How did this guy become the Roger Ebert of music? He's so closed-minded to what he considers ideal rock music

He was a rider of that "prog rock is pretentious garbage" bandwagon back when that was popular. He's a pompous idiot who, while admittedly knowledgeable about music, is truly close minded.

>while admittedly knowledgeable about music
Oh I wouldn't go that far.

How about where he says in there that Zeppelin will long outlast Black Sabbath.

Considering a lot of his faves like the McGarrigle Sisters are 100x more pretentious than Yes could have dreamed of.

yeah if you have a cool enough wardrobe you get a good grade. note that he gave Pink an A because he thought her outfits were vaguely punk.

The New York rock critics in the 70s were mostly very anti-prog. They thought it was a poor man's jazz or something.

At least they were consistent in that they never liked prog to begin with while the British critics dicksucked it until punk happened and then turned around and acted like prog was the worst thing ever.

its white man's jazz except it isn't as good or cool
they disliked it for good reason

Scaruffi is the Armond White
Christgau is the Pauline Kael

I should add. Christgau loves Pauline Kael and had a huge amount of respect for her as a film critic.

Christgau is a goddamn hack

You live long enough & spout enough shit eventually people pay attention

But that would have to assume Yes were trying to even do the same thing as Miles Davis or reach the same audience (they weren't).

they're both pseuds who think that NYC is the center of the world

It always seemed fairly obvious to me that it was a class/scene thing. Jazz was cool to urban hipsters and prog fans were rural/suburban kids so they weren't seen as cool enough.

Kael lost most of her credibility as a critic when she briefly tried to go to LA and work as a screenwriter. I guess that goes to prove that critics are usually wannabe/failed writers.

Cuckgau has also been consistent in saying he's never been moved by guitar solos in rock because they could never be as good as jazz. But again, you're assuming Eddie Van Halen or somebody was trying to do the same thing as Coltrane or express the same kind of emotion.

A lot of people do that when they don't like something. They compare X thing they don't like to Y thing they do like and complain the former doesn't match the standard of the latter, while forgetting the latter may not be trying to accomplish the same goal.

Dude is like Moviebob.

>gets his head dunked in the toilet by jocks in the 9th grade
>spends the rest of his days fuming against anything that reminds him of his old bullies and how it must be destroyed

A lot of New Yorkers have that tendency. They used to say Ed Koch didn't realize anything existed west of the Hudson.

All critics are parasites and should be ignored.

boy do i love when christgau gets mocked. such a hopeless old bitter boomer he is. you'll notice how many of his reviews are just hateful blathering rants about the musicians/their style as opposed to the music itself

scaruffi is the far-superior version of christgau and we all know it

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But prog was actually good.

fag

But I want to think Swans are prog. Can I do that? Is that allowed?

The value of art depends on the values of the art critic.
Most art is born as imitation, not innovation.
The critic, not the artist, is the one who defines innovation, and rates it.
The artist is merely a vehicle for the aesthetic/ideology of the critic.
The critic is the real artist.

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Stephen Stills 2 [Atlantic, 1971]
Stills has always come on as the ultimate rich hippie--arrogant, self-pitying, sexist, shallow. Unfortunately, he's never quite fulfilled this artistic potential, but now he's approaching his true level. Flashes of brilliant ease remain--the single, "Marianne," is very nice, especially if you don't listen too hard to the lyrics--but there's also a lot of stuff on order of an all-male chorus with jazzy horns singing "It's disgusting" in perfect tuneful unison, and straight, I swear. Keep it up, SS--it'll be a pleasure to watch you fail. C

>Stills has always come on as the ultimate rich hippie--arrogant, self-pitying, sexist, shallow
so much projection

He frequently insults his subjects and cruelly makes attacks on their personal lives. Perhaps most famous but also most innocuous is his inexplicable hatred for Jim Morrison, describing him in his review of “Very Best Of the Doors” as an “ass man”, “slimeball” and “asshole.” More harsh is in his review of the album “The Libertines” by the Libertines, where he makes fun of Pete Doherty's drug addictions. As if that weren't too far, he does it again in his review of “Shotter's Nation” by Babyshambles, as well as what may be an attack on Doherty's romantic life, though it is written so ambiguously that I can't exactly tell (this is another issue which we'll reach later). In a case that doesn't delve into personal problems, he seems to have a fairly creepy view of Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, mentioning her “fuck-me persona”, calling her a “dolly” and describing one album as “sex...and icy hot”. But worst of all is his suspicious denial that he wants her for a girlfriend in his review of “Show Your Bones,” evidently meant to be humourous but coming across as gratuitous. I'm not pretending Karen O isn't attractive – in fact, I agree with him on most of it.

But is it necessary for half your writing about a band to be about how sexy the one female member is? And at that, he wrote those reviews at the ages of 59 to 71, during which time she was 22 to 34 (forgive me if my math is wrong; the point is it's damn creepy). He also can't resist commenting on Nicki Minaj's breasts and butt, which is arguably justified since she actually writes songs on at least one of those subjects, but still leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. In the absolute worst, most disgustingly tasteless example of this, he praises Ian Curtis for committing suicide in his review of “Turn On the Bright Lights” by Interpol (for those out of the loop, when Ian Curtis killed himself, his former bandmates reformed into the band New Order), made all the more unnecessary by the fact that he's not even reviewing Ian Curtis' music – he just felt the review needed some kind of offensive flair to generate interest, apparently.

His reviews often consist of so much jargon that they are nearly or completely incomprehensible, and even those not containing jargon can be hard or impossible to parse.

Half of these examples appear to be, quite literally, jokes, which is either evidence that he doesn't respect the people he's reviewing or he doesn't respect his job as a critic. Some examples: his review of “Queen II” by Queen, which means absolutely nothing and seems to be a lazy attempt to dismiss their style entirely. This is a case of not making his opinion clear, nor providing a reason for why that opinion is. Another is his review of “First Impressions of Earth” by the Strokes, which appears to be an idiom meaning, well, something or other, but is again so unclear that it ultimately communicates nothing. There's also the case of his reviews of “Extricate” and “Kimble” by the Fall, the former of which means nothing and the second of which contains no reasoning for its judgment. There are many more examples of this but I feel these are egregious enough to demonstrate his tendencies.

His opinions are often inconsistent. In his review of the Rolling Stones' “Exile on Main Street” he praises the “layers of studio murk” over the singer's voice and gives it an A+. It's pretty clear he thinks that this is the band's best album. But in his review of “Undercover” by the same band, one of his first criticisms is that the album is “murky,” and he concludes it is their worst studio album. So, is murkiness good or bad? Not only that, but his review of the Stones' album “Steel Wheels” is a B-, which seems to me like a very middling grade. Then in his review of “The Eternal” by Sonic Youth, he calls Steel Wheels “immortal.” Isn't that high praise for a B- when you've given them A's and A+'s before?

Christgau sometimes goes so far as to outright not review an artist's music. He does this in a negative way with his review of “Korn” by Korn, which consists of a review of the album's cover art, an implication that the band members are pedophiles and a pun on their name. Sure, his point is clear: he hates the band. But what is it about their music that he hates? We'll never know. I specified that example was negative because he also manages to do this as a form of praise, exemplified with his review of “The Modern Age” by the Strokes, in which he dedicates the start of the review to figuring out which 60s/70s punk band he thinks it sounds like, and when he settles on the Vibrators he spends the rest of the review describing them. Does Christgau really think somebody reading a review for the Strokes wants to instead read a review of a band two decades older and part of a different genre?

He insults fans of artists he doesn't like, which is needless to say a very immature move for somebody who is allegedly an esteemed critic. Was it necessary, in his review of “Henry's Dream” by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, to call his fans cultists and insult their taste in lyrics? Whether or not he's right, he's supposed to be reviewing the music and not the people who listen to it. His ratings often have very poor, arbitrary justifications. The best example is probably his review of “Trust Mask Replica” by Captain Beefheart, which he says he wants to give an A, but won't, because it's “just too weird.” What kind of reasoning is that? Is Christgau really so beholden to others that he can't even state his true opinions on an album?

>I do think it is fair to say that Robert Christgau destroyed music criticism. Because of the wide and far reach of print, he became an example of what a music critic does for too many people. And what he did simply was not criticism. It was simply blather. And it was a kind of purposefully dishonest enthusiasm for product, not real criticism at all…I think he does NOT have the training. I think he simply had the position. I think he does NOT have the training. I’VE got the training. And frankly, I don’t care how that sounds, but the fact is, I’ve got the training. I’m a pedigreed music critic. I’ve studied it. I know it. And I know many other people who’ve studied it as well, studied it seriously. Christgau just simply happened to have the job. And he’s had the job for a long time. He does not have the foundation. He simply got the job. And if you’ve ever read any of his works, and ever watched his shows on at least a two-week basis, then you surely saw how he would review, let’s say, eight albums a week and every week liked probably six of them. And that is just simply inherently dishonest. That’s what’s called being a shill. And it’s a tragic thing that that became the example of what a music critic does for too many people. Often he wasn’t practicing criticism at all. Often he would point out gaffes or mistakes in continuity. That’s not criticism. That’s really a pea-brained kind of fan gibberish.

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Finally, he outright states in his review of “Flowers of Romance” by Public Image Ltd that he doesn't even like rock music or rock criticism (at the risk of this sounding cheap, maybe that's why he's so bad at it). Perhaps this is ultimately unnecessary, but surely to be a music critic you should have an actual interest, if not a passion, in the music you critique? I mean, imagine the outrage there would be if Roger Ebert confessed, after winning his Pulitzer Prize, that he thinks the entire medium of film is “boring.”

As far as I can tell that concludes my issues with Robert Christgau. In summary: his reviews often state their judgments in an unclear manner. In those cases when they don't, the judgments often have little-to-no reasoning to back them up, and are further marred by a variety of problems such as engaging in ad-hominem attacks on both the musicians and their fans. In this way he fails to fulfill his duties as a critic and is thus bad at his job.

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>Perhaps most famous but also most innocuous is his inexplicable hatred for Jim Morrison, describing him in his review of “Very Best Of the Doors” as an “ass man”
is christgau so naive, ignorant and stupid that he thought "backdoor man" was about anal sex as opposed to fucking women who have boyfriends/husbands?

They're not really wrong. Most prog is just pseudo virtuosos masturbating in overly self indulgent 25 minute songs. At least Grateful Dead had the decency to admit that their songs are just jam sessions for stoners to enjoy, instead of pretending them noodling a guitar for the A side of a record is somehow worth listening to.

He gave Court of The Crimson King a D+

"The plus is because Peter Townshend likes it."

>And at that, he wrote those reviews at the ages of 59 to 71, during which time she was 22 to 34 (forgive me if my math is wrong; the point is it's damn creepy)
I did also notice that he didn't really write so many pervy reviews about female singers in the 70s when he was younger, it's mostly since the 90s.

>The Singles: 1969-1973 [A&M, 1973]
>The combination of Karen's dispassionate dulcet contralo and Richard's meticulous studio technique is about as musical as the clattering of silverware in a cafeteria, but it's also just as impervious to criticism. I will say that I very much enjoy "Rainy Days and Mondays" and very much detest "We've Just Begun," but those aren't so much aesthetic judgements as they are points on a graph. C

Yeah at that time he was able to get through a review without talking about how much he wanted to fuck a girl singer. If he wrote this in 2003 instead of 1973, half the review would be commenting on the shape of Karen Carpenter's ass.

He seemed to like their later albums more though, he even gave Red a A-. I don't think he even listened to ITCOTK at first, just automatically dismissed it for no reason.

Red mentioned New York City in it is why.

Actually based

I agree Jim Morrison does give off a douchey vibe sometimes particularly in LMF.

I mean, what the fuck. Stills loathed hippies. He was the furthest thing from that.

Every rock critic disliked the Carpenters back then but once you get past your edgy teen rockist phase you realize that they were understated pop geniuses.

You’re allowed to think the sky is green, you’d just be wrong.

He comes off as the typical urban white hipster who thinks black people are like a toad you lick to gain wisdom.

How about when he tried to excuse away the Stones' sexism as a joke/tongue-in-cheek? So how come it's all ironic when they do it but not when, say, Motley Crue does it?

That's easy. The Stones had critical cred, Crue didn't. You think he's ever cared about anything but being cool and fitting into the scene?

Yeah that too. I remember reading that all the way back in the beatnik days in the 50s, the hip crowd in NYC idolized black people because they thought they were cool, uninhibited jive turkeys unlike those stuck up whites.

It's racist as fuck and they don't even realize it.

Also he hates the Stones now because he thinks they sold out and became stereotypical rock stars who only care about fame and money, as if they were never not like that?

He's come to grudgingly acknowledge Black Sabbath's influence on rock, although he still doesn't like them or wants to reappraise his opinion of their albums.

>He does this in a negative way with his review of “Korn” by Korn, which consists of a review of the album's cover art, an implication that the band members are pedophiles
Is that real? How he got away with it? It's insensitive as fuck

I guess that's not wholly unreasonable desu. I mean, I can acknowledge that Bruce Springsteen or Korn were influential but it doesn't mean I have to like them or find their music listenable.

>Korn [Epic/Immortal, 1995]
>The cover depicts a frightened little girl peering up from a swing at a hook-handed rapist whose huge shadow slants across her space; the girl's shadow seems to hang from the gallows-shaped K of the band logo. They love this image, exploit it in every trade ad as Sony flogs their death-industrial into its second year. They sing about child abuse, too--guess what, they're agin it. But if their name isn't short for kiddie porn, they should insist on a video where they get eaten by giant chickens. C-

He's taking the most cynical possible interpretation which is that they're really closeted cockrock disguised as anti-rape.

Off puttingly pretentious, has his head really up his ass. He makes pitchforks rambling seem almost tolerable.

He also did that with STP?

Billy Joel's Allentown was a much better Springsteen than Springsteen himself.

>Because she's smart enough to know the difference between a mixtape and an album, she earns the right to treat this official debut as the one that counts--no filler, no throwaways, no riding her smash, no withholding her smash either. Musically and lyrically, every track is thought through, with debts called in and incurred. The Noo Yawk accent she's right to lean on is so blunt that she's not a truly fluent rhymer, so she does well to pull in Chance's flow, Migos's trickeration, Pete Rodriguez's clave. And lyrically, her aim is true. "Write a verse while I twerk / I wear off-white in church"? Tell it, sister. "Only thing fake is the boobs"? Ca-ching. "Pussy's so good I say my own name during sex"? Car-di! A
A senior citizen wrote this

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>I guess that goes to prove that critics are usually wannabe/failed writers.

>reminder that Robert Ebert is the only critic to write a successful movie script

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I don't care that he was 75 or whatever when he wrote this, I'm more bothered by the idea that someone of any age would think Cardi B is listenable music.

And still it was a better review than Scaruffi's blathering praise for that garbage.

He’s not, nobody fucking knows or cares who that old faggot is outside literally just this board.

Bodak Yellow was a very very boring song. Wannabe Nicki Minaj without even the punchiness of Stupid Ho, which is stupid but ok if you can accept it as a novelty song and don't take it too seriously.

His ratings are listed on the wikipedia page for every famous artist. He's one of the most famous critics in the world pre-internet era.

STP however sure as fuck were cockrock pretending to be alternative, one of the many hair metal groups who never made it so they jumped on the grunge bandwagon. Especially when you realize what the name of the band actually means.

Korn never gives off that vibe though, I don't hear it anywhere.

Well I thought it was scaruffi so you can feel free to call me a retard now I guess

Wasn't there a Wikipedia campaign a few years ago to remove his reviews from articles on albums because they were perceived as being useless and uninformative?

My objection to Springsteen is that his music was a tuneless, overblown wall of noise without any kind of punchiness or definition to it or anything else that makes good rock or pop music.

>Tell it, sister

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The E.N.D. [Interscope, 2009]
How dare people call this wondrous album--actual quotes, now--"insipid," "saccharine," "clumsy"? Only I don't mean people--I mean journalists professional and self-appointed, from rockist sourpusses to keepers of the hip-hop flame. Just plain people love it--love it so much that various of its tracks topped the pop charts nonstop for the entire summer. "Party All the Time" is no more a recipe for living than is instant Wi-Fi for all, the message of the supposedly "political" "Now Generation." But in a party anthem it's the definition of intelligence. Sampling classic rap rapaciously and as cool with Auto-Tune as with getting their drunk on, they party beginning to end, which as it happens is a far rarer achievement than signifying beginning to end. Maybe this album is dumb on the surface, though not as much as fools claim. But sure as showbiz it isn't dumb underneath. A

If you read Cuckgau's reviews of Springsteen carefully enough, he seems to acknowledge this, but he's obligated to give him good ratings because Bruce was considered "acceptable" in critical circles. Which again just proves how readily he'll hand out grades based on peer pressure.

He'd give bad reviews to tons of bands that every other critic liked though. And even stuff he did liked he still talked shit about because that's all he does.

This though is just sad. He completely failed to see what a soulless sellout/cash grab this was from what used to be an alternative hip-hop group.

>we didn't make enough money from our early albums so Interscope forced us to add some plastic white skank and make terribly lame pop-rap based on cliches

And also I can see he fell for the "popularity=quality" meme which is even sadder, especially when he spent the entire 80s being spectacularly butthurt that metal was popular and people, just plain people, loved it so much that various metal bands had tracks that topped the charts for the entire summer.

Bruce was managed by Jon Landau, I bet if it weren't for that he wouldn't have gotten half the critical ball-polishing he's enjoyed for decades.

Ebert's "criticism" was shallow and ultimately had a negative effect on the medium by legitimizing its worst developments. Christgau did the same for music.

As much as i dislike Korn, his praise make perfect sense considering his taste. Korn music was actually a pretty innovative mix of various genres that they blended in really organic way, and sounded way different from all the other nu-metal bands.
They had a clear post-hardcore influence, both in the economy of frequencies and the lyrical matter, and they added all the "heaviness" and theatrics of metal to this formula. Still, they were pretty much ruined by their pubescebt edginess and uninventive arrangements. Knowing how much of a boner Scaruffi have for all the american post-hardcore continuum his reviews make much more sense.

My guess is he was dumb enough to think a hip-hop group with a white chick in it was some kind of reaching-across-the-aisle racial ecumenicalism when it was really just a record label slapping some white thot onto a group so white people would buy their music and Interscope execs could buy a second vacation home in Hawaii.

Still, even if The E.N.D. had listenable music on it (it doesn't), that could be forgiven somewhat.

>love it so much that various of its tracks topped the pop charts nonstop for the entire summer.
Um, Bob, you ever heard of a thing called Payola? Interscope are particularly infamous for it--witness case one Bilie Eyelash.

>whines that Black Sabbath play too slow
>when they had plenty of faster numbers like Iron Man
>compliments Edgar Winter Group for playing fast when Frankenstein isn't particularly fast, arguably it's not much different than many of Sabbath's songs tempo-wise.

One of the more interesting revelations he's made is that he and his wife drink like a fish (though not as much as they've gotten older). I have to wonder just how sloshed he was when he wrote half of these reviews.

yeah really. how can you enjoy music if you're drunk most of the time.

Ebert wasn't really pretentious though, he was just a pleb. It's not an accurate comparison to Christglau who just tries too hard.

The only metal that got on the radio in the 80s was power ballads that everyone except 13 year old girls hated anyway.

The way he tried to legitimize blockbusters was no different than what Christgau tried to do with punk.

Fuck Ebert, Paglia, and anyone who gave praise to Star Wars.

HOW can someone care about his opinion so much. someone help ME

I don't think anyone ever respected the guy or cared about his opinion. I'm sure he was hated by most of the NYC scene 40 years ago.

Blockbusters were basically the comic books of movies. It was fun entertainment but I doubt anyone took it seriously as an artistic statement.

The parallel is more like poptimist music critics on P4k trying to legitimize Top 40.

I either assume this is bait or you've never been drunk

Maybe so, but with SW there was a sociopolitical theme even if it was the usual cliched 70s boomer "Lone rebel conquers The Man" thing that Lucas was pushing.

Funny how he loved Linda Ronstadt until she had the nerve to go in a musical direction he didn't like (doing traditional pop standards) and performing in South Africa. Then it was like sorry honey we're calling it quits.

Invasion of Privacy [Atlantic, 2018]
Because she's smart enough to know the difference between a mixtape and an album, she earns the right to treat this official debut as the one that counts--no filler, no throwaways, no riding her smash, no withholding her smash either. Musically and lyrically, every track is thought through, with debts called in and incurred. The Noo Yawk accent she's right to lean on is so blunt that she's not a truly fluent rhymer, so she does well to pull in Chance's flow, Migos's trickeration, Pete Rodriguez's clave. And lyrically, her aim is true. "Write a verse while I twerk / I wear off-white in church"? Tell it, sister. "Only thing fake is the boobs"? Ca-ching. "Pussy's so good I say my own name during sex"? Car-di! A

>It was fun entertainment but I doubt anyone took it seriously as an artistic statement.
People like Ebert and Paglia did, and film has suffered for it.

>Cardi B is from NYC
>instant A
No surprise.

She wasn't very good at those old pop standards, then again neither was Barry Manilow. Bunch of boomer leborninthewronggeneration fags who found their parents' old 78s in the basement.

Metal largely satisfied white teens' need for rebellion and critics never got over that and how the punk revolution was a non-starter.

Aqualung [Island, 1971]
Ian Anderson is like the town freethinker--as long as you're stuck in the same small town as him, his inchoate cultural interests and skeptical views on human nature and organized religion can come across as refreshing. Meet up with him in the big city and he can be a real bore. Of course he can also be Bob Dylan--it all depends on whether or not he abandoned provincial values out of a quest for more, or out of a more axiomatic (and somatic) negativity. And whether he was pretentious simply because he didn't know any better. C+

>And whether he was pretentious simply because he didn't know any better.
so much projection

god, this post was 7 hours ago, but you are so. fucking. stupid. anthony fantano is not a 'critic'. literally no one will be quoting him in 20 years. no one will be quoting him when people talk about this era of music (2010's-present). the most that will be quoted is his scores at best. people will be quoting christgau. they HAVE quoted christgau. same with ebert.

fantano. is. not. a. critic. he is a youtube celebrity.

He apparently hated Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain so much it made him quit listening to jazz altogether.

>"In 1960 [it] catapulted Davis into the favor of the kind of man who reads Playboy and initiated in me one phase of the disillusionment with jazz that resulted in my return to rock and roll".[18]

i like insterstate love song but sex type thing is cockrock i'll admit that

>people will be quoting christgau. they HAVE quoted christgau
Really more for meme purposes than out of taking his opinions seriously.

i'm talking actual authors, not shitposters on Yea Forums. please expand your horizons.

What "authors" were these? Fellow white nu males who overrate every indie and hip-hop album ever?

^This. I wouldn't say the guy isn't influential, although that's not really a compliment in saying he's the ideological father of P4k. He pretty much started all the cliches.

>glasses
>hipster
>wigger
>self hating white guy
>snarky
>male feminist
>hates anything that working class white males listen to

ok racists from /pol/

There was once a time when "racist" meant something other than "person who has an opinion I disagree with."

>this guy thinks the new york dolls are a top 5 band
He’s fucking clueless

I don't like Fantano, but he's a critic for sure.
You're just really stupid. And you type like a reddit retard.

They're a passable Stones imitator but their music is just corny and has no moments of genuine power. I would argue they were more influential on rock fashion than music, although given what that led to, I'm not exactly sure it was a good thing.

Critics love punk but hate metal despite metal being objectively better music. Why?

>wahhh b-but da beedlez r duh beeeeeest wahhhh
scaruffi will be proven right. he already has been, but it will be accepted as fact when the retarded beatle boomers die off

The Beatles are good but half of their discography is complete schlock

>Q: What are your favorite artists of all time?
>A: I would say Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, Thelonious Monk, and New York Dolls are probably the ones that mean the most to me. If I had to pick a woman, probably Billie Holiday. From the last 20 years, probably Pavement and Sonic Youth. I mentioned the Dolls as an example of a group that didn't stick around very long and because they opened me to a whole new way of thinking.

At least p4k at least tries to actually write about the music they're ostensibly reviewing, most of Cuckgau's reviews are him whining about how the band's fans are wrongthink or making le epic witty zingers, neither of which tell you ANYTHING about the actual content or execution of the album.

Bruce Dickinson claimed it was because critics couldn't control metal the way they controlled punk. He also said punks were taking advantage of critics to play shitty music and critics would be fool enough to think it was some postmodernist art statement when they were just lunkheaded, degenerate rock stars like everyone else.

I think Iggy Pop was the worst example of this. Dude was just trailer trash from Michigan who cut himself with broken glass on stage when he was high and they thought it was some sophisticated piece of social commentary.

Remember that Kid Rock is trailer trash from Michigan too and Christgau gave devil without a cause a fucking A-

He is THE dean of music critics. He knows more about music than most of Yea Forums combined

>He was born as Robert James Ritchie on January 17, 1971, in Romeo, Michigan, to father William Ritchie, owner of multiple car dealerships, and mother Susan Ritchie.[4][5][6] Ritchie's father owned a six-acre estate and 5,628-square-foot home where Ritchie grew up,[4][7] regularly helping his family pick apples and caring for their horses.[8]

Yeah, no. Dude's upbringing was more like Taylor Swift's than anything.

I don't see what anarcho-capitalist philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe has to do with music.

jesus christ please read more, you retarded fucking faggot.

>I sense … an insidious post-garage formalism in which hooks and a certain rough emotionality, even sloppiness, are pursued as ends and signify only themselves. That’s why I call them groove bands — they’re more interested in a sound than in what a sound can say. Granted, they do share an aesthetic project — they want to jolt the white rock and roll of the pre-arena era into self-conscious musicality. That’s why I like them. But it’s not exactly what I mean by a commitment to the future.

christgau said this in 1982. he had a skill for prescribing what the fuck was happening and what hadn't even happened yet. you focus primary on his album reviews and none of his essays/longer form work because you're a faggot who has grown up in an age of instant gratification. you aren't qualified to talk about music, shut up.

Yeah I have read his long form pieces especially that lame wigger one where he talks about how superior black music is.

no, they aren't good. they were boring even for the time. the greatest accomplishment of the beatles was their marketing. that's it

He's gotten to the point where he really thinks he is a redneck just like Mike Rowe and Rob Zombie think they are.

Isn’t rob zombie vegan though?

Wild Tales [Atlantic, 1974]
The title's as phony as the rest of the album, which despite the bought-and-paid-for goodies--an intro here, a harmony there, even a song someplace or another--is mostly a tame collection of reshuffled platitudes. Especially enervating is "Oh, Camile" in which Graham lets us know he is morally superior to a doubt-ridden Vietnam vet. C-

Based christgau triggering the drooling progtards

The Dolls in all seriousness aren't that good.

Berlin [RCA Victor, 1973]
I read where this song cycle about two drug addicts who fall into sadie-mazie in thrillingly decadent Berlin is a . . . what was that? artistic accomplishment, even if you don't like it much. Well, the category is real enough--it describes a lot of Ornette Coleman and even some Randy Newman, not to mention a whole lot of books--but in this case it happens to be horseshit. The story is lousy--if something similar was coughed up by some avant-garde asshole like, oh, Alfred Chester (arcane reference for all you rock folk who think you're cool cos you read half of Nova Express) everyone would be too bored to puke at it. The music is only competent--even Bob Ezrin can't manufacture a distance between the washed-up characters and their washed-out creator when the creator is actually singing. Also, what is this water-boy business? Is that a Buddhist cop? Gunga Din? Will Lou lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it? C

>look at me I'm so much smarter and more well-read than Lou XD

Well he most likely is, Lou isn’t famous for his intelligence.

Lester Bangs met his demise trying to imitate Lou and his other rock star heroes who as fate would have it had a higher tolerance for drugs than him.

The Long Run [Asylum, 1979]
Not as country-rocky as you might expect--the Eagles are pros who adapt to the times, and they make the music tough. I actually enjoy maybe half of these songs until I come into contact with the conceited, sentimental woman-haters who are doing the singing. I mean, these guys think punks are cynical and antilife? Guys who put down "the king of Hollywood" because his dick isn't as big as John David Souther's? C+

Wtf i love the women hateagles now!

>until I come into contact with the conceited, sentimental woman-haters who are
so much projection

Funny he always talks of how Europe is bad and promotes reactionary classical bombast when European musicians have tended to be more open to experimentation than American ones. They also fell in love with black bluesmen in the 60s when Americans didn't really care about that shit.