Robert Christgau Review of Van Halen Debut LP

"For some reason Warners wants us to know that this is the biggest bar band in the San Fernando Valley. This doesn't mean much--all new bands are bar bands, unless they're Boston. The term becomes honorific when the music belongs in a bar. This music belongs on an aircraft carrier. C"
Robert Christgau

This is a humorous review with the aircraft carrier reference. I would have expected a higher grade than "C" for a band with such a dynamic singer, guitarist, bassist, and drummer. Maybe he faulted the band for releasing an album with two cover versions that made up 1/6 of the total running time. Christgau did not rate any 1978 heavy metal album higher than a C. He tended to favor punk, The Rolling Stones, R&B, etc. We can thus take the Van Halen review with a grain of salt.

 

Christgau was/is known for his antipathy to certain genres of music, hard rock being one of them, so this review should come as no surprise. The only surprise is, he’s still allowed to review that kind of stuff, when he can guaranteed to give it a bad write-up.

 

Does this guy still write reviews? I mean does ANYONE care what he thinks anymore? Did they ever care?

 

Van Halen is far outside Christgau’s typical wheelhouse. I’m surprised he gave it as high of a grade as he did. Don’t expect impartiality or in-depth analysis from Christgau; It’s the verbose quips that makes him distinctive.

 

Christgau ended up becoming somewhat positive about the Roth-era VH, giving 1984 an A-.

Yes, he still writes reviews, check robertchristagu.com if you're curious.

 

Used to have a couple of books of his containing his 70s and 80s record reviews.
Picked up some good albums based on them.
Picked up some duds too.

 

Robert Christgau gave first Van Halen album a crap (although very funny) review. Call the authorities.

 

NO critics respected Van Halen or similar artists at that time. Hard Rock was considered a bad hangover from 1971, and "Heavy Metal" was still an insult. They didn't care how dynamic a band was, they only cared that it reminded them of something they'd heard before.

I enjoy reading Christgau but all of the critics of his generation have their prejudices and you just gotta know to expect them.

 

I mean, it's been kind of a slow news week so I can't see why we wouldn't have time to talk about a mediocre review of a Van Halen album that came out 43 yrs ago

 

When was this review written?

 

all of them thought they were more important than the groups, not sure why anyone cares what they thought or re-re-re-wrote about an album

 

what's hilarious is that sometimes I wake up in the morning and feel really old and then I open this forum and guys are still getting their jocks in a twist over a mediocre review that was published 6 years before I was born. Really does make me feel youthful

 

He was what the Lester Bangs character from Almost Famous referred to as someone you'd meet on the long journey to the middle.

 

Christgau's problem is that he didn't write a think piece.

 

It's from his Consumer Guide from 1981, but it's likely that it's an abridged version of a review from when the album was released. I don't think he just sat down one evening in 1981 and reviewed a hundred albums.

Funnily enough, he gave a much better review to VH II. No, really, MUCH better!

Van Halen: Van Halen II (Warner Bros., 1979) Never let it be said that popular styles don't evolve--in the wake of Kiss and Boston, this is heavy metal that's pure, fast, and clean. No mythopoeia, no bombast, and even the guitar features are defined as just that. So how come formalists don't love the **** out of these guys? Not because they're into dominating women, I'm sure. C+

That reminds me - I should point out that some critics at the time did do Van Halen the credit of recognizing that they avoided the bombast and pomposity of earlier hard rock/heavy bands.

 

The aircraft carrier line is pretty damn funny. And ultimately, the goal of any professional critic is to express an opinion in a creative, entertaining way. The goal isn't to please hardcore fans, or to correctly surmise how a creative work will be regarded by anyone in 43 years' time.

 

When it comes to Van Headache, I prefer what one person wrote in answer to Trouser Press’s “worst cover” poll: These guys should leave the Kinks covers to the Pretenders and stick to butchering their own songs.

 

Here's my review of Christgau's review of Van Halen:

 

Maybe you feel too youthful then, to understand that the useless opinions of Christgau have (for god knows what reason) come to adorn nearly every Wikipedia article on any album I ever look up there. Wikipedia may not be perfect, but it's become a well-known resource, so to have this pretentious fool's subjective opinions still puked up and quoted (and yes, technically re-"published" there), often first and foremost amongst reviewers and sometimes without any contrary opinions, is truly disheartening.

You may have noticed that people on this forum, every now and then, discuss music made before you were born. So while a review of an album from before your time might not still seem relevant, some reviews remains a part of the public conversation and consensus building even today, for better or possibly worse, about records that remain as important as anything else to one that has any serious interest in popular music of the last fifty years.

 

Who?

 

I will never understand why people get so worked up about reviewers. Do you know anyone who agrees with all of your musical opinions?

At least now we all have the means to express our own opinions to a wide audience (e.g., this forum). To think that 40 years ago the only people who would know how much you detest Christgau would have been your friends and immediate family.

 

If you see an article with a Christgau review cited and no "contrary opinions," why don't you add some? It's a wiki, after all.

 

His opinion is subjective? You don’t say. . .

 

What did he think of Queen? I know lots of critics in the 70s seemed to despise them.

 

I do find the over-reliance on Christgau and (especially) The All Music Guide to provide “critical reaction” in Wikipedia entries fairly tedious and unenlightening. I realize the reason is because those reviews are readily available to link to on-line whereas documenting the variety of critical opinions from when the album was actually released would take actual research and writing, but still. Someone somewhere in the world ought to take the time to do this (just not me )