>tfw it gradually begins to dawn on you he might actually

Seriously though, I am starting to think there might be more to Christgau's reviews than his pomposity and cantankerousness at first suggests. I've decided to work my way through some of his A+ ratings, starting with Another Green World. It's pretty fucking brilliant to be honest.

christgau is a hack

>>72512241
his taste in general is shit imo but he's a good writer when he puts effort into his reviews, i've found some of his analysis to be very insightful

he's a daft, baby brain rockist compared to our god scaruffi (PBUH)

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>>72512379
I love this one.

Christgau has a major bias in favor of punk rock and Afropop, so always keep that in mind.

By the way, he gave WYWH an A- because he said the lament for Syd Barrett was genuinely touching.

>>72512470
I don't agree with his Pink Floyd reviews, particularly Meddle and DSOTM, but I don't think that means he doesn't have anything worthwhile to say.

There's quite an amusing review of a Pink Floyd gig he attended in Madison Square Gardens where he begrudgingly seems to admit in his own smug way that it was fucking amazing.

>>72512379
His longer columns can be insightful at times. But when the artist in question doesn't interest him, yeah, he just writes a lazy two sentence insult and calls it a day.

Floyd are babby's first prog band anyway, just like Metallica are babby's first metal band. Even people who don't like those genres can appreciate them.

this essay of his made me reconsider Vampire Weekend (I eventually decided that I still didn't like them very much, but still)

https://robertchristgau.com/xg/bn/2010-02.php

>>72512470
>Christgau has a major bias in favor of punk rock and Afropop, so always keep that in mind

Not necessarily a bad thing since most rock critics, in fact most white guys in general can't get into black music (see the lack of success that soul/funk threads have on /mu/). He said when he first got started, very few critics had any interest in black music that wasn't Chuck Berry or bluesmen.

>>72512709
Yeh whenever you hear a baby boomer go "rap is crap", remember that it really isn't a generational thing and he probably didn't listen to P-Funk or the Ohio Players back in the day either.

Christgau had written some things about how the music industry gave black music the short end of the stick in the 70s and that decade in general was relatively weak for black artists compared to the artistic triumphs of the 60s. Most record labels preferred to discourage sociopolitical commentary and keep black music as a safe, harmless minstrel show consisting of cheesy party-down funk and disco hits.

That and black music never really did adapt to the AOR format; it remained singles-oriented since the target market had lower disposable income than whites and was less able to afford albums or high end stereo equipment.

>>72511986
So I just looked into Christgau for the first time. How the fuck does his rating system work?

>>72511986

Christgau a shit

>>72512879
Check the top of the page, 'Grades Explained'.

>>72512863
>That and black music never really did adapt to the AOR format; it remained singles-oriented since the target market had lower disposable income than whites and was less able to afford albums or high end stereo equipment.
Objectively false, there were many gold/platinum funk albums of the 70s

>>72512879
The letter grades are pretty self-explanatory, and he says an album below a B+ is probably not recommended unless you're a diehard fan of the artist in question.

"A dud rating indicates an album that I found to be tedious, boring, disappointing, or outright offensive."

"Choice Cuts indicates 1-2 standout tracks on an otherwise mediocre to bad album, as I found the songs catchy, amusing, or they made an interesting sociological statement about the artist. Some choices are inescapably personal. In most cases, I'd recommend you just purchase the single and skip the album. Sometimes a really exceptional single will tempt you to spring for the otherwise lousy album it's on."

"Distinctions Not Cost Effective denotes an artist whose few good albums wouldn't be worth digging through all their bad ones to find. Meltdown indicates an artist whose best albums wouldn't be worth your time."

>>72512982
Most funk albums are just a collection of singles buffered with shitty filler tracks. They're more comparable to albums in the 50s-early 60s than the of-a-piece AOR format that developed from 1965 onward.

This was an introduction to one of Christgau's columns from the early 70s.

"Before we get started, I'd like to state a few things about myself so you know where I stand on things. I grew up in the '50s, I like hard rock, I listen to a lot more black music than most of my colleagues, I like folk, but I'll take to task insipid singer-songwriters."

>>72512947
He does change the rating structure somewhat in the 90's, so make sure you have the right ones for the time period

>>72512795
I listened to a lot of Philly Soul when I was a kid (as I lived near there) and generally like 70's soul/funk. Rap is still 75-85% crap (though the rest can be excellent, and frankly other genres have similar amounts of crap too).

>>72512795
>>72513217
Band geeks and most people in the music biz always had a high amount of respect for soul, funk, and hip-hop, it was the fans who didn't go for it.

Aerosmith were denounced by dumb white trash rock fans as traitors for collaborating with Run DMC, probably because they weren't smart enough to realize that rock originated from black music styles.

what does bomb mean. that the album is THE BOMB?!? checking it out

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>>72511986
>>tfw it gradually begins to dawn on you he might actually be right
Fuck off, dude.

>>72514403
It means it's fucking shit i.e. it bombed.

>>72512863
>That and black music never really did adapt to the AOR format; it remained singles-oriented since the target market had lower disposable income than whites and was less able to afford albums or high end stereo equipment.

Black music was also very slow to switch to CDs for similar economic reasons; the CD format was expensive prior to the Clinton years, so this meant that Paul Simon albums got on CDs a lot faster than LL Cool J albums. Some funk/R&B/hip-hop albums were never released on CD at all (Rick James's "Glow" being one example).

>>72512795
FWIW Christgau said that when hip-hop started in the 80s, most of his 60s generation peers couldn't understand it at all. It made zero sense to them even though many of these guys were able to appreciate punk and alternative rock.

In some of his 80s columns, he was noting the tendency of guys his age to automatically give 4 and 5 star ratings to the latest Dylan or McCartney album when it was phoned-in shit that didn't hold a candle to their 60s material.

>>72514685
>>72512470
>>72512795
Christgau likes to say he was just born in the wrong generation to appreciate metal, "Y'know, maybe if I was born in 1972 instead of 1942, metal would make sense to me." but there's no reason to suppose that punk and hip-hop, which he jerks off to, are any more or less generational than metal (some people believe punk/hip-hop/metal are intrinsically a Gen Xer thing). I think he's just trying to rationalize why he doesn't like the stuff.

If you get down to the nuts and bolts, most music critics of any age dislike metal because it's a field that attracts a specific kind of person, and this kind of person is the type that jerks off to alternative rock and snubs metal.

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hmm

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>>72515676
really made me think

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>>72515700
Try to hold back the tears.

He's 100% correct on this piece of shit, although I doubt he thought there would still be young pseuds discussing it almost 50 years later.

>>72515817
not really, he's just an autistic schizo

>>72515817
>The plus is because Pete Townshend likes it.
wew lad.

You know, I've loved a lot of records in my life, and there's plenty that have just worn on me to the point I can barely enjoy them anymore. But In the Court has the same effect on me as the first time I heard it more than 10 years ago. It's perfect. Christgau's mad because he doesn't get it, and it's really a shame.

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>>72515817
>i can't give it an A because it's too weird

the fact that this guy is considered one of the most influential and prominent rock critics really shows how far rock music is from becoming a serious art

scaruffi was right

The garden variety of contrarian takes great pains to present like they believe what they say, Christgau just hopes people will overlook that the thing he listens most closely to before a review is other people’s opinion. D−

>>72514424
Something you begin to understand if you read enough of his modern reviews is that he hands out A-minuses like candy now. It basically amounts to him listening to it and not immediately forgetting about it, but not considering it amazing either.

>>72511986
Fantano > Literally Every Other Music Reviewer > Robert Christgau

He's not even good enough to be a meme.

>>72511986
>atom heart mother
>d+
>didn't even bother to review any albums before that
christgau is a fucking autist

>>72516482
almost nothing pre-1970 is on there; the ones that are are retrospectives he wrote much later on for RS and the like

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No he's shit.

>>72516482
Most of the reviews are from when he began working for The Village Voice as a critic in 1969 onwards. He's not just some fucking obsessive weirdo like that Scaruffi chap, it was his job.

>>72515676
what the fuck is this retard trying to say

>>72512604
Yeah because they're both great.

>>72515983
well, it's a consumer's guide. he wanted to give it a higher score because he really liked it, but he didn't because he knows a lot of people won't like it

>>72514424
If you don't get Soulja Boy you don't belong on /mu/

>>72518416
that anco has novelty beach boys-type appeal with a couple interesting songs per album but nothing more, which is on the nose

>>72515676
>All too theoretically communards nice up the hilarity, whereupon their base tells them to stop being goofs already

>>72511986
other than overrating the wall he is mostly right