Critical Vendettas

I didn't know about Marcus disliking Welch, but that seems to be of a piece with the anti-Lucinda jihad. There's something about Welch and Williams' overt appropriations that he finds deeply offensive. I'd have no objection to that as a matter of taste if he weren't at the same time such a massive devotee of Dylan. Compare his reviews of Love and Theft and Time the Revelator in the same Real Life Rock Top 10. Why does he give Dylan's old-timey album a rave and Welch's a dismissive slap? He is a voluble feminist in many contexts, but he seems to have issues with women availing themselves of certain parts of the canon.

(And Lucinda Williams at the bottom of that column...)

Dave Marsh--Grateful Dead

Marsh has a ton, most of them in the punk/new wave realm, e.g. his super nasty review of X in the RSG

I considered Marsh for this. The punk stuff makes sense, though I just don't think he has a feel for that music, and the deeper examples to my mind were Neil Young and Lou Reed. But he's too conflicted in his responses to them, enough of a fan of some of their records to disqualify him altogether (he somewhat fessed up about Reed in a sort-of obit he posted), and most of his vendettas, far as I can tell, have as much if not more to do with the critical stature of the artists than the records themselves. Still, yeah, not a critic devoid of targets. (I will have to check him on the Dead.)

Karl definitely had it in for Cassavetes, Kubrick and Friedkin.

It's harder to track music critics on this than film critics, because very few music writers (excepting Christgau or the numerous incarnations of Marcus's "Real Life" column) ever had an outlet fixed in place long enough for anything vendetta-like to develop. For a one-place, one-time thing, yes, Marsh had a lot of targets in that book.

Just thought of Kael and Kubrick too--I don't think she ever had much of anything positive to say about Kubrick after Lolita. Her reviews weren't as vitriolic as Simon on Godard--she'd usually find something worthwhile, like the steadicam in The Shining or Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange--but a fan she wasn't.

(I think Karl's bête noire is Mike Matheny.)

i think w/r/t Marcus and Williams, there's a certain vitriol that seems a bit beyond the usual critical panning when it's a male critic levying it at a female artist, or at least when it's made particularly personal. not sure if Marcus' otherwise apparently woke writing gets him off the hook.

From https://rockcritics.com/2013/07/16/from-the-archives-greil-marcus-online-exchange-2002-2/

Lucinda Williams: As great an emotional fraud as Destiny’s Child–wins the prize over them as the most mannered singer in pop music because she’s been fooling people with it longer. A monster of self-praise, of the poor-mouth, to her own self be true, but I love one of her comments in the current Esquire: “Some of my best friends are music critics.” What a shock.

tbf GM's forever war on beyonce comes p close -- there's a very overcooked couple of pages on her in the history of rock‘n’roll in ten songs

Also from that same part of the online exchange:

Alanis Morissette: Does not know a beat from a bleat. I still think “You Oughta Know” is the whiniest record ever made. She’s better in movies.

Aimee Mann: Up there with Lucinda Williams, but a much more obnoxious whiner than Alanis Morissette–I mean, there’s a difference between making a horrible hit record based on an irritating emotion and basing your whole life on it. The sense of entitlement, of condescension, comes off of her in waves. Given that a whole movie was based on her wisdom, though–who can forget every character, dead or alive, mouthing along to, “Wise Up,” I think, in Magnolia? And then, lo and behold, everybody did wise up. Gosh.

In his defense, Mann, Morissette, and Williams are horrible. (Gillian Welch I can take for a song or two.)

Sidenote, but I thought it was funny that he was lamenting how hard it was to find the early White Stripes records, which at that time (2002) could have been found on LP at any decent indie record store, and on CD anywhere up to and including Best Buy.

In Mann, Morissette and Williams' defence, Greil Marcus is horrible.

i guess reed-bangs is the other way round, isn't it

I was thinking of the antagonistic relationship with Reed as maybe the closest thing for Bangs, but obviously different in that Reed was an artist he loved. I can't think of a case of Bangs bearing an excessive grudge against a band he detested.

the mann and morrissette critiques don't strike me as sexist, really, though it's ridiculous for GM to hold mann responsible for "magnolia." tbh you can pull up pretty much any old ilm thread about a female artist and get more horrible quotes than that within the first three or four posts.

as far as vendettas go, the worst and most indefensible thing GM has ever written was an item from his top-10 column years ago. the lead singer from the spin doctors had been diagnosed with vocal cord paralysis and had lost his voice (he's since recovered), and marcus just quoted the news story and labeled it "best news of the week."

Agreed. I even asked him about that in one of those rockcritics.com forums--he wouldn't backtrack a bit. (And seriously, the misogyny he objected to in "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong"--primarily a specific line--was that appreciably different or worse than a lifetime of stuff he'd praised, from the Rolling Stones on down?)