So why exactly did he not like Black Sabbath? His reviews were

>nothing useful or informative about their albums
welcome to the magical world of Robert Christgau

Christgau just actively dislikes the aesthetic of metal (and its progenitors) so much that it interferes with his ability to be even mildly objective about it.

>bullshit necromancy
He thinks the superficial interest in Satanic stuff is conceptually lame.
>drug-impaired reaction time, long solos
Doesn't like how slack and drawn-out the music is.
>They do take heavy to undreamt-of extremes, and I suppose I could enjoy them as camp, like a horror movie--the title cut is definitely screamworthy. After all, their audience can't take that Lucifer bit seriously, right? Well, depends on what you mean by serious. Personally, I've always suspected that horror movies catharsized stuff I was too rational to care about in the first place.
He can't buy into the dark aspects of it because it comes off like a teenage Halloween party to him.

All of the critics in the early 70s didn't like Sabbath, he wasn't unique.

He think they're too melodramatic. Most critics only like music that consists of ironic, self-aware vulgarity.

>>73224609
This guy is a pompous shit. Don't take him serious.

>>73224684
>He can't buy into the dark aspects of it because it comes off like a teenage Halloween party to him.
You have to put yourself into the head of the target audience. If you were 13, Iron Man would be a very cool song, of course adults probably would roll their eyes at it.

>>73224915
Was that reeeaally the target audience, though?

Ironic because P-Funk did a lot of the very same things as Sabbath back then (including namedropping Satan) but he couldn't get enough of them and reviewed almost all of their albums.

the lyrics to paranoid are possibly the worst hard rock lyrics ever, and that's including kiss

>>73224609
well, remember, basic blues rockers ACDC were tagged with After Christ Devil Comes back in the day.

utterly idiotic, but greatly affected the reception of things in the dark ages

the image, if they did the same thing with a simple new yorker, working class, street punk aesthetic then he would have rode their dick like a simple new york, working class, street punk whore

>>73224963
If Parliament did it it was just some nonsensical passing reference, not because one of the band members was reading Crowley. Aside from that upbeat funk is nothing like sludgy metal, no

>>73224976
War Pigs was supposed to be the title cut/lead single, but Warner made them change the album title to Paranoid because they were worried that stores wouldn't stock an album with a provocative title like that.

>>73224963
Christgau was big into funk because he thought they preserved the spirit of 50s rock and roll better than Black Sabbath or Pink Floyd or whatever (he thinks rock should be funny, uptempo, and danceable, not melodramatic angst with 20 minute guitar solos).

Exmilitary [Third Worlds download, 2011]

Death-metal hip-hop for El-P fans who secretly wish the Insane Clown Posse wasn't so dumb ("Blood Creepin," "Klink") ***

>>73225016
All those first generation rock critics were New Yorkers. They didn't "get" Black Sabbath at all even though their music was no more esoteric or "out there" than anything Lou Reed or Patti Smith did.

I'll rather take Scaruffi dick up my ass then to ever read any of this Christgay hack fag all day everyday

>>73225023
IDK, but P-Funk had a lot of mucky, druggy tunes, they weren't quite uptempo party funk like Kool & The Gang.

>>73225131
Christgau's rating sustem still confuses me. Stars, scissors, bombs, "N"...

>>73224860
Are music critics the most jaded assholes on the planet?

>>73225718
Merriweather Post Pavilion [Domino, 2009]

Sunny down snuff they're all right with the heroes and villains ("My Girls," "Brother Sport"). *

>>73225023
>>73224963
George Clinton was affiliated with the Process Church of the Final Judgement back then, they provided liner notes on two of their albums.

Christgau has a complex with anyone or anything associated with Chads he knew in school. He is /r9k/ the critic.

>>73225823
Nah /r9k/ hates women. Christgau is a male feminist.

Take his review of Master of Puppets. It's basically saying "I kind of agree with Metallica's politics, but I don't like their muscled image."

He did a column explaining the origins of heavy metal which was kind of interesting, he said that it evolved out of 60s psych rock which provided the riffing and fantasy-themed lyrics.

>>73224609

https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php

Here are the grades explained!

All the Satan and evil women shit in metal actually came from the blues.

>>73225028
That's true, but War Pigs wasn't suitable for the radio anyway while Paranoid did get airplay, in fact it was Sabbath's only radio hit ever, and after too many casual fans started showing up at their concerts, they never released anything that commercial again.

>>73226044
Most early Sabbath songs are just blues made to sound really dark.

>>73226044
>>73226248
Yeah I think Christgau never really did figure Black Sabbath out, although Lester Bangs came to appreciate them by album four.

>>73224915
[Citation needed]