This is the thread where you ask for help in parsing one of Robert Christgau's sentences.

well, yeah, i can see now how the singular form of "to be" is wrong. thanks, mr. perry. but i still don't understand why people have trouble understand what the sentence MEANS. i mean, do people really think christgau is less comprehensible, than, say, most people reviewing records on the web? or posting on ILM, for that matter? i mean, isn't the fact that he doesn't write exactly like everybody else out there, and maybe that it takes a little work on the part of the reader to get his point sometimes, a GOOD thing? it seems like people complaining about him just wanna be SPOONFED, or something...i mean, he's a WRITER. so you have to learn his LANGUAGE, you know? how does that make him any different than, say, Meltzer in The Aesthetics of Rock??? Or Sterling Clover? Or Mark Sinker? Or [fill in the blank]?

oops, I meant "understanding", not that second "understand". (and i meant "you fucking nitpickers," not "people". okay, maybe i didn't.)

What does this mean?

they signed to atlantic, made a more metal record, don't say anything deep, and don't belt out the lyrics, but he likes it more than if they were belting shallow lyrics or whispering deep ones. like, duh.

Bjork, Vespertine
I liked this a lot better once I heard how it was entirely about sex, which since it often buries its pulse took a while. Sex, not fucking. I'm nervous so you'd better pet me awhile sex. Lick the backs of my knees sex. OK, where my buttcheeks join my thighs sex. I'm still a little jumpy so you'd better pet me some more sex. How many different ways can we open our mouths together sex. We came 20 minutes ago and have Sunday morning ahead of us sex. Or, if fucking, tantric--the one where you don't move and let vaginal peristalsis do the work (yeah sure). The atmospherics, glitch techno, harps, glockenspiels, and shades of Hilmar Om Hilmarsson float free sometimes, and when she gets all soprano on your ass you could accuse her of spirituality. But with somebody this freaky you could get used to that. English lyrics provided, most of them dirty if you want. A-

By objectifying her?

The "yeah sure" is kind of funny, though.

Oranges and Lemons [Geffen, 1989]
Compulsive formalists can't fabricate meaning--by which I mean nothing deeper than extrinsic interest--without a frame (cf. Skylarking, even the Dukes of Stratosfear). The only concept discernible on this hour-long double-LP is CD. Def Leppard got there first. B-

How is CD a concept? And how did Def Leppard get there first? And where is there?

"Their earlier albums had some concept, and this doesn't, unless you count the fact that it's an hour long, something they're only doing because, thanks to CD, they can get away with. Unfortunately, Def Leppard beat them to that trick."

in 1989 it sure could be -- extreme length; overemphasis on improved sound quality possibilities (a la early '60s "hi-fi" albums); etc.

>And how did Def Leppard get there first?<

Hysteria came out in what, 1987? 1988?

>And where is there?<

there.

ps - also thanks olga

These days we can just start ILM threads on any given sentence of course which solves that problem.

It's pretty smug for somebody to basically just offer "His Two Cents and Nuthin' but" on an album ever weak, but for those who ARE saturated with info on most albums, myself included, he can be very entertaining.

However, I'll note that this year I've felt a lot his A's were totally on the pipe, rather than OTM (can we make OTP a new abbreviation). The Transplants being the latest.

the literalism and reduced horizons - from the implications of "consumer guide" on down - seem pretty typical of this place these days.

Transplants? On initial listen, it sounded like weak loops and a guy barking on top of it. I was hopefully since I figured Rancid raps would sound like the verse to "Time Bomb" or something. I wanna hear it again but it was pretty ungainly. Plus I don't WANT people to sing about being materialist criminals when they're NOT them. Real rappers are bad enough these days. Unless it's like, really smart and funny. Which it didn't seem to be.

Sheesh, you guys, he's using "back-in-the-day" as a noun...as in old-style...that old bastard...the back-in-the-day is recommended to them...where's Strunk and White when you need 'em?

I don't think Meltzer's problem with Christgau and Marcus has anything to do with "PC" or that back-in-the-day (adj.) stuff...he just thinks they don't understand that being a bad boy is the right of rock journalists, just as it is the right of some guy in the New York Dolls. There's some rather blatant personal animus in there too, which grumpy old Meltzer doesn't hide...I mean, I would be grumpy too if an editor called me up and told me, "Get out your thesaurus, it's word choice time," as R.M. asserts R.C. did (in "A Whore Just Like the Rest"). But yeah, he does think rock ended with the first Moby Grape album or something.

I don't capitalize rock and roll...that was, you know, a joke...although I had the misfortune to spend a couple of months in Cincinnati, Ohio once and was appalled to see that, in the alternative weekly there, the music editor capitalized EVERY SINGLE possible permutation of "genre"--Jazz Rock, Folk Rock, Singer Songwriter, Classic Pop, Blues, Blues Rock, Emo, Alternative Rock, Grunge, Harmolodic Pop, Post-Big-Star-Power Pop, Power Pop...

I think that the end result of this is that Xgau should get a new editor, like MEEEEEEE.

I was thinking about this last night, about how deceptive album grades can be compared to whatever private connection the reviewer has with the record. I was listening to a CD, and I said to myself "This is a three-star record if I've ever heard one. It's nice in no particularly spectacular way, it's pretty but not terribly original or statement-making, and it's doomed for a life in cut-out bins all the world over. And yet, I like it. A lot. I can't stop listening to it. But I'd be lying if I were to grade it and give it more than three stars."

Oooh... you claim you don't like rock critics and you use the word "angst." I renounce my crush on you. :-(