy azalea really has had it hard y'all, let's give her a break")

Liked the Guide better when he was grading down to E Minus (so illuminating---as a muso buddy said, " I didn't know you could make some of those mistakes!"). Maybe he'll bring back the Torkey Shoot if I stop asking him to, but seems unlikely. Gratuitous slap at "good literature," "emotional complexity" unspecified---word limit, y'know--but at least he explains that Miguel don't serve porn cause coffee next morning, ha good 'un, thanks for the news.

it's not the most illuminating collection of albums

i fear i will never agree with the idea of 'mellowing'

https://medium.com/@shallowrewards/you-ain-t-nothin-but-a-hound-dog-b718ef1df1d5

Robert Christgau is the same age as my father. Actually, that’s inaccurate: he is four months older than my father.

This morning, Christgau announced the migration of his authorial brand from this site — Medium — to VICE Media’s music arm, Noisey. His inaugural address ticked the usual boxes, reminding everyone that Lou Reed said some incoherent, nasty things about him, during a period in his career when Lou Reed could be counted on to say incoherent, nasty things about potato chips and clouds. We’re also reminded of Sonic Youth’s early vexation at Christgau’s dismissive treatment of their existential art school gambit, which wasn’t clever, authentic, or dangerous enough to escape the Dean’s withering stink-eye (Christgau graduated from Dartmouth, by the way — in 1962).

Having flashed his credentials, Christgau’s first commentary for VICE heralds the effectiveness of Jason Derulo’s Everything Is, an LP that’s functionally a survey of production and songwriting techniques from the 1980s. Coincidentally, my exposure to Derulo’s irresistibly upbeat “Want to Want Me” aligns exactly with how one would have experienced pop music in the 1980s: I heard it on the radio (on the beach, even), because my nine year-old daughter likes it too. I am a married father of three. I cannot imagine devoting time out of my day to ponder the cultural significance of a new Billy Ocean, unless my views on the subject could attract a six-figure income.

[...]

I turn forty next week, and am approaching peak #Dadbod just as it reaches its cultural apex. If you’ve seen my video series or follow me on Twitter, you know I am quite good-looking. This is why I could never be a Rock Writer — I’m more attractive than most musicians — but if Rock Writer were defined by Christgau’s work at my age, I could never be that either. His output from 1975–1985 is literally scripture. It is everything everyone who has ever written about pop music could hope to accomplish, and never will.

"If you’ve seen my video series or follow me on Twitter, you know I am quite good-looking."

who pasted lyttle lytton into medium

the sad thing is, there are legitimate points here, he just can't resist the urge to shit all over them and then sculpt his own image out of the shit

It's like Close Encounters of the Turd Kind

yeah he's halfway right in that his vanity, not his looks, is holding him back from being a decent writer (xp)

What are his legit points, serious q

i thought he had some salient observations about how 30 years ago a child would kick a ball on the street and we didn't use to lock our front doors

i think xgau must be responsible for like 95% of the positive words ever uttered in the press about jason derulo's music

I cannot imagine devoting time out of my day to ponder the cultural significance of a new Billy Ocean, unless my views on the subject could attract a six-figure income.

anyone who's seen his twitter knows this is total bullshit

Well at least we know his last couple raises got him from 96K to over 100, though they always raise the price of the bennies & yr lucky to break even

Most of you are probably smart enough not to have made it to the end of that, but the fact that he manages to drop his twitter handle/video channel/personal "brand" into the final sentence of the piece is pretty amazing.

lol yeah didn't get that far, also love that its preceded by His persistent issuance of pithy screed, in the face of quantifiable socioeconomic change, is pure vanity - a surprising stance for a persistent issuer of pithy screed who likes to tell us of the quantifiable socioeconomic change he's experienced since working for pitchfork.

no i was already gainfully employed in the same industry when i was at pitchfork. it's been a contiguous twenty years of accruing experience and valuable skills.