FOT Forum
FOT Community => Links => Topic started by: Pat K on January 13, 2010, 09:49:32 AM
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Robert Christgau's Best Albums of 2009 (http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-Dean-s-List-The-Best-Albums-of-2009/ba-p/2031)
It looks like The Dean of American Rock Critics forgot to include any actual rock music in his top 5.
Can we all pretty much agree that this guy is the worst ever? Seriously, is there any living person on planet Earth who actually looks to this man for insight about music?
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Robert Christgau's Best Albums of 2009 (http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-Dean-s-List-The-Best-Albums-of-2009/ba-p/2031)
It looks like The Dean of American Rock Critics forgot to include any actual rock music in his top 5.
Can we all pretty much agree that this guy is the worst ever? Seriously, is there any living person on planet Earth who actually looks to this man for insight about music?
I don't agree with Christgau all the time, but I highly respect him for cutting through the rock vs. pop vs. whatever thing. His column is a lot more entertaining than many preaching-to-the-choir publications.
So, in brief, I guess I disagree with you.
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I highly respect him for cutting through the rock vs. pop vs. whatever thing.
I get that that's his thing and all, but I think one can make a pretty healthy case for the argument that, with Brad Paisley at #1 and the Black Eyed Peas at #5, perhaps the pendulum has swung a little too far in one direction.
With a top 20 that includes those two gems as well as Miranda Lambert, Lily Allen, Willie Nelson, Louden Wainwright, and Nellie McKay's tribute to Doris Day, I just don't understand why this guy considered the King of Music Crit, as opposed to the music editors at People or Newsweek.
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Apologies for anyone that works at People or Newsweek, but I've never read a music review there I remembered.
King, Dean, Blah, whatever. It's just a title. Ignore it.
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I highly respect him for cutting through the rock vs. pop vs. whatever thing.
I get that that's his thing and all, but I think one can make a pretty healthy case for the argument that, with Brad Paisley at #1 and the Black Eyed Peas at #5, perhaps the pendulum has swung a little too far in one direction.
With a top 20 that includes those two gems as well as Miranda Lambert, Lily Allen, Willie Nelson, Louden Wainwright, and Nellie McKay's tribute to Doris Day, I just don't understand why this guy considered the King of Music Crit, as opposed to the music editors at People or Newsweek.
While I agree, who are the good ones? Are there good ones? I feel like music criticism is pretty useless.
Where DO people find out about new music these days?
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^^^^^^^^^^
shovel.com
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uggghhhhhh
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^^^^^^^^^^
shovel.com
Yep, and blogs, 'FMU and also right here on this board. Maybe this is stating the obvious...?
I generally agree that most music criticism doesn't have much value for me. For me (probably just because I don't have much of a musical vocabulary), the most useful thing rock criticism can do is say, "if you like band X, you might like this new band Y". I would guess though, that in most serious critics' minds, that's the laziest approach.
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Robert Christgau's Best Albums of 2009 (http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-Dean-s-List-The-Best-Albums-of-2009/ba-p/2031)
It looks like The Dean of American Rock Critics forgot to include any actual rock music in his top 5.
Can we all pretty much agree that this guy is the worst ever? Seriously, is there any living person on planet Earth who actually looks to this man for insight about music?
I guess you've never heard of Greil Marcus.
(By that I mean Marcus is worse)
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In case anyone missed it, here's XGau's #62:
62. Jozef van Wissem: A Rose by Any Other Name: Anonymous Lute Solos of the Golden Age (Incunabulum '06)
Seriously, is this guy just fucking with me?
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^^^^^^^^^^
shovel.com
Yep, and blogs, 'FMU and also right here on this board. Maybe this is stating the obvious...?
I generally agree that most music criticism doesn't have much value for me. For me (probably just because I don't have much of a musical vocabulary), the most useful thing rock criticism can do is say, "if you like band X, you might like this new band Y". I would guess though, that in most serious critics' minds, that's the laziest approach.
Can you share some good music blogs? Thanks!
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I enjoy Dusted Magazine overall for reviews/reviewers - http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/
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More thinking about this, and I stress this isn't a reply to Pat K per se:
Music critics just can't be canonized, can they? (Outside music critic circles that is.) Musicians certainly can.. you don't have to be into music to know who Dylan or Pink Floyd or Michael Jackson are. But I doubt anyone on that same cursory level (which is a perfectly healthy level to have! I kinda envy it sometimes) knows a thing about Christgau, Marcus, Bangs, Meltzer, Leland, Eddy, and too many others to name.
Part of the former feeds into the latter. Some people are comfortable with certain groups remaining in each's personal throne of music... so the whole notion of a music critic must seem *disgusting* to people who have a more monarchical take on musicians. But critics just asked to be burned in such a point of view. They are The Devil. But hey, that's normal.
To people who are far more into music, technology has made it a LOT easier for one to go online and post an informed opinion in public. "Informed" is a relative term, but that's not the crux. It's the "in public" part. So basically anyone can be an Informed Music Critic for free on the net. So, to many, reading people like Christgau, Eddy, etc. certainly injects a lot of self-empowerment i.e. "Hey Christgau, looks like my site is just as accessible as yours. How you like THEM apples?" Which is fine, too.
So why am I rambling? Because there is so much history lost here. Christgau had his gig for decades until just a few years ago when Village Voice became Village Voice Media i.e. New Times, and he was laid off. Most people unsurprisingly shrugged...
...BUT -- ok, here comes the Velvet Underground analogy -- Christgau may have been known by about a few thousand readers. But most of those readers went on to be inspired and formed their own forays into music criticism and music journalism that even casual music fans know today... Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, SPIN, etc.
The history loss comes in because a lot of the institutions built by the inspirees of Christgau, Eddy, etc. have creatively and/or financially collapsed. When the music industry is dying, all the interconnected pieces fall too. If they don't fall, they *creatively* fall. (Granted, Rolling Stone and SPIN have been "falling" for quite a while, but the turnover rate in the staff might as well make these publications seem like refurbished new entities anyway.)
Music criticism has taken the worst hit as far as public opinion. I love the self empowerment and fort building that technology gives artists. That same state of affairs is poison to people who once made a living writing, whether writing very well or very poorly, about music for a living. The critic industry is in a coma.
So, it kinda saddens me when I open up a thread and it's all "GOD, Christgau is like the WORST THING ever." There's so much disconnection and so much unneeded anger, yet I can't avoid threads like this wherever I go. I'm not upset, but I'm posting this in hopes that some of you kinda get where I'm coming from... I hope?
P.S. See what happens when you're on Twitter a lot? You start posting rambling essays on the FOT board!
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I like Christgau just fine and find some of his reviews highly insightful. His longer articles, archived at his site, are often better. I agree that list is not too awe-inspiring (read: awful), but his consumer reports @ msn have been pretty sharp this year.
I guess I'm not sure what you think the value of criticism is...that is, I'm not sure any criticism "matters." It's writing about art, music, books, architecture, theatre, movies, whatever, that tries to understand the subject matter. Or the people making the work. Or how the work reflects what's happening in larger culture. Music criticism tends to be bad probably because the reviewers tend to be the youngest and least experienced. And music is cool, so it attracts more people than architecture or whatever.
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Historical perspective ...
I think Christgau had a pretty good sense of What Was Great about Led & the Zeppelins, while simultaneously being in tune with What Was Ridiculous about them:
http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Led+Zeppelin
I had a similarly simpatico reaction while reading his capsule reviews of Funkadelic's discography.
I guess you can plug whatever band interests you into this site. It's interesting to see his at-the-moment reactions to canonical (?) works.
As far as music of more recent vintage, probably his instincts are not as solid. Whatever. Neither are mine.
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Robert Christgau's Best Albums of 2009 (http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-Dean-s-List-The-Best-Albums-of-2009/ba-p/2031)
It looks like The Dean of American Rock Critics forgot to include any actual rock music in his top 5.
Can we all pretty much agree that this guy is the worst ever? Seriously, is there any living person on planet Earth who actually looks to this man for insight about music?
I guess you've never heard of Greil Marcus.
(By that I mean Marcus is worse)
In general I agree with you, but Marcus did write MYSTERY TRAIN, which is a pretty great book despite the fact that he spends about half the book talking about artists who stink. That was thirty-some years ago, though, and the subsequent years have been filled with increasingly unreadable academia and approximately 47 books about Bob Dylan.
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Pauline Kael once said something along these lines: the critics' judgements don't matter much -- readers can make those for themselves. It's the rare insight that makes you understand more deeply why something works, or doesn't work, that matters. It seems self-evident, but in the last few months' deluge of lists I've had to remind myself of that fact over and over while steaming about someone or other's stupid top __ of the __.
Does Christgau have a venue to get into more detail than a list? I'd like to know if he can offer any such insights about his choices, 'cause in his prime he had a lot of value to say. I've seen those bullet point thingies he publishes in the Believer, but there's not a whole lot of wisdom to be found there.
EDIT: Never mind, I see the link at the bottom of the list to his individual reviews. I'll withhold judgment on his overall value as a critic until such time as I read his extended take on the greatness of 'I Gotta Feelin'.
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Does Christgau have a venue to get into more detail than a list? I'd like to know if he can offer any such insights about his choices, 'cause in his prime he had a lot of value to say. I've seen those bullet point thingies he publishes in the Believer, but there's not a whole lot of wisdom to be found there.
EDIT: Never mind, I see the link at the bottom of the list to his individual reviews. I'll withhold judgment on his overall value as a critic until such time as I read his extended take on the greatness of 'I Gotta Feelin'.
There's also this (http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/Resuscitations-and-Business-Plans-The-Best-Albums-of-2009/ba-p/2032). I started reading it, but I lost interest after the first 9,000 words.
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OK, I need to distract myself from thinking about Jay Reatard for a little bit here...
Mackro: I hear what you're (very politely) saying. As someone who obviously has a deep respect for and knowledge about music criticism, it's gotta be frustrating when people go all "lol Xgau u dumb" on the man. I am kind of trollishly using him as an easy punching bag. I agree with you that it is too bad a lot of "serious" criticism and cultural writing is getting the shaft these days. Whatever anybody's opinion may be on individual writers, the culture is clearly leaving a lot of that stuff behind, or burying it, or whatever metaphor you want to use, which is a shame. The age of critics like Christgau, Kael, Agee, Bangs, etc, critics who are talked about and well known purely on the basis of their written criticism, is clearly on the wane, which is a major loss to the culture in a lot of ways.
On the other hand, there IS a Darwinist aspect to the situation which I can't totally be sad about, in that I'm glad to see some of the sacred cows finally getting cut down to size. For example, Christgau.
He's always struck me as the perfect example of a way-past-his-prime writer who has still been at it for so long and is so well-respected (like the VU, in certain small-but-influential circles) that he seems to get a free pass on a lot of stuff that nobody else could get away with at this point - the kind of writer that editors might be too afraid or intimidated to actually edit or second guess.
I've read the occasional piece of his that's given me some insight into this-or-that group or cultural moment. But just as often, I've read plenty of his reviews that are more like haiku or zen koans than anything having to do with the actual music at hand.
He's a great fan of that kind of maddening critical tic of passing off bizarre self-contradiction or unfathomable vagueness as insight. Times when he'll spend 9/10ths of a one-paragraph review talking about how the singing, playing, production, and songwriting on an album are execrable, and then append "but of course, it's brilliant" to the end. Or stretching out these bizarre, florid metaphors or unfathomably complex sentence constructions that fold back in on themselves three or four times before concluding "…and that's why this album needs more of a breakbeat," or something like that. As a writer, the guy can often be baroque to the point of total meaninglessness. I love a critic that lends a deeper insight into the work at hand, but more often than not with Christgau I'm left scratching my head rather than stroking my chin.
Combine that with the fact that (as his list this and most every year proves) he has manifestly crummy taste in music, and think it's fair to call open season on him. I can get something out of a critic who has lousy taste but is still a good writer, or a critic who is a lousy writer with impeccable, insightful taste. But someone like Christgau - a bad writer with bafflingly awful taste - is useless to me.
So while I am sorry that I have to witness the passing of serious, intellectual criticism that is also considered a part of the (relative) mainstream, at the same time I'm not too sorry at all to see the end of the age of the critic-as-inscrutable-oracle.
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I mean, come one - the guy could only think of 39 albums from 2009 that he thought were better than "Now That's What I Call Party Hits!".