Atomizer [Homestead, 1986]

>Carr to explain

Thing is, even Scaruffi will most of the time actually discuss the music (the sound of a song, certain moments of it, the overall feel, etc). This faggot you're lucky if he gets that far in about 20% of his reviews instead of bringing up the band's image or race.

I don't think his readers wanted to read about the music.
>Christgau says it's good? I'm buying it.

Who are his readers?

me

American bourgeois-bohemians

>self-described male feminist

based

Neither of these exist

>[Q] Are you pussy-whipped? Do you review straight white males with guitars anymore or are they beholden to the patriarchy? You're worse than NPR. -- Drew Hirsch, Sweetbrier, California

>[A] I am a white male heterosexual who has identified publicly as a feminist since 1970. Since then I have written thousands of positive reviews of bands consisting entirely of straight white guys with guitars. So far in 2018 I've added albums by Idles, Pedro the Lion, Todd Snider (solo, true), Robert Forster, Jason Ringenberg, and, er, Bruce Springsteen (also solo, hmm), not one of whom is stupid enough to think "pussy-whipped" a striking or witty term. Facts: African-Americans have always been the prime creative motor of American music, I've had an active interest in African music since it began to become more available in the mid-'80s, and most of today's interesting younger guitar bands are led by women, freed up by the confidence that they won't attract ginks like you to their shows.

based as fuck

>Facts: African-Americans have always been the prime creative motor of American music
This is not really true at all and definitely not after the early 60s. It's a nice meme people like Cuckgau have spammed, but it falls apart under scrutiny.

I think they don't realize how much black music styles borrowed from white folk and country.

Call it a fusion of European and African styles at best.

Breathe [Warner Bros., 1999]
Hill's Shania move comes down so far on the wrong side of Bryan Adams it's a wonder she doesn't pop out of her fancy black lingerie--great color choice, gal, no grass stains. Back in the boudoir, she poses for photos, then carefully removes said lingerie so as to "make love all night long." The drums wham-bam her promises home. The guitars make noise without having any fun. How poetic. How precisely what Tim McGraw deserves. C+

Bland supermarket sound system music but at least it's pretty harmless.

Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell [MCA, 1993] :(

Q: So Christgau's one of the great editors...
A: Oh Christgau's great, I mean, fantastic. Tremendous insight into what you're trying to say, really good ideas about what you might do, he'll spot holes in your thinking--his sense of other people's language is not nearly so--at least when I worked with him, which is a long time ago--not nearly so insular as his own writing has become, or at least as I think it's become. No, he's a fantastic editor, just an absolutely fantastic editor.
Q: Okay, but you do have--I'm not looking for you to slag some of your contemporaries or whatever, but you obviously have some problems with Christgau. You did that piece on the Pazz & Jop poll a few years ago.
A: Oh I have tremendous problems. I think I basically--first of all, I think he hates rock-and-roll. I don't even think he makes much of a secret about it. If you actually look at his reviews, he doesn't like rock bands. He said some miserably--I can't think of a better way to put it but bigoted things about, for instance, the heavy metal audience. And I think he's promoted a fairly self-aggrandizing idea of what rock criticism should be. So, yeah, I disagree with all those things, and there's no reason to make a secret of it.

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Now if only this guy didn't have Springsteen's ballsack in his mouth for the last 42 years.

Dave Marsh has a financial stake in nearly anything Bruce releases, right?

Sure does, assuming he and his wife file their taxes jointly. I lost any respect for DM a long time ago when I sampled his second Springsteen bio. Cum-gargling at its worst. Go read Clinton Heydin's bio instead, it's much better.

You should listen to his E Street Radio show, he's in love with the sound of own voice. He's obsessed with being right and will never admit to being wrong. So exactly like Cuckgau.

Oh yeah.

The first Springsteen bio Marsh wrote was ok, it gave a lot of cool background info on the guy. The second though...yeech. Marsh turned into a total, disgusting cheerleader for Brunce.

Back at the time when Marsh was pimping for the Boss, he was also writing in RSM a regular column (Rock and Roll Confidential) exposing hypocrisy and Payola in the industry. Un. Fucking. Believable.

I met Dave at a book signing once and you'd think he himself wrote Born To Run. A more self-aggrandizing little weasel there never was.

Many years ago, Rolling Stone tried a second magazine, don't remember the title and Marsh did one of his pieces that more or less said that no one was making music as important as Bruce, anywhere. A guy wrote in a letter accusing him of being one-sided because of his relationship with Bruce and his wife's. They published the letter and what Marsh wrote was incredibly childish--he more or less got personal, insulting the guy almost like a little kid saying 'yeah well, you're stupid and you must be a faggot.' And this went on for paragraphs. I don't think I ever saw Marsh write anything else about Bruce for RS after that.

Dave Marsh is many things, very knowledgeable, passionate, insightful and articulate, but its a few other less attractive qualities as alluded to above, and the immediacy or the inherent proximity of the friendship and access he has with Springsteen that can make it difficult for a reader to believe, or easier to question, his opinions.

Marsh's Queen reviews are astounding for just how ignorant and clueless they were.

Marsh always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder regarding Queen, but his review of Jazz just came off as a poorly disguised attempt to attack Freddie Mercury personally.

I wonder if even Jan Wenner suspected Dave went too far with his Queen hatred, also Dave is apparently pretty influential in the Rock and Roll HOF and was one of the big names in keeping KISS out for many years.

Someone probably mentioned it already, but I'm pretty sure Bowie's Low was not unanimously loved by the rock music critic community upon initial release, yet now you will not see many music writers dare to question its status, some even ranking it higher than Ziggy. I think The Velvets also weren't a band that a l0t of people really "got" at the time, although they had a few champions like Lester Bangs.

Led Zeppelin hated Rolling Stone magazine for having wrote this about their first album:
"Jimmy Page, around whom the Zeppelin revolves, is, admittedly, an extraordinarily proficient blues guitarist and explorer of his instrument's electronic capabilities. Unfortunately, he is also a very limited producer and a writer of weak, unimaginative songs, and the Zeppelin album suffers from his having both produced it and written most of it (alone or in combination with his accomplices in the group)."

McCartney's early solo efforts?

Ram isn't my favorite album ever but yes it did get barbecued over a spit at the time and didn't really deserve it.

RSM review of David Crosby's If Only I Could Remember My Name:

>Milking a profitable thing is a fine and honorable tradition in pop music, but like most crass things it tends to lose its charm fast. The past couple of years have seen the ubiquitous nebulas of musicians surrounding Cocker-Russell-Delaney & Bonnie milked almost to death. And if some of this year's best sellers are any indication, the immediate future will probably see both the overtaxed nostalgia for Buffalo Springfield and whatever Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young may ever have represented, throttled by greed and ego right into the same faddist bone-yard as the likes of Grand Funk.

>After Dewey Martin's Medicine Ball, it was only a matter of time till Bruce Palmer, long-obscure Springfield bassist, recorded an album. And meanwhile, with the Pud Princes' great double live set waiting in the wings, the glories of Stills' solo effort have been followed, sure as a Rolling Stone interview, by an even more personal revelation from Crosby. Similar in several ways, the new Crosby and Palmer albums mainly go to show that whether you take the high road or the low, a super-jammed ego trip remains just that.

>Crosby's album, though the better of the two, is not likely to go down in history, but it is not a bad album. While it's true that it all sounds pretty much the same, we must also note that nothing really jars. In fact, it would make a perfect aural aid to digestion when you're having guests over for dinner, provided they're brothers and sisters enough to get behind it, of course. The playing is sloppy as hell, very modal-funky and guitar centered, somewhat reminiscent of Alexander Spence's great Oar except without the genius, the outrageously eccentric vocal style (Crosby's singing here is even blander and more monotonously one-dimensional that Stills' on his solo album) or the originality of composition.

>And oh, the song! They may sort of mumble and drone into each other, but they sure got vibes! While never approaching the Cinerama weltanschauung of a Blows Against the Empire, If I Could Only Remember My Name does take a position, perhaps best exemplified by the words, almost childlike in their perfect simplicity, of the tribal chant composed by Crosby, Young and Nash (I think each of them wrote two words) which opens the album: "Everybody's sayin' that music is love/Take off your clothes and ride the sun/Everybody's saying' that music is fun." And I'll bet they do have fun recording these things. It's long been obvious that they all love each other.

>The undisputed masterpiece of the record is Crosby's own eight-minute talk-sung fiction, "Cowboy Movie." Musically it's not much more differentiated than a tape loop, but it's got a great plot which I won't reveal because I know how much fun everybody'll have listening extra-close for the 200th time trying to figure it out. I will say that it ends with Dave saying with bitter disappointment: "You know that Indian girl? She wasn't an Indian–she was the law." You just can't trust anybody any more.

>"Traction in the Rain" and "Laughing" are both fine songs, somewhat more substantial than their surroundings, the former sung with as much uncharacteristically clear and disciplined inflection as the latter is not. Although "Laughing" is probably the best thing here, with deep bass rumblings and a lost, crying steel guitar, all very affectingly reminiscent of the middle Byrds' deep Eastern-tinged grandeur.

>And yes, before I forget, this album claims at various indefinable places to employ Nash, Young, four Deads, one Quicksilver, four Airplanes (Grace Slick on guitar), two Santanas, Joni Mitchell, David Crosby's brother, and a host of other beautiful people I should probably recognize and promise I will next time. What a gyp. I suggest not buying it until the boycott has forced 'em to dub in Steve Stills. They'll find room for him somewhere.

RSM panned side two of Abbey Road if I remember correctly.

I'm not opposed to music critics per se, provided their opinions actually show cultural and musical knowledge. The problem is that most have neither the education or self-awareness to be able to separate their own opinions from scholarly analysis.

Rolling Stone on Lou Reed's Berlin:

>There are certain records that are so patently offensive that one wishes to take some kind of physical vengeance on the artists that perpetrate them. Reed's only excuse for this kind of performance (which isn't really performed as much as spoken and shouted over Bob Ezrin's limp production) can only be that this was his last shot at a once-promising career. Goodbye, Lou.

And people wonder why he hated the press.

I think in retrospect I like all the negative reviews, made me love the albums more.

Kerosene is the song of my teenage years

Bjork’s Debut got a terrible review in Rolling Stone.

NME on Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms:

"Can anybody really be moved, stimulated or entertained by the tritest would-be melodies in history, the last word in tranquilising chord changes, the most cloying lonesome playing and ultimate in transparently fake troubador sentiment ever to ooze out of a million-dollar recording studio?"

Uriah Heep - Very 'Eavy, Very 'Umble

“If this group makes it, I’ll have to commit suicide.”

Crosby's last three solos albums were really surprisingly great, but at the same time I still struggle to make it through IOICRMN without falling asleep from boredom.

Rolling Stone review of Bee Gees--Main Course.

>Main Course, the best-sounding Bee Gees album ever, represents a last-ditch effort to reestablish the group's mass popularity in front of their upcoming U.S. tour. My guess is that it should succeed, at least to some extent, due to Arif Mardin's spectacular production, which presents the Bee Gees in blackface on the album's four genuinely exciting cuts. "Nights on Broadway" and especially "Fanny (Be Tender with My Love)" boast spacious disco arrangements against which the Bee Gees overdub skillful imitations of black falsetto. "Jive Talkin'" approximates the synthesized propulsion of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition," while the song itself offers an inept lyric parody of black street argot. In "Wind of Change," also synthesized Stevie Wonder style, the Gibb brothers dare to pretend to speak for New York black experience. While I find the very idea of such pretensions offensively cooptive, musically the group carries them off with remarkable flair.

>The rest of the album more or less reflects the Bee Gees of old. "Songbird," "Country Lanes," "Come on Over" and "Baby as You Turn Away" sound characteristically sugary. "Edge of the Universe" is a slice of dumb psychedelia, "All This Making Love," a passable novelty. For all their professionalism, the Bee Gees have never been anything but imitators, their albums dependent on sound rather than substance. In this respect, Main Course is no different from its predecessors.

>only track they liked featured the Grateful Dead
No surprise.

Christgau review of MC (original review from '75):

>Their most, in fact, only listenable album in five years is marred by the sneaking suspicion that they're not doing it because they need to tell me this stuff but because it's the only way they can sell records in 1975. And I'm not entirely sure I buy it either. Best song--"All This Makin' Love," a frantic, Baroque simulation of compulsive sex. C

Revised review from Consumer Guide to the '70s:

>At first I was put off by the transparent desperation that motivated these chronic fatuosos to put out their brightest album in years. But the move paid off--pop fluff like "Jive Talkin'" and "Nights on Broadway" is the kind of stuff that sticks. Best song--"All This Makin' Love," a frantic, Baroque simulation of compulsive sex. B

As many music rags as there are, they couldn't keep up with the sheer number of albums coming out. The reviewers couldn't praise all of it (sure there was a lot of garbage) so they decided to get cute and put a premium on their own self-importance. RSM, Cuckgau, and Marsh should be ashamed of all the classics they shit on in the 70s but then again hindsight is always 20/20.

The classic fratbro stoner album, Joe Walsh's The Smoker You Drink the Player You Get, the little crown jewel prog rock album from Colorado got one of those lol-toss-off quip reviews they were famous for. Say it
ain't so RS writer, you will never be forgiven...ever.

Seen worse reviews than that, Main Course is of course now regarded as a classic and the start of their comeback.

""for some reason, [Smiley Smile] just doesn't make it ... [the songs] just don't move you. Other than displaying Brian Wilson's virtuosity for production, they are pointless."
""... they are making the psychedelic route ... perhaps in the unforgettable city of Fresno. Until they reach the San Francisco Bay Bridge or return to the shores of Malibu ... their work can only receive partial approval."

"On December 14, 1967, the magazine's (Rolling Stone) editor and co-founder Jann Wenner printed an influential article that denounced Wilson's "genius" label, which he called a "promotional shuck", and the Beach Boys themselves, which he called "one prominent example of a group that has gotten hung up on trying to catch The Beatles."

The group got a kick out of this and used it for their promotional material. It is true that a lot of negative reviews ended up giving the artist in question publicity as well as people buying the album just to troll Cuckgau and friends.

I gave up reading reviews of music about 20 years ago. It just seemed that pretty well every piece of 'music journalism' that I ever read had a common theme: The music had no artistic merit or was unoriginal and the critics were so clever and edgy in their contempt of it. Once these pompous asswipes were everywhere online, it got even worse. It seems nowadays the only place you read appreciative music reviews are online and from real people like us.

how did he become a famous critic, If his taste in music is so normie

Was in the right place at the right time mostly.

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Speaking of Queen's A Day At The Races, and Dave Marsh, lest we forget his breathtakingly ignorant review of the album. He said that Mercury sounded 'pedestrian' and had merely a 'passable pop voice'.

The guy was up there with Ronnie James Dio, Rob Halford, Ian Gillan, David Coverdale, etc. from his performance on Queen II alone.

Those are really a group of guys who were so loved by critics back in the day.

Asia [Geffen, 1982]
The art-rock Foreigner is a find--rare that a big new group is bad enough to sink your teeth into any more. John Wetton and Steve Howe added excitement to contexts as pretentious as King Crimson and Yes, but this is just pompous--schlock in the grand manner, with synthesizers John Williams would love. And after listening to two lyrics about why they like their girlfriends, three about "surviving," and four about why they don't like their girlfriends, I'm ready for brain salad surgery. Inspirational Verse: "So many lines/You've heard them all/A lie is every one/From men who never understand your personality." C-

...

Is there anything more pathetic than a male feminist? All it amounts to is "If I tell enough women that they're stronk, they'll reward me with sex" which in of itself is misogynistic as fuck.

Greil Marcus had much the same career arc as Cuckgau in that as time went on, his writings gradually became more and more incomprehensible, self-indulgent, and often made sense only to him. Have you ever read his books on Bob Dylan? They make War and Peace easy to get through.

Having said that, I find Invisible Republic a tough read, but even more difficult for me was Lipstick Traces, which I got almost nothing from, aside from some tenuous connections between punk and various other avant-garde art movements of the 20th century.

>le dumb boring redneck vs the sassy smart urbanites
Yeah Yeah

Speaking of Dave Marsh and nasty reviews: I recall an article in the mid-'80s that took the clever theme of reviewing rock critics, and about Marsh it said something like "If you want to be a music writer, love Bruce Springsteen, judge your mother by her politics, and have ever cried over the sheer beauty of rock 'n' roll, a job sweeping the floors at Marsh's Rock and Roll Confidential could be yours...but don't apply right now, he's still in recovery because that Springsteen live box almost killed him."

Southern Accents [MCA, 1985]
Petty's problem isn't that he's dumb, or even that people think he's dumb, although they have reason to. It's that he feels so sorry for himself he can't think straight. Defending the South made sense back when Ronnie Van Zant was writing "Sweet Home Alabama," but in the Sun Belt era it's just pique. The modernizations of sometime coproducer Dave Stewart mitigate the neoconservative aura somewhat, but unmitigating it right back is Petty's singing, its descent from stylization into affectation most painful on side one's concept songs. Side two is less consequential, and better. Note, however, that its show-stopper is "Spike," in which a bunch of rednecks, I mean good old boys, prepare to whup a punk. It's satire. Yeah sure. B-

I'd wish I gave a FUCK BOUT WHAT CHRISTKEK'S GOT TO SAY 88 MAFIA WE COMING TO YOUR TOWN BLASTING PANTERA AND MURDERING YOUR ASS

Cuckgau's criteria for what makes a good album seems to change every other review and he seems to always assume the worst of an artist.

>Pantera
Oh god that would probably make him combust like the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Don't Call Me Mama Anymore [RCA Victor, 1974]
How about Fatso? D

Incels who go around posting about what male feminism really is in Chinese foot binding forums are more pathetic if you ask me.

I see you Fantano.

I get the feeling he's repressing quite a bit of stuff here. I mean, Even after Cass Elliot died of complications from obesity, he was still a prick enough to think that review was funny and include it unaltered in Consumer Guide to the '70s. It shows how disgusting and heartless of a human being he actually is.

He's right.

He isn't saying that, he's pointing specifically and accurately at phoney work.

Not a lie in this.

Projection.

Again, he was right about this, and very fair about Petty's strengths and weaknesses in his reviews of his albums either side of this one.

>He isn't saying that, he's pointing specifically and accurately at phoney work.
That was exactly the point though. He's suggesting because they're white males, any angst they have amounts to First World problems. There was also an Incubus review where he did same.

Why are you quoting this failure? He needs his cunt sliced open.

>Again, he was right about this, and very fair about Petty's strengths and weaknesses in his reviews of his albums either side of this one

You don't think Spike hit a little too close to home for him? ;)

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>While it's true that it all sounds pretty much the same, we must also note that nothing really jars. In fact, it would make a perfect aural aid to digestion when you're having guests over for dinner, provided they're brothers and sisters enough to get behind it, of course.
I can only assume this is satire. It's viciously insulting. If it's meant as sincere praise, dadrock is truly dead.

Little Earthquakes [Atlantic, 1991]
She's been raped, and she wrote a great song about it: the quietly insane "Me and a Gun." It's easily the most gripping piece of music here, and it's a cappella. This means she's not Kate Bush. And though I'm sure she's her own person and all, Kate Bush she'd settle for. C+

>I'm not opposed to music critics per se, provided their opinions actually show cultural and musical knowledge. The problem is that most disagree with me because I have no taste.
ftfy

Don't start posting NME stuff, they're wretched. You can tell whoever wrote that actually enjoyed the album and has no idea how to work out what's wrong with it, but has received the cultural instruction not to like them. I say that as someone who knows Dire Straits sucked, and knows WHY. Not knowing why but writing this kind of impotent seething nonsense is worse than liking them.

That too.

>making light of someone being raped

Dave Marsh and his unhealthy perspective on Bruce through his marriage to Barbara Carr (Landau's right hand person), has lost him a lot of credibility...from the dinosaur days at RSM when he was a respected critic who could be acidic but knew his music and could write. He now spends his time hosting a radio show on Sirius where he abuses those heedless enough to call his show, and hinting toward things he can't tell them but that it's all very inside.

I often wish I could re-animate Lester Bangs and have him confront Marsh who would shrink pretty fast. Not a nice man, and very bitter, Lord knows why. Anyone see the piece he wrote on U2 recently? He made Bono sound like a cross between a serial killer and Himmler. Don't know what happened to this dude. He won the lottery, marrying into the Bruce dynasty....got a radio show out of it....gets paid to write pap on Springsteen for the in house arm of the firm.

>chronic fatuosos
Great phrase.

At least he didn't accuse them of being a minstrel act like the RSM reviewer did.

>"On December 14, 1967, the magazine's (Rolling Stone) editor and co-founder Jann Wenner printed an influential article that denounced Wilson's "genius" label, which he called a "promotional shuck", and the Beach Boys themselves, which he called "one prominent example of a group that has gotten hung up on trying to catch The Beatles."
Wenner is an ass, but he's 100% correct.

Did same with Korn where he claimed Jonathan Davis faked being abused as a child.

No, it wasn't the point, he specifically pointed to their insincerity. Stop being a cunt.

Petty wasn't Elvis Presley son.

Remember the saying "Those who can, do, those can't, teach".
I generally hold no stock in rock critics, they are just like Jack Black's character in High Fidelity. Critics hated Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk and other mega selling bands that all the kids were into.

No but it's pretty fucking hilarious how he got his ass kicked in high school by 50s greasers so to this day he hates any music he thinks is too masculine or that he imagines his old bullies would listen to.

This was a superb review, as honest as it needed to be. People forget how Tori Amos was sold back then. You're missing the compassion here because you're metalhead dipshits trying to have the last word on a man whose opinion still matters more to your peers than yours do. Keep stinking.

I forgot to mention the time Cuckgau called in some New York radio show and ranted that Swans were hypermasculine bullshit and therefore he would not review them again.

>Anyone see the piece he wrote on U2 recently? He made Bono sound like a cross between a serial killer and Himmler.
That sounds great.

>Don't know what happened to this dude. He won the lottery, marrying into the Bruce dynasty....got a radio show out of it....gets paid to write pap on Springsteen for the in house arm of the firm.
Why the fuck would that be something anyone would want?

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! [Warner Bros., 1978]
If this isn't Kiss for college kids, then it's Meat Loaf for college kids who are too sophisticated to like Meat Loaf. Aside from music per se, the Kiss connection is in their cartoonishness--Devo's robot moves create distance, a margin of safety, the way Kiss's makeup does. But the Meat Loaf connection is deeper, because this is real midnight-movie stuff--the antihumanist sci-fi silliness, the reveling in decay, the thrill of being in a cult that could attract millions and still seem like a cult, since 200 million others will never even get curious. (It's no surprise to be told that a lot of their ideas come from Eraserhead, but who wants to go see Eraserhead to make sure?) What makes this group worthy of attention at all--and now we're back with Kiss, though at a more complex level--is the catchy, comical, herky-jerky rock and roll they've devised out of the same old basic materials. In small doses it's as good as novelty music ever gets, and there isn't a really bad cut on this album. But it leads nowhere. B+

Ben Folds thinks the same thing. Both are correct.

From the Rolling Stone Record Guide Second Edition:

Greg Lake
Greg Lake (1 star)/Chrys. (1981)

Former bassist for King Crimson and Emerson Lake and Palmer, Greg Lake cranks up his grandiose pipes and overloaded bass to sludge through another heaping pile of musical bulls...t. Clarence Clemons must have been short on cash the week he agreed to play on this record.

--Rob Patterson

No, it's hilarious that you have so little perspective on your own weakness that you think Christgau using that memory to justify giving Elvis unearned praise in compensation for the bias he felt *back then* means something about the fact that he won't praise your suburban male virgin music.

>Devo are KISS for the college crowd
This is one of those classic "what the fuck did I just read" reviews.

>He was every white Southern boy who envied his black neighbor
So much projection.

Again, 100% correct. Why are people quoting his least arguable reviews as if they would cause a ruckus? Devo are The Residents for conformists.

Here are some favorites I earmarked in Dave Marsh's Rolling Stone Record Guide (Blue Version). I'm not sure I've ever heard anything by any of these artists. I just enjoyed the snark.

* Lawler and Cobb -- Men from Nowhere -- "Back where you came from."

(no stars) The Models -- Yes with My Body -- "No, from my heart."

* Whiteface -- Whiteface -- "A truly loud and irritating heavy rock band. Not just loud and irritating like most, but truly loud and irritating. Need I say it again?"

** Clay Hunt -- Part One -- "One star added for sparing us part two."

(no stars) Lydia Lunch -- Queen of Siam -- "Anyone who complains this much about inhumanity is obliged to display some humane emotion. Without that, this 'punk-funk' screech is just so much avant-garde horse shit."

theguardian.com/music/2005/jul/15/popandrock.shopping8

Killer putdown of Alanis Morrisette.

Why do you keep quoting this cuckold? He writes like a Teletubby.

Listen and believe.

facts are facts, retard

Of course the classic Greil Marcus review of Self-Portrait.

"What is this shit?"

Trouser Press is known for a few:

Jane's Addiction: "As guitarist David Navarro and the lumbering rhythm section work themselves into a dull sub-Led Zeppelin metallic stupor on the rambling Nothing's Shocking, Farrell screeches smugly self-obsessed lyrics — repeating favorite lines over and over — as if his idiotic free-form musings were somehow significant."

Seven Mary Three: "For those caught in the time of life when too much is never enough, a flaming cocktail of this steroid awfulness is probably the perfect elixir, but that pretty much rules out American Standard for everyone else."

Rusted Root: "The seven-person troupe of raggle-taggle patchouli-soaked minstrels is like a multi-culti Cowsills sharing a commune with 10,000 Maniacs and a percussion collective. The lineup includes three — count 'em — three drummers, not to mention flute, guitar, bass, banjo, marimba and "on and off planet energies, etc. and endless possibilities." Like, wow, man!"

...And Justice For All [Elektra, 1988]
Problem isn't that it's more self-aware than Puppets, which is inevitable when your stock in trade is compositions rather than songs. Problem is that it's also longer than Puppets, which is inevitable when your stock in trade is compositions rather than songs. Just ask Yes. C+

I mean, seriously. I kept seeing artists with two very similar sounding albums...score A for one and a dud rating for the other. For instance he gives Air - Moon Safari (1998) an A- but gives Premiers Symptomes (1997) a dud. Premiers is a collection of EPs that is the absolute blueprint fro Moon Safari and sounds identical in style.

rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/back-to-the-egg-206167/

This review of Back to the Egg still stings when I read it.

Christgau's reviews of Paul McCartney are always amusingly paranoid and bitter:
Ram:
"most of the songs are so lightweight they float away even as Paulie layers them down with caprices. If you're going to be eccentric, for goodness sake don't be pretentious about it. C+"
Red Rose Speedway:
"Quite possibly the worst album ever made by a rock and roller of the first rank--unless David Crosby counts. D+"
Band on the Run:
"I originally underrated what many consider McCartney's definitive post-Beatles statement, but not as much as its admirers overrate it. Pop masterpiece? This?C+"
McCartney II:
"The instrumentals are doodles, the songs demos by a man who scores the occasional hit only to prove he's a genius. Which he isn't. C"
Tug of War:
"But no matter how serious and sensible he gets, McCartney's perpetual boyishness conveys the perpetual callowness of a musical Troy Donahue. I don't think this is intentional--in his personal life he seems at least as adult as anyone I've named, and he's put his hard-earned craft to mature use on this LP. But it might almost be dumb love songs. B"
Venus & Mars:
"Don't get me wrong--they probably don't, because McCartney's a convinced fool. But when the music is coherent it doesn't matter so much. B+"

I was too young to read it at the time, but Dave Marsh's review of Against the Wind was so brutal he later apologized for parts of it, if I remember correctly.

The Marshall Suite [Artful, 1999]
Alt-rock won't die till they ban Pignose amps in Mark E.'s senior residence, but that doesn't mean he'll put this much into it ("F-'Oldin' Money," "Touch Sensitive"). ***

Not an argument.

Surprised no one mentioned Dave Marsh's "Queen could be the world's first fascist rock band." i think that was for Jazz.

Queen were a lot of things. they were not perfect. they had their faults at various points throughout their career. but that review is so below the belt as to be exhibiting zero class.

On the flip side, Marsh's dickriding of The Who and Springsteen is beyond irritating. i love that The Who disowned his "Before I Get Old" bio, as if perhaps some kind of karmic payback for the Queen review.

Blues For Allah [Grateful Dead, 1975]
I've been hypersensitive to this band's virtues for years. Now I find their approach neurasthenic and their general muddleheadeness worthy of Yes or the Strawbs. C-

Christgau is totally inconsistent. His ratings seem to be given out according to how much he enjoyed his breakfast that morning. I prefer critics focusing on music (many seem incapable) at least as much lyrics and how the person singing makes them feel.

Worst of all is the critic who makes his/herself the focus of the article----like so many P4k reviewers do.

[Q] Do you like "Old Town Road"? -- Alexander Robertson, Wilton, Connecticut

[A] I like "Old Town Road" in the Billy Ray Cyrus remix. But I don't love it. As a song I think it tops Childish Gambino's "This Is America" but not Cardi B's "Bodak Yellow," two previous must-hear this-is-a-phenomenon singles I got on late because I'm so album-oriented in this phase of my life, but found none of the three as culturally or aesthetically compelling as I was supposed to. This may be because I'm 77 and may be because most current "memes," if that's what these are, are less intrinsically compelling than must-hears should be. More than, let us say, "Beat It" or "Hound Dog" (but maybe not the overrated "Heartbreak Hotel"), they are pure functions of an information system less universal than such information systems are credited with being. This is why so many "memes" would once just have been called "hypes." On the other hand, taking "Old Town Road" off the country chart strikes me as racist pure and simple, because country radio remains racist regardless of the Darius Ruckers and Kane Browns it makes room for. And of course, it's also sexist in an era when so many of the edgiest country singers are women: Miranda Lambert, Angaleena Presley, Becky Warren, Margo Price, Ashley Monroe, Mary Gauthier, even Kacey Musgraves, can I mention Lori McKenna, and I know I'm forgetting people.

My beef with Christgau, Bangs, P4k, etc...is the fact that it IS literature. you know, just give me the over/under and let me form my own opinion from there. don't need a long-winded cultural hypothesis just because you didn't like this Sparks record. why anyone would waste precious prose on trying to cleverly describe music is beyond me.

Or maybe I'm just stupid or not well-read. but i find Christgau to be pretty incomprehensible. I read reviews of albums I'm familiar with and wonder if he even heard the same album as me or in some cases if he's talking about the album at all instead of some completely unrelated subject.

>On the other hand, taking "Old Town Road" off the country chart strikes me as racist pure and simple, because country radio remains racist regardless of the Darius Ruckers and Kane Browns it makes room for. And of course, it's also sexist in an era when so many of the edgiest country singers are women: Miranda Lambert, Angaleena Presley, Becky Warren, Margo Price, Ashley Monroe, Mary Gauthier, even Kacey Musgraves, can I mention Lori McKenna, and I know I'm forgetting people.
This is just the usual bullshit he's been spewing since at least the 90s. I mean, come on. Nothing is stopping blacks from doing country music other than the stigma in the black community that anyone who makes anything other than hip-hop or R&B is an Uncle Tom.

If country radio is racist for not playing black artists, then is hip-hop radio racist for not playing Eminem or Mackelmore?

There's always that slight sense that if he likes, say, a band from the Midwest, or a country artist, that he's allowing himself to associate with them evil redneck Republican voters..

>Old Town Road
A cute novelty song.
>Bodak Yellow
This is just Stupid Ho with a bit updated sound--the bombastic production of the original replaced by the colder post-Lorde kind of sound. It's also more boring especially her monotone voice.
>This Is America
Meh.

I should clarify that I took a rock criticism class in college. it brought out the worst pomposity in the professor and everyone in the class. I've run real cold on any of the classic rock writers or P4k ever since.

I think it's a pretty good review. I like some of that album (as did Bangs, as he notes), but he pretty much nails the general feel of it.

The Clash, Combat Rock
Richard Meltzer, Creem, September 1982

>Overpowered by Mere

>Far and away the two most important musical whatsems of the seminal anti-deathculture late-70’s UK scene were the Sex Pistols and (it says here) Throbbing Gristle. In addition to turning the necessary stomachs (Bill Graham, Jann Wenner, etc.) the Pistols helped their cause (and ours) immeasurably by ceasing to exist as a rock ‘n’ roll whatsem at all, self-destructing with incredibly perfect timing and (in the case of Mr. Lydon) metamorphosing into the second most anti-arch of practicing whatsems, PiL. First most arch was – and still is (even in its own belated non-existence) – the above mentioned T. Gristle, who never for the merest second surrendered to the merest lure of mere success, never in fact allowed itself to be perceived as a rock ‘n’ roll beat group (or even a “group”) in any possible mainstream sense of the word. As people with ears and nervous systems life everybody else, both Lydon and the T.G. folks are certainly capable of enjoying music-for-mere-entertainment sake (Lydon, for inst, purportedly maintains one of Britain’s largest reggae collections and T.G.’s Genesis P. Orridge is an avid collector of – say hey – Martin Denny) but they have always been more scrupulous in their steadfast avoidance of that deathtrap called ROCK ‘N’ ROLL as a context and occasion for personal expression of same, and for that we really can’t salute ‘em enough.

what people felt this way about McCartney's work at the time, I know the critics did that's nothing new, but who are these people you're talking about?

At the time Wings were touring to absolutely fantastic reviews, and these new songs(Arrow Through Me, Old Siam Sir, I've Had Enough, Getting Closer) were loved by the crowds, so I'd really like to know who these so called people were.

Moving right along to now, the only shamefacedly brazen keepers of the anti-etc. UK flame anymore are the Fall, whose gamekeeper/groundskeeper Mark E. Smith recently wrote me in a barely legible scrawl: “Our last LP got best critical reaction yet, which surprised me, as it was mean to be a huge SOD OFF (his caps). Established celebrity status for 1st time around here, & honestly it cut me up much – people staring at me in the 1st/last domain, the pub, where formerly I’d go to forget. But it’s isolated me at last, i.e., I’m careful where I go & trust no-one again.” R&R fame and fortune is, to Mr. Smith, the lamest goal available to one of wit and spark and the man’s music extends his rejection of conspicuous achievement well beyond rock-out lifestyle to the pure plain of rock ‘n’ roll form: avoidance of hooks like you wouldn’t believe, riffing as neither expedient cyclicality nor reference to Bo Diddley or the Velvets (not intending generatrix of sperm-meets-ovum, nor Enoesque “minimalism” in a nutshell, not…you name it), the usage of pop as a more arch “out” factor than it is with Mingus or Albert Ayler, etc., etc., etc.

>What we’ve got here (pure and simple) is the merest mere ever perpetuated by a group of louts who weren’t purveyors of mere to begin with. Any by mere I’m not even talking thin in qual or product-for-product-sake (like to merely satisfy a contract or whatever), I’m just talking rock ‘n’ roll (regardless of qual or state of cynicism) without any lingering irony other than lyrical – and lyrics are (often) the biggest whore of all. ‘Cause like here’s the band that once sang “No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977.” I mean it was them and nobody else, and here they go shaking the same threadbare booty shaken by each of the three fabled no-no’s: mere rock ‘n’ roll to the mere goddam hilt.

>With Combat Rock the Clash have finally (officially) opted to work from WITHIN THE BEAST, to pull the rock ‘n’ roll equivalent of GOING CLEAN FOR GENE (hint: 1968), to let the deathculture destroy them because (as they shabbily defined things) they could no longer hope to destroy it. Which actually come as much of a surprise, ‘cause in spite of an ever-droning refusal to “play ball with the company” they’ve ALWAYS been titillated to the short-hairs by 1. The ever-growing lure of total rock-out rockhood as at least a possible turf for the post-boho experience and 2. the debilitating fantasy of a nouveau-political power base, a potentially useful internationally visibility attainable for the continuing small fee of an increment here and there of artistic integrity. The (unintentional) irony of their whole-hog submission to the non-ironic rock ‘n’ roll “trip” is what CBS has ultimately gotten out of them independent of its own attempts at ultimate same: alternate Springsteen meets surrogate Nugent (y’know: anonymous ball-playing “boogie band” w/passably “thoughtful” lyrics). That the company still won’t know how to market them will only be their just dessert.

That first generation of critics hated volume and bombast as a category: rock had to mean something, man, it couldn't just be visceral. So anything that just wailed was suspect. To anyone today, the idea of lumping Led Zeppelin in with Grand Fucking Railroad is hilarious, but it made perfect sense to a certain class of hippy back then.

Back to the Egg wasn't a huge US hit which may partially have had to do with the switch to Columbia for North American distribution. Also Paul didn't even tour the US for the album and none of its singles went anywhere. So his US popularity was kind of at a low ebb at the time and McCartney II didn't help either in spite of a hit single that wasn't even technically on the album.

>Which is not to say they ain’t swell people, and it really is too bad it had to be them as the first true martyrs (on any kind of true martyrdom scale) of punk sellout w/out laughs. Their swellness is manifest on virtually every cut, as they double over backwards to radically educate (without bravura or condescension) their new audience of rock ‘n’ roll sheep per se, a functionally lobotomized herd so many others have insincerely led by the nose (to slaughter or worse).

>Okay, seeing as how I still haven’t said a goddam thing (“pro” or “con”) on the album as an album (mere merely rated) all I can say is this is their fifth album now. If they wanna be taken seriously for their mere-dimensionality, it wouldn’t hurt to stack ‘em up against some classic meres in their fifth outings. Fifth Beatles LP (excluding Hard Day’s Night) was Beatles ’65. Fifth Stones was December’s Children, Fifth Dylan was Bringing It All Back Home. If you want to get more thorough, fifth Doors was Morrison Hotel, fifth Dead was Workingman’s Dead, fifth Byrds was Notorious Byrd Brothers. In each case you’re talking about some level of departure (other than surrender), you’re talking buzzwords like thrust and self-assertion (with nary a second guess, generic or otherwise). Most of all you’re looking down the barrel of anywhere from eight to twelve great cuts.

I know...they accused Jimi Hendrix of being self-indulgent and a porch monkey as well.

>So. Since the Clash offer at most 3.4 even decent cuts, since the fairest you could be about their sound is that it feels submerged in standard-issue rock-cut ruts, since their lyrical imagery could without difficulty be described as watered down, since the closest this LP comes to any of the above is the fact that two-thirds of the time you could easily be listening to the post-Beatle George Harrison, this mere word-jockey rates Combat Rock (by standards the Clash’ve brought on themselves) a RELATIVE PIECE OF SHIT.

The quote from Paul deBarros, "I'd rather hear an old man coughing than listen to Creedence Clearwater Revival's rhythm section" made it into the Rolling Stone review of their first album.

Regarding P4k, they gave KISS's Dressed to Kill a 10/10. So much for hipsterdom.

In 3-D [Rock 'n Roll, 1984]
I hate to belabor the obvious (that's Al's job) but this is Mad for the ears. Still, Mad does on occasion hit it dead-on and with a lot of help from its target, so does "Eat It," while "Polkas in 45" goes Joe Piscopo ten times better and "Mr. Popeil" exploits Al's otherwise fatal resemblance to Fred Schneider. C

Jon Landau dismembered Bette Midler's second album so badly that it scared her out of recording any new studio material for a couple of years.

As someone who often gets a kick out of put-down reviews, this was just going too far especially when you consider that Weird Al's target audience was literal children.

Huh? I doubt that had anything to do with the three year gap between the S/T and Depression. She blew up big and was touring a lot in the mid-70s, also she probably used up most of her good material on the first two albums and didn't have anything new for a while.

Beg pardon? BTTE went to #8 on the Billboard and Goodnight Tonight made the top 5. That's just silly to think McCartney's US relevance had fallen off at that time.

And also the gay men who comprised most of Bette's audience probably weren't reading Jon Landau anyway.

rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/still-cruisin-246748/#ixzz2L9do3uOx

All the same, I do distinctly remember reading that BM was scared shitless by that review and replied back that Jon Landau wasn't her audience.

Creem gave Bette Midler a surprisingly good review considering they were hard rock/metal-centered. It might have been resident gay critic Vince Aletti, I don't know.

>If you've been waiting for the Beach Boys to hit rock bottom, the suspense is over.
And yet Summer In Paradise and Stars and Stripes were still to come.

Slonimsky wrote a book called 'A Lexicon of Musical Invective' which contained scathing revues of classical composers throughout history. It's something to see a critic completely trash Beethoven's 9th as unlistenable. As Stravinsky said "no town has ever erected a statue to a music critic."

I doubt any town has ever erected a statue to an accountant or a janitor, either - does that make them useless?

Critics are important, and in a field like pop music where hype, fast buck artists and pretentiousness are omnipresent you kinda need iconoclastic and brutal critics. For those reasons many records should be rudely ridiculed and dismissed. A reviewer who sees magic in 'em all is probably getting kickbacks or just loves all the freebies too much.

A good critic however knows his brief and knows his music. He needs to primarily inform the public whether or not a record is actually what it's being sold as. And how does it stand up to similar "artistry"? Is it progress from an allegedly progressive artist or banal filler? Is it original or derivitative? What unique value does it have within its genre? Does it hold up as an album for a consistently good listening experience? Is it technologically strong or weak? What are the production values like?

A professional (critic) often comes down harder than the regular consumer because he's simply listening to a lot more music - good and bad - and hearing a lot more hype. Hopefully out of that experience he's also able to alert the consumer to records that warrant both positive and negative attention.

Um yeah, no. Professional critics take a _lot_ of bribes to give that good review (most notably Dave Marsh and his Springsteen cum-drinking). Also it should be stressed that reviewers seldom if ever affect the sales or relevancy of the artist.

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I quite like Larks' Tongues in Aspic, but the review pretty much nailed what someone would hate about it. As negative reviews go, it's pretty informative. He managed to work in a description of what the album is like, introduce you to the players, and give you a dose of the band's history. The description of what he hates about it would generally signal to me that this would be an album I'd like.

Honestly this is preferable to Cuckgau's bomb or sad face symbols or his two sentence "reviews" where if you didn't look at the letter grade you'd have no clue what he thinks of the album.

Tales from Topographic Oceans [Atlantic, 1974]
Nice "passages" here, as they say, but what flatulent quasisymphonies -- the whole is definitely less than the sum of its parts, and some of the parts are pretty negligible. I mean, howcum they didn't choose to echo Graeco-Roman, Hebrew, and African culture as well as the lost Indian, Chinese, Central American, and Atlantean ones? Typical hyperromantic exoticism is one answer, and everybody would know they're full of shit is the other. C

Mark Prindle:

Pearl Jam - Ten:
"Ten - Epic Associated 1992.
Overrated, but not bad. Eddie's already got his voice up there in crazy emotional Angsttown, giving the production a delightfully bombastic aura not unlike that of prime Foreigner, but the music goes nowhere and nowhere doubly, sounding (as I mentioned a few minutes ago) mostly like an annoyingly hookless ripoff of '70s Aerosmith. That's not the strange part, though. What's really bizarre is that a couple of the more emotional balladish type tunes (umm... "Oceans" and "Garden," I believe?) sound exactly like (clears throat) THE FIRM. Yep. I'm not even kidding. Go listen to Mean Business - especially the song "Dreaming." Yeah yeah, tons of rock guitarists are influenced by the jagged smacked-up stylings of Mr. James Page, but come on... The Firm? Granted - I personally would rather listen to The Firm than these first two Pearl Jam albums, but that's because I'm not quite the brightest oyster on the shore. I'm a few bricks short of a potato, see. I've got a screwed loose. Bats in my pantry. Toys in my ahole. A big Larry Hagman tie on my posterior. Shall I wave it for ye?
So yessy, the album definitely has its winners, but they're nearly always only due to the strong lungpower and charismatic phrasing of Mr. Vedder. The band doesn't exactly live up to the challenge. Imagine this generic predictable funk rock poop sung by, say, that guy in Weezer. Or Sammy Hagar. See what I'm driving at? "Why Go," for example, is a horrendous and entirely unnecessary song. "Alive," "Jeremy," "Release," and the end of "Black" damn near rule my ass, though. Emotions rule the day!

Isn't Jack Black's character in High Fidelity 'a good guy'! He's the one who tells the male lead to buy the girl a hat.

He looks down his nose at anyone whose musical tastes he deems too mainstream. That is indeed a pretty good assessment of too many music critics.

Rolling Stone clearly have their favorite and not so favorite artists and Queen definitely fell into the second category.

Yeah Rolling Stone will change their mind after the fact. Along with Queen, Led Zeppelin (in the 70s) weren't too favorable at RS either.

Dave Marsh is a hack and RSM in the 70s were extremely irresponsible in their critical approach.

Rolling Stones magazine > Cuckgau

To be honest, I don't think much, if any American critics gave Queen good reviews back then. It seemed like on this side of the Atlantic they were a pinata.

To be entirely honest, Queen were a singles band and this was an era of rock albums, not singles.

Just one more example of how badly RSM fucked up and how they had to turn around and cover their asses just like they did with Led Zeppelin. I mean, Cuckgau whether you like him or not is fairly consistent and won't change his pre-set opinion of something even 40 years after the fact.

Rolling Stone lost credability a long time ago particularly with all their fawning reviews over their favorite artists. I'm not sure what their problem is but they are still infected with a bunch of egoistical, stuck-up failed musicians bumbling along the road of excess. It seems they've only managed to carry over that attitude to everything else they touch and never learned to be anything more than a cheerleading squad for Jan Wenner's favorite artists.

I have more contempt for Christgau's idiotic reviews than Dave Marsh's (although Marsh is pretty bad as well).

rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/jazz-188987/

Wow. I mean, just wow. This goes far beyond reasonable criticism. Did Freddie Mercury turn Dave down or something? And how in the Nine Absols of Hell he manages to think WWRY is a fascist chant is something I'll never figure out.

Or calling Brian May "pedestrian" because he's one of the few guitarists you can instantly recognize when you hear him.

My favourite Rolling Stone fauning review of boomer wank:

>It is a clear-eyed and inspired Mick Jagger who crafted Goddess in the Doorway, an insuperably strong record that in time may well reveal itself to be a classic. World, meet Mick Jagger, solo artist.

rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/goddess-in-the-doorway-251623/

I still can't believe someone could write that and have heard the same guitaist as I did. Astounding.

I used to have the original (first edition?) of the RS Record Guide, and I remember reading the review of the Graetful Dead and the reviewer writing something like "these guys just don't know how to play". The reviewers had some interesting takes on bands they wrote up, some made me wonder whether they knew jack-all about the bands they were writing about.

Why was I under the impression that Dave Marsh was a really good writer? The stuff I've seen brought up about him lately is like dude wut.

It's those big words and flowery phrases he uses in the so-called reviews. there are some book reviewers like that too--the review is not really a review but a platform for themselves.

I like Queen but let's be honest, they couldn't transition into the 80s and all their post-The Game albums were trash.

I find that about 90% of published music critics are simply cultural critics who know little about music. Exception being classical and jazz critics.

Funny that I feel that way because I do enjoy reading most film critics.

Seriously, though, I myself have pointed out that Christgau doesn't make sense half the time. He gives Jagged Little Pill a lower grade than the Alanis albums that follow; same with Guns 'N Roses and Appetite for Destruction. And how he calls The Cars' fifth album (name escapes me) a return to their earlier form, which is way off.

Of course, his Consumer Guide is frequently useless - the perfect mix of hipster argot, ain't-I-clever plotz and academic jargon he often falls into gives the reader no clue as to what the music was like or if he even thought it was particularly good.

>Lou Reed recorded a tirade against Christgau in his 1978 live album, Take No Prisoners: "Critics. What does Robert Christgau do in bed? I mean, is he a toe fucker? Man, anal retentive, A Consumer's Guide to Rock, what a shit: 'A Study' by, y'know, Robert Christgau. Nice little boxes: B-PLUS. Can you imagine working for a fucking year, and you get a B+ from some asshole in The Village Voice?" Christgau rated the album C+ and wrote in his review, "I thank Lou for pronouncing my name right." Similar angst came from Sonic Youth in their song "Kill Yr Idols" (at the time known as "I Killed Christgau with My Big Fucking Dick"), in which they sing "I don't know why / You wanna impress Christgau / Ah let that shit die / And find out the new goal"; Christgau responded by saying "Idolization is for rock stars, even rock stars manqué like these impotent bohos — critics just want a little respect. So if it's not too hypersensitive of me, I wasn't flattered to hear my name pronounced right, not on this particular title track."

Christgau has been pretty consistent in his belief that DSOTM, Pet Sounds, and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On are overrated.
I think critics were very important in shaping the "canon" in rock music starting in the early 70s and Christgau (while not perfect) was (is) an entertaining writer who definitely helped promote reggae, punk, post-punk and African music in the US. He also helped champion acts like the Kinks, the Velvet Underground, Stooges, Ramones, Patti Smith, Big Star, New York Dolls, Talking Heads, Television, the Clash, Public Enemy, Prince, the Replacements, Husker Du in their early days. Like everyone else there's certain artists and genres of music that fly over his head. And sometimes I think he just likes being a contrarian.

Don't you find it nice when a critic doesn't fall in line with everyone else? I mean 99% of critics think "What's Going On" and "Pet Sounds" are two of the greatest albums ever.

Also didn't Marsh claim Fun House was one of the worst albums ever?

I dunno. He could have. I know he was a huge enthusiast of Raw Power but later on omitted it from his Book of Rock Lists. I heard one story that he saw them live and Iggy pissed on his head from the stage. That could definitely be a reason for it.

Exactly. I've always felt that Christgau's reviews were more about him than about whatever he was reviewing.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only person here who agreed that he's pretty trash as a critic. I obviously said what I said for a reason. How can you give an album that's considered the best of all time a B+, but give Prince's first album a B+? We shouldn't pay attention to a lot of things in life, but we do anyways because it's human nature. Plus I'm sure if I kept looking I wouldn't have found any critic as ridiculous as him.

Christgau has boycotted Albini's bands because Albini named one of them Rapeman. He hasn't reviewed a single Albini band since Songs About Fucking.

>Christgau has been pretty consistent in his belief that DSOTM, Pet Sounds, and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On are overrated.
Also Astral Weeks, Music from Big Pink, The White Album, OK Computer, The Joshua Tree, and a couple others I'm forgetting.

Still jerked off Albini-produced In Utero though.

I don't see what's so great about What's Going On aka three good songs surrounded by filler.

Also he boycotted Ted Nugent after Ted started to become open about his politics. CSF was the last one he reviewed.

Jokes on him; Ted Nugent fans can't read.

Fantano spends too much time on useless pop music but he's made some very good reviews of prog rock classics like ITCOCK, maybe it helps that unlike Christgau, he wasn't alive for those bands' primes so he doesn't have as much of an axe to grind or bias regarding them.

I've never liked Nugent's guitar tone. It's too metallic for my taste, not something I enjoy listening to.

albini had no influence on any of that besides recording it, don't be silly

Didn't review The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking because of the cover art.

Did this motherfucker just try to claim he supports white male guitar music by bringing up fucking Idles?

>and most of today's interesting younger guitar bands are led by women
>Paramore
>Chvrches
>Alvvays
>interesting in any way
Pick one.

It's important to remember that most of Christgau's writings -- at least the "Consumer Guide" reviews that you mention--are a product of a different era. The idea that pop music was (or could be) serious art deserving of respect was quite a new idea in the early 70s. Most of the trade magazines in the 60s talked about commerce and whether a particular release provided value for the consumer's money. Christgau was a part of that culture, but he is also a big part of why pop music is taken seriously as art today. A lot of people nowadays who are outraged that he put down their favorite album don't realize that the intellectual seriousness with which he treated pop music was unprecedented at the time.

I should also point out, regarding his reviews of Marvin Gaye, etc., that Christgau was not, at first, a very reliable or thoughtful critic of black music. By his own admission, he never really understood jazz on anything but the most superficial level, it took him a long time to embrace soul, and during the counterculture era, he listened to predominately white rock and pop. By the 80s he had turned this problem around to a degree, and become an important advocate for hip-hop and African music, but it was a long, hard road getting there.

Yeah, he flexes his vocabulary muscles too vigorously --there are many words ("enow" comes to mind) that I've never seen anywhere other than in a Christgau review.

I read his memoir Going Into The City, which was a real slog to get through, and he uses the word "enow" at least two dozen times.

That book was cringy as fuck.

>describing his wife's affair in graphic detail
Wonder how she hasn't shot him yet.

>it took him a long time to embrace soul
Dude absolutely loved Al Green and became one of his biggest champions.

That's very nice and all that Christgau was such a big supporter of Green, but it also came at the expense of other big names in soul like Gaye and Mayfield that he didn't regard as highly and whom he tended to write off as second-rate Green imitators.

You think maybe because they were written out over several decades and someone's opinions can change with time? Derp.

Ok but at the same time he's admitted he very rarely changes his opinion on an album. He's never for example changed his opinion that Dirty Work wasn't hot garbage.

GM is more of a cultural critic than a rock or pop music critic. It would actually be a disservice to call him the later.

Cuckgau has a reputation. He's well known to hate anything with lengthy instrumental solos, anything too European, and isn't a huge enthusiast of singer-songwriters.

He comes across as a cultural tourist for much of the time and his rating system (like all rating systems) is arbitrary and borderline insulting.

His article on Elton John in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History is interesting though.

^This. Rating systems are pure cancer. People desperately need to be weaned off this notion that the quality of anything can be indicated by a number of stars. How does that allow for nuance, or allowing the consumer to take on board the critics' personal preferences/prejudices?

It's a bad idea all around. Christgau nowadays just slaps a bomb or sad face symbol on an album he hates. What does that tell you about the record, other than that he apparently regards it as garbage.

'Why is it always Bobby Kennedy and John Lennon? Why is it never Richard Nixon and Paul McCartney?'

True. But I think it's safe to say MG presented it better. He had the look of "I'm on a mission" with the growing the beard thing, not sounding like typical Motown. If the Temps released What's Going On, it would've been a cult hit. Superfly is damn near a cult hit. So I really think MG did something totally different.

You're kindo f off-base with this one. Curtis Mayfield went "progressive" about a year before "What's Going On" was released. His 1970 debut was Top 20 on the pop charts. "Superfly" shot all the way to #1. That doesn't look like a cult artist to me. Then there was Isaac Hayes, who preceded the both of them as far as soul music stretching out. His albums sold quite well themselves. Progressive soul was an idea whose time had come. Marvin was on top of it.

As far as the Temptations, they recorded some great sides in this vein, but when they did it, it felt more like a marketing gimmick than a genuine statement of purpose.

Just to be clear: Christgau's promotion of Al Green was primarily going to open him up to white audiences. Blacks didn't read the Village Voice and they already knew about Green anyway.

I seem to get the impression he didn't like Curtis Mayfield or Marvin Gaye's politically-charged music and it didn't fit his idea of what R&B/soul should be.

His review of What's Going On seemed to nail it as far as I could tell. Three good songs plus filler and he doesn't dig the strings. Still gave it a B plus.

Not at all. I don't think MG released a single bad album from 1971 to 82 excepting Midnight Love, the one album from that stretch I find to be meh.

Green just made better albums. He put out more stuff than Gaye and remained commercially relevant longer than Mayfield.

IMO Green's arc was the best one for showcasing his growth as an artist between AGGNTY to Call Me to The Belle Album. I'd argue Have a Good Time was the one album from that stretch that was less than outstanding.

Curtis Mayfield on the other hand pretty much peaked with Superfly, his 1973-74 stuff was ok, but the disco era just killed him and he couldn't adapt at all. I agree Christgau seemed to regard Al Green more highly than the others, but maybe not without justification.

Hol' up there. Green showed more growth than Marvin? Come on now. Haha. I couldn't tell you how many people says all of Green's stuff sounds the same. What's Going On sounds nothing like Let's Get It On, and that sounds _nothing_ like I Want You, which sounds totally nothing like Here, My Dear. Curtis? Maybe. I tend to not go past Livin' For You when it comes to Al. What's Going On through Midnight Love is way more complex and exciting.

I'll grant that Gaye had a more ecclectic and experimental style, but it's also not a style that 'excites' everybody. I like Gaye's 70s and 80s stuff ok, but if I'm not in the mood for it, his non-single tracks can come off as elevator jazz. Early Al Green, on the other hand, is an irresistible force of nature. To these ears, the five album run of Al Green Gets Next To You, Let's Stay Together, I'm Still In Love With You, Call Me, and Livin' For You eclipses everything in the Gaye canon. I'm Still In Love With You is probably my single most played soul album - it's sensual, funky, and Simply Beautiful is a modern miracle.

Alright, fine. I respect that. It's the opposite for me. I can take a song like "Feel All My Love Inside" and put it against any Al song. And that song is a deep cut. To be honest, I prefer Marvin's decadent late night party vibe to Al's squeaky clean doing the dishes on a Saturday afternoon vibe. It sounds like music that Ned Flanders would make.

I don't think it takes a lot of imagination to realize what a despicable little snipe and troll that Cuckgau actually is even though from time to time I've tried to convince myself that his gibberish is actually useful and insightful. Plus nearly everything he's ever written about black or female artists comes across as pandering and condescending even when he tries to act woke.

>Plus nearly everything he's ever written about black or female artists comes across as pandering and condescending even when he tries to act woke.
^This.

I always get a kick out of the music critic bickering. Also, they did - Robert Schumann was mostly a music critic as his main income method. Then again, that's cheating.

>I can take a song like "Feel All My Love Inside" and put it against any Al song
I don't like it that much because it's too diffuse-sounding for my taste. Maybe just me but I tend to like sharp, punchy songs.

I've still never gotten over how he claims to be all woke and hates rednecks but jerks off Lynyrd Skynyrd.

There we go. He won't admit it but in the end he liked Al Green for being a safe, wholesome, non-threatening porch monkey.

This guy is based.

>Christgau has boycotted Albini's bands because Albini named one of them Rapeman
I'm sorry but my inner 12 year old just can't help but get a kick out of that.

God this guy is shallow as fuck and has zero sense of humor.