Robert Christgau?

not sure about that... you been over in the hardware section lately?

 

It's like Woody Allen. The guy is really New York. Unless you live in the same neighborhood as Christgau, go to the same restaurants and concerts, or played stickball with him after school at P.S. 412, the chauvinism will make you gag your chocolate egg cream.

 

No I haven't.
I dont go over there. I just stay in the music foruum.

 

I haven't seen anyone write that. He can be stuffy even without giving my favorite record a bad grade.

 

One star is sort of like a B-, two stars a B and three stars a B+. He generally stopped writing up records that didn't rate an A-. The scissors means that there's an ace cut or two on an otherwise average album. Even a dud doesn't necessarily mean that it's an awful record, more like a disappointment, depending on who the act is.

 

It's entirely possible to write an intelligent, well-reasoned review of an album that doesn't necessarily jibe with the reader's opinion but still raises solid, thought-provoking arguments. Or you just can write "Queen II [Elektra, 1974]: Wimpoid royaloid heavoid android void. C-" and hope that people know what the hell you're talking about.

What's frustrating is that when I read his more straightforward reviews (Michael Jackson albums), he does make some good points, even if I disagree with them. But even though he and I both agree that Nirvana's In Utero is worthy of an A grade, his 'review' is total babble that seems more like an exercise for a high school creative writing class.

 

I read the "Key" page, but you have to admit it's not a very intuitive grading system.

By the way, what does "googlefritz" mean?
"An A+ is a record of sustained beauty, power, insight, groove, and/or googlefritz that has invited and repaid repeated listenings in the daily life of someone with 500 other CDs to get to."

 

Something from his German background, I'd venture.

 

Nobody is going to write that though are they?! Regardless of any argument's validity, Christgau's always had loads of childish flak that clearly falls on the angry "how can he do that!" level. I think that sounding stuffy to some people at various times goes with the job of being a strong critic. Critics who always sound like they are down with just about everything (and there are plenty of them) are likely to be terrible critics imo.

The great thing about Christgau for me - and he is 73 now btw - is the degree he actually isn't a stuffy person. He's always been a tough critic and he's always had 'young ears'. His high standards are just high standards - but you can still find music xgau likes in every genre that he doesn't normally get on with, including classical music (of all things). He doesn't fully 'get' classical, and he freely admits all the genres he struggles to like.

His tastes (or lack of) can actually be really useful. For me, when he gives a heavy metal or jazz fusion album a good review, I know it's going to be a really good heavy metal or jazz fusion album. Which is great for two areas I do enjoy listening to on (fairly rare) occasions. If you are not a huge fan of prog say but you want some, go to Christgau for you choices and you'll get hold of the very best. And if you don't happen to agree wih his judgement, just go by (or buy) somebody else.

 

By stuffy, I don't mean negative or giving something a bad review. I would agree that he's better than most at picking out good records. I would just argue that too many of his reviews read like academic review, rather then a guy writing about a rock and roll record.

 

I think that's one of the great concise, funny, useful Christgau reviews.

Wimpoid = the music is wimpy (e.g., weak/dull drumming)
Royaloid = the band is called Queen, which along with some lyrical content implies some degree of English stuffiness even if they pretend to subvert it -- and it also implies bombast.
Heavoid = the "oid" suffix implies a weak imitation of heavy metal-type music (which Christgau already hates)
Android = lacking human feeling
Void = lacking anything of substance

Whether you agree or not, you can't deny it gives a good sense of what the music sounds like (to Christgau, at least).

Some of Christgau's most controversial put-downs are packed with information in this way. E.g., his review of Van Morrison's No Guru, No Method, No Teacher:

No soap radio, no particular place to go, no man is an island. No spring chicken, No-Doz, no can do.

"no soap radio" -- an old vaudville inside joke, the nonsensical punchline to an unstated joke -- implies the lyrics are unintelligible/meaningless
"no particular place to go" -- no trace of rock and roll rhythm (reference to a Chuck Berry song)
"no man is an island" -- mocking Van's solipsism
"no spring chicken" -- mocking Van's grumpy-old-man act
"no-doz" -- a caffeine pill -- i.e., the album is boring
"no can do" -- the album is a failure

And of course, the whole thing mocks Van's album title.

If you don't get it, you don't get it -- maybe you don't share Christgau's rather specific historical and cultural frame of reference. That's not your fault, and it's not his either. But it's simply untrue to claim it's a bunch of nonsense words. Christgau at his best is almost writing a kind of critical poetry. Obviously, at his worst, he is capable of embarrassing himself. But he's at his best more often than he's at his worst.

 

his style is dense, but not really academic -- an academic style would refer to established schools of thought or apply a current theory to material that hasn't been considered under it yet. An academic style uses citation of other authorities as way of entering the conversation.

Christgau's style is much more personal and self-generated. A lot of it is the brevity of his format, which I suppose at some point was a requirement of the paper but which he made into a challenge for himself. This makes his writing packed, sometimes to the point of obscurity. I wonder what he would have been like if he'd had more room to work with -- maybe not so distinctive.

imo, there's something "rock and roll" about his irreverent attitude and willingness to tweak whole genres of music for being un-hip. A lot of the more pompous posters on this forum could take a page from him (at least his work in the '70s and '80s -- it wasn't the same after that) and have some sense of humor about it all.

 

The problem though (maybe not caused by you) is that someone then points out "But academic is exactly what Christgau intends to be. He originally called himself the 'dean of American rock critics'" (something he first said as a joke at a bash). He then gets called 'pretentious' for being - and fully acheiving - what he set out to be. It all gets a bit circular.

I'd probably disagree on that last point. Christgau's main income is surely going to be from his teaching/lecturing positions. It could be argued that his new biography could go some way beyond its advance (depending on what the advance was - they can be big and small) - but it hardly helps when certain online 'reviewers' pan it on the strength of his record reviews (ho hum).

As he says from time to time, there is very little money in rock criticism and almost none in the books. That's partly why he's us given us his inclusive website surely. His wife writes - I think they're comfortable enough but not wealthy.

 

Someone else used the word "obteuse" to describe his writing. I suppose that's more apt than calling it academic.

 

I'd add to your list Van's singing style combined with some of the potential cliches within his jazz/ blues genre.

I think the album is fairly good, and given how the title (which is easy to mock) relates to his preceding work, I always found the review a bit tough. Van had a late resergence of real quality afterwards (his late 80's to early 90's were fantastic, with 5 or 6 strong albums) but in some ways Guru was the start of where he ended up, just less rootsy.

 

If you mean obtuse - that is too derogatory. Obtuse means insensitive and slow to understand.

I think Christgau is intentionally clever, artistic and intellectual and often - though obviously not always - 'academic' in his approach. He does reference, though not in the perhaps stuffier ways. He reveiws books on music and other subjects too, sometimes in an excedingly academic way in my view.

He certainly sees himself as an authority on what he does - no less than someone like Harold Bloom. In my opinion he is a huge authority on popular music, from the early 20c to today.

It depends how far you want to define or take the word I suppose. I don't think it's wrong to use it.

 

Lou hated him.

 

To his death?

I doubt it. Christgau gave him nothing but good reviews from the late 70's onwards*, even giving the Metallica collaboration more praise than most (oh the irony).

(*apart from the live Take No Prisoners)

 

I took that review to mean that the music was a pastiche of various rock "styles" delivered in a rather mannered, contrived fashion, with little substance or emotional commitment behind it.

On the other hand, perhaps the review is a bit of a Rorschach, because that's more or less what I think of Queen! I see Maggie might have a better translation above . . . .

 

you mean on stage on that famous night in the mid 70's or has it been an enduring contempt?
Lou would say black one day and white a week or decade later

 

Sonic Youth also put down Christgau in a lyric on one of their early releases after he panned them, then by the late 80's he was writing very positive reviews of most of their albums. I don't know if they ended up liking him.

 

Among other reasons, one of the things I like the most about Christgau is he can be damn funny sometimes - though I know his putdowns tend to offend some people's delicate sensibilities. My favorite line of all might be from a review of one of George's early solo LPs (Material World or Dark Horse, I forget) - "Harrison sings like he's doing sitar impressions"...

 

... or where he called George a "hoarse dork" in a review of The Best of Dark Horse!!

 

Great explanation -- I immediately grasped the Queen review, but not the Van Morrison one (I'm less familiar with his music).

On topic: The guy writes short reviews which can, at the same time be funny and informative.

I think he is one of the best at his trade although my musical tastes differ considerably from Christgau's

 

Yes, my spelling error. Sorry for the mistake. You're right though, obtuse isn't even the perfect word.

Way up thread, quite some time ago, I posted a review that he wrote of an Ornette Coleman album. He wrote about four sentences full of serven dollar words, which is no way to write a short review of something. There were people here defending it. I can't stand that kind of writing. Difference of opinion is all.