the idea that it takes a nation of millions to hold us back "didn't fuck with the sound too much" of its predecessor strikes me as a very odd thing to read.
― gygax!, Saturday, 22 February 2003 21:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
But also, didn't he raise the grades on some of those Stevie albums? Does that mean the reviews should be taken with a grain of salt?
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Saturday, 22 February 2003 21:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
(It's also very true that he didn't exactly say he disliked it -- it's just that when someone for whom "Golden Lady" is among their top ten or so favorite songs reads someone calling it the worst song on the album, he immediately takes the defensive positon.)
Hey MM (I just sent you a classic out-of-the-blue you-don't-know-me email yesterday), what IS your favorite on the album now? For me, if it weren't "Golden Lady," it would be "Too High."
― Eric H., Monday, 24 February 2003 15:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 24 February 2003 19:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 24 February 2003 20:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
I wish Christgau hadn't tuned out on the DKs before Plastic Surgery Disasters (where "Halloween" now vindicates my initial, and long faded, fandom), but that's what you get for loving another mammal's scribblings.
Otherwise, sometimes when the Dean insults fans of a particular band, it somehow makes them (or in this case, me) feel honored to have his ear:
Imperial FFRR [Teenbeat, 1992]You read it here first: the scattered actual "pop" songs on this 11-cut album--the one about eating pussy is the most enthusiastic--tend to break down into long, repetitive, self-consciously inept codas, which blend in the mind's ear with the scattered instrumentals per se. It would be wrong to call such passages drones, because drones propel, and propulsion would be catering to the hoi polloi--"patterns" is quite kind enough. Cool people whose hobby is inept bands seem to think these whatchamacallems apotheosize self-consciously amateurish charm. If you're among them, get a life. C
― Pete Scholtes, Monday, 24 February 2003 22:08 (twenty-one years ago) link
Propaganda [Island, 1975] Admirers of these self-made twerps certainly don't refer to them as pop because they get on the AM--for once the programmers are doing their job. So is it because they sing in a high register? Or because a good beat makes them even more uncomfortable than other accoutrements of a well-lived life?; "Never turn your back on mother earth," they chant or gibber in a style unnatural enough to end your current relationship or kill your cacti, and I must be a natural man after all, because I can't endure the contradiction. C-
Of course, the thing that he somehow missed here is that the point of "Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth" was "Or she'll fucking stab you in it, that traitorous bitch." Which doesn't make it a great song (though it is) or Propaganda a great album (I'd give it a typical Sparks hit-or-miss B+), but does bespeak a lack of close listening.
Other than that, whatever. I agree with some things he says, and disagree with others. It happpens. I find my biggest general difference with him is that he admires a certain strain of punk -- The Vibrators, Fluffy, The Hives, The White Stripes, NOFX, The Pixies, Sleater-Kinney -- that I don't dislike but find overly foresquare (or perhaps four/four-square) for my tastes. Plus, he underrates John Darnielle. But who doesn't?
The only real problem with Christgau is that 10 other critics didn't have the intestinal fortitude to embark on the same lifelong listen-to-everything-that-matters quest that he did back in 1970, and so you're left with his opinions as being sort of a default consensus narrative. Given that, I'd say we're lucky that his opinions are as generally sane as they are -- as much as I enjoy Bangs or Marsh or Marcus, I shudder to think what they'd have come up with had they evinced the same dedication to completism. As for his writing, Christgau's my favorite writer in any realm ever, except for Charles Schulz, who beats him by miles. Guess I'm just a fan of atomized narrative, y'know?
― Jesse Fuchs, Friday, 15 August 2003 15:21 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 15 August 2003 15:53 (twenty years ago) link
What an asshole. These are just his superficial, idiosyncratic impressions, written in language that tries to render them universal and absolute. I know, I know, it's tongue in cheek or something.
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 15:57 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 15:58 (twenty years ago) link
Apologies in advance if this ends up getting posted twice. My internet is pretty dodgy at the moment.
― Jesse Fuchs, Friday, 15 August 2003 16:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Felcher (Felcher), Friday, 15 August 2003 16:58 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 17:06 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 15 August 2003 17:37 (twenty years ago) link
― Jesse Fuchs, Friday, 15 August 2003 17:47 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:04 (twenty years ago) link
― Jesse Fuchs, Friday, 15 August 2003 19:27 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:30 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:31 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:33 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:34 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:35 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:35 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:36 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:37 (twenty years ago) link
― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:38 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:38 (twenty years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 15 August 2003 19:46 (twenty years ago) link
But you still haven't answered my question, which had little to do with your "um...anyway" and everything to do with your calling my original Darnielle/Dylan/DDR post dodgy. Again, I'm simply curious: what's the dodgy part? If you haven't heard/experienced DDR, then it clearly can't be that, because you're way too smart (not sarcasm -- I've read and enjoyed your writing) to formulate opinions on things you've never heard. So was it my overenthusiasm for Darnielle? Dylan? If I were to take the joke out my original post and restate it straight, it would simply be: "Still underrated. Tallahassee is, with the possible exception of Love and Theft and DDR, my favorite album of this century so far." Given that this century is only a few years old, this doesn't strike me as any more shaky than any other statement of musical enthusiasm. So again I ask: what do you object to, exactly?
As for my cat, he is fine, but he thanks you for your concern.
― Jesse Fuchs, Friday, 15 August 2003 19:57 (twenty years ago) link
In any event, I think the critical blind spot towards 'rhythm games' is an interesting subject, but it's clearly tangential to the original thread, so I'll shut up about it now. But if anyone else wants to start a new thread on the subject, I'm all ears. Or eyes, fingers, whatever. As for my mini-micro-imbroglio with Michelangelo, all I can say is that his original post just goes to show why, although I hate them just as much as the next message board poster, emoticons are sort of a necessary evil. One : ), or even :P, and I wouldn't have written a word in response.
― Jesse Fuchs, Friday, 15 August 2003 20:03 (twenty years ago) link
― Felcher (Felcher), Friday, 15 August 2003 20:10 (twenty years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 15 August 2003 20:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Jesse Fuchs, Friday, 15 August 2003 20:21 (twenty years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 15 August 2003 20:26 (twenty years ago) link
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 15 August 2003 20:56 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 15 August 2003 21:47 (twenty years ago) link
― David Allen, Saturday, 16 August 2003 01:51 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 16 August 2003 02:03 (twenty years ago) link
Look, I know that Hathaway is the main classic soul man that rock critics bash, and I know that african american musical artists who arent trying to bling bling out are widely considered pretentious by white music critics. I understand that any african american person tries to express himself in a way that is outside a racial box is considered a freak and ostracized. But it bothers me when it the criticism becomes personal.
― robert lashley (brotherman), Saturday, 16 August 2003 20:48 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 16 August 2003 21:54 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 16 August 2003 21:57 (twenty years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 16 August 2003 21:58 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Sunday, 17 August 2003 01:42 (twenty years ago) link
And I fine the perverse racial boxes that most " enlightened" music and cultural critics, just as damaging and harrowing as any aspect of institutional racism in america. If christgau just hated donny hathaway's music, the level of his critical denigration would have been strictly to his art. My problem with the " Lives on in duet after duet." is that it relates to his person. I know christgau doesnt like music from genteel white people either, but nearly everytime I have heard him talk about music and his critical dislikes, Donny Hathaway comes near the top of his list. Now coming from a man who has reviewed thousands of CD's over a 35 year span as a reviewer that's saying something profound.
My question is why? I'll be the first to tell you that his albums are flawed( sans his live one). But the core of donny hathaway's music and his motifs: were gospel influenced music and lyrical imagery, a kind of healing, a search for an innerself through humane gospel imagery, made flesh and all too human through one of soul's most powerful and arresting baritones. Now much of what I said is my opinion. But the work itself, Humanist Gospel influenced soul music, is what it is.
My question out of all the turgid, intolerable and inhumane crap that has been put out in modern popular music, in which one can listen to during a 35 year span, why would be someone like hathaway be on top of any sane person's list?
Lastly, I guess what sticks at my gut is that to lump him in the same boat with barry manilow as "genteel" and milquetoast overlooks or ignores the immense amount of pain, that any person with a scintilla of feeling can here in his music. I'm not saying that just because he committed suicide, either. " thank you master for my soul" is an entendred way of donny thanking god that he didnt kill himself that day. Or the way on " I hear voices" he tries to humanize schitzophrenia by contextualizing his voices in a hip fashion. Or " givin up" or " lord help me" or " a dream", to name some examples. What christgau,(and marsh and marcus who perversely rated him on that death scale he had) doesnt see is that hathaway's music comes from and is a link to the core of the spirituals and work songs, that it music made by a people to keep from killing themselves. IMO, to describe his music as genteel and milquetoast is assuming a freedom that hathaway, along with the millions of african americans who sing gospel or come from the gospel tradition, never had.
I know I will be and have already been piloried ( by a wonderfully sarcastic aide by vahid)for saying what I just said. And I know my way of thinking is quite reviled around these parts. But I had to say It.
― robert lashley (brotherman), Monday, 18 August 2003 01:03 (twenty years ago) link
― Jesse Fuchs (Jesse Fuchs), Monday, 18 August 2003 01:22 (twenty years ago) link
― robert lashley (brotherman), Monday, 18 August 2003 01:27 (twenty years ago) link
"They bitch because everybody compares them to Joy Division, and they're right. It's way too kind, and I say that as someone who thanks Ian Curtis for making New Order possible."
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Monday, 18 August 2003 07:13 (twenty years ago) link
― dave q, Monday, 18 August 2003 07:29 (twenty years ago) link
― Tom (Groke), Monday, 18 August 2003 07:37 (twenty years ago) link