Robert Christgau
"[4] Christgau is best known for his terse, letter-graded capsule album reviews, composed in a concentrated, fragmented prose style featuring layered clauses, caustic wit, one-liner jokes, political digressions, and allusions ranging from common knowledge to the esoteric.[9] In September of the same year, he launched a paid-subscription newsletter called And It Don't Stop, published on the email-newsletter platform Substack and featuring a monthly "Consumer Guide" column, among other writings.[16] He has said that Miles Davis's 1960 album Sketches of Spain initiated "one phase of the disillusionment (in him) with jazz that resulted in my return to rock and roll.As a critic, I want to achieve a new understanding of culture in both its aesthetic and political aspects; as a journalist, I want to suggest whatever I figure out to an audience in an entertaining and provocative way.[39] In its original format, each edition of the "Consumer Guide" consisted of approximately 20 single-paragraph album reviews, each given a letter grade ranging from A+ to E−.Christgau did give full reviews and traditional grades to records he pans in an annual November "Turkey Shoot" column in The Village Voice, until he left the newspaper in 2006.While Christgau spent many nights preparing past Village Voice writings for the website, by 2002 much of the older "Consumer Guide" columns had been inputted by Hull and a small coterie of fans.[48] On September 20, 2013, Christgau announced in the comments section that "Expert Witness" would cease to be published by October 1, 2013, writing, "As I understand it, Microsoft is shutting down the entire MSN freelance arts operation at that time ..."[49] On September 10, 2014, Christgau debuted a new version of "Expert Witness" on Cuepoint, an online music magazine published on the blogging platform Medium.[9] In September 2019, at the encouragement of friend and colleague Joe Levy, Christgau began publishing the newsletter "And It Don't Stop" on the newsletter-subscription platform Substack.The poll results were published in the Village Voice every February after compiling "top ten" lists submitted by music critics across the nation.Throughout his career at the Voice, every poll was accompanied by a lengthy Christgau essay analyzing the results and pondering the year's overall musical output."Christgau's blurbs", writes Slate music critic Jody Rosen, "are like no one else's–dense with ideas and allusions, first-person confessions and invective, highbrow references and slang"."[111] Douglas Wolk said the earliest "Consumer Guide" columns were generally brief and detailed, but "within a few years... he developed his particular gift for 'power, wit and economy', a phrase he used to describe the Ramones in a dead-on 37-word review of Leave Home"."[38] While regarding the early columns as "a model of cogent, witty criticism", Dave Marsh in 1976 said "the tone of the writing is now snotty–it lacks compassion, not to mention empathy, with current rock.Wolk wrote, "Sting wears his sexual resentment on his chord changes like a closet 'American Woman' fan" (from Christgau's review of the 1983 Police album Synchronicity)."[116] Christgau has named Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, and the New York Dolls as being his top five artists of all time.[120] In July 2013, during an interview with Esquire magazine's Peter Gerstenzang, Christgau criticized the voters at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, saying that "they're pretty stupid" for not voting in the New York Dolls.There are not a lot of white guys in their 60s waving the flag for Lil Wayne's Da Drought 3, especially not in the same column as they wave the flag for a Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Ray Price trio album, an anthology of new Chinese pop, Vampire Weekend, and Wussy..."[38] Christgau reflected in 2004: "Rock criticism was certainly more fun in the old days, no matter how cool the tyros opining for chump change in netzines like PopMatters and Pitchfork think it is now."[123] In a broad sense, Christgau says he responds to qualities of "tone, spirit, [and] music", disregarding, for instance, scholarly analysis of artists such as Bob Dylan.[45] "I admire metal's integrity, brutality, and obsessiveness", Christgau wrote in 1986, "but I can't stand its delusions of grandeur, the way it apes and misapprehends reactionary notions of nobility".This was even while critiquing jazz artists like Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins; he said "finding the words involves either considerable effort or a stroke of luck".[119] Christgau has also admitted to disliking the records of Jeff Buckley and Nina Simone, noting that the latter's classical background, "default gravity and depressive tendencies are qualities I'm seldom attracted to in any kind of art.Marsh accused him of becoming "arrogant and humorless–the raves are reserved for jazz artists, while even the best rock is treated condescendingly unless it conforms to Christgau's passion for leftist politics (particularly feminism) and bohemian culture."[6] Christgau has been widely known as the "dean of American rock critics",[127] a designation he originally gave to himself while slightly drunk at a press event for the 5th Dimension in the early 1970s.[130] Christgau has been long-standing, albeit argumentative, friends with critics Tom Hull, Dave Marsh, Greil Marcus and the late Ellen Willis whom he dated from 1966 to 1969.
Christgau (disambiguation)Dartmouth CollegeCarola Dibbellrock criticship hopriot grrrlAfrican popular musicThe Village VoicePazz & JopEsquireNewsdayPlayboyRolling StoneBillboardBlenderMSN MusicNew York UniversityE. F. Huttoncapsuleclausesone-liner jokescommon knowledgeleftist politicsfeminismsecular humanismNew Times MediaCuepointSubstackGreenwich VillageManhattanQueensrock and rollAlan FreedNew York CityEnglishMiles DavisSketches of SpainNew JournalismGay TaleseTom Wolfeavant-gardesportswriterNewark Star-Ledgerfreelance writerNew JerseyNew YorkCheetahNew Leftcounterculturekey signaturebeats to the measureDave MarshJohn RockwellPaul NelsonJon LandauMoby GrapeGuggenheim FellowshiprockumentaryColor Me Obsessedthe ReplacementsCalifornia Institute of the ArtsClive DavisBarnes & NobleTom HullSeptember 11, 2001, attacksWichitaPop ConferenceSeattleMediumNoiseypodcastsJazz & PopJohn Wesley HardingThe WhoRandy Newman12 SongsBitches BrewThe Barnes & Noble ReviewConsequence of Soundthe big ball drop in Times SquareweightJoy of CookingSteely DanPretzel LogicBob Dylanthe BandThe Basement TapesMichael HurleyThe Unholy Modal RoundersJeffrey Frederickthe ClamtonesHave Moicy!TelevisionMarquee MoonPink FlagThe ClashLondon CallingSugar Hill RecordsOrnette ColemanOf Human FeelingsJames Blood UlmerOdysseyBruce SpringsteenBorn in the U.S.A.The MekonsFear and WhiskeyThe Indestructible Beat of SowetoSonny RollinsFrancoRochereauOmona WapiPůlnocLL Cool JMama Said Knock You OutMzwakhe MbuliResistance Is DefenceLiz PhairExile in GuyvilleLatin PlayboysTrickyMaxinquayeDJ ShadowEndtroducing.....Arto LindsayMundo CivilizadoLucinda Williams