sometime i read christgau and am amazed...

man I knew not of this! I never really check out ILE!

Does the consumer guide appear somewhere in print?

Erm... could somebody translate this for me? I don't get what he's saying at all.

This is why rock critics are morons. They ruin every sentence they write by trying to sound smart.

Agreed. Back when I started reading Christgau (geez...15 years or so ago now), I'd just chuckled and be like, "yeah. They *wish* they pope had a bigger dick." Of course, I had no idea then either, but I wouldn't admit that to myself. But now, a line like this (and this is just one example) makes me never want to read him again.

nb. i have not heard this record

I agree that Christgau can be pointlessly brusque, to the point of being uselessly cryptic.

I guess I'm an idiot. Please elaborate how the former equates to the latter.

And the Old Dog, erm Dean is typically about six months behind the curve and relies a bit too much on a crutch of nostalgic patronization to try and explain the music of today.

HS

Hurlothrumbo:
Actally, the review is strictly commenting on the lyrics to two songs on the record -- except he has them backwards. It should read ("End to End," "Shakedown") -- since reincarnation and the size of the pope's dick are lyrical components of those two songs, respectively.

me:
nb. i have not heard this record

Like the albums, his honorable mention album picks are listed in order of preference.

And Jim DeRo's band Vortis shows up in Xgau's Choice Cuts this week.

Then I would suggest he should have reversed the two comments that precede the listed songs. Unless, of course, the effect of their juxtaposition would have been irredeemably compromised by such a reversal.

You should read his book of essays, Dadaismus!

Seriously, I've always thought Xgau was fine just so long as you didn't take his opinion as gospel. I read his 70s and 80s Consumer Guides from high school on — whether you agree with him or not, his take is one of a kind.

I AM NOT AN IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not a great fan of this approach, but it does seem defensible from a logical standpoint, as long as you understand his verbal shorthand -- of course, I think it's adequately demonstrated here that not everybody does, which suggests some kind of failure.

Anthony Miccio in Being a Different Person than Christgau Shocka.
(The Courtney Love album is very good, by the way; esp. the single. And I don't hear what Bob hears in it, either -- I also completely forget what *Tonight's the Night* was about -- but I still think that was the best-written review in this month's Consumer Guide. Especially the punchline about the world owing Courtney a living.)

PS: I've never been all that big a Bon Jovi fan.
PSS: The Blondie review made me laugh.

- Some predictable moron with his head up his ass

That was one of Momus's finest moments.

i found that i had no way at all to infer this from the limited information offered in the review

Isn't it sort of assumed that the honorable mentions are records the reader is already aware of? Would someone honestly feel inclined to purchase a record based upon the tone of a single sentence or phrase. I always read it as a way for him to deny responsibility if someone bought what they feel to be a shitty album. But really it's like "oh you like the Strokes well the new record basically repeats the first one. sorry, well you know it alright, i guess."

wait, that review isn't bad at all! people are just picking on xgau now!

stablemate is a bit off, bowie and defries were history by the time defries discovered Johnny Cougar right?

what a disaster for john cougar mellencamp

This Is Bull [Paramount, 1971]
Speak for yourself, Ferdinand. D

were u really amazed when u read these?

OK googling says Bowie split w/ Defries in 75, the same year Cougar signed on to Mainman, and Cougar was dropped by DeFries right after his first record, so calling him a "longtime Bowie stablemate" in 1985 is wrong. Or I guess it could be intentional, a real rock crit kneeslapper.

No idea why this captivated my attention.

This Is Bull [Paramount, 1971]
Speak for yourself, Ferdinand. D

GREAT album!

fun fact: Bull was friends with Chaki's dad.

i think i put the hot Bull guitar jam on one of my hothead mixes.

fun fact: Bull was friends with Chaki's dad.

why am i not surprised?

Chaki's dad was in The Hook. One of my all-time fave guitar freakout bands.

ok that was perhaps a straw man. but on some threads you and matos seemed unwilling to brook ANY criticism of the dude. i admit that isn't the case on all threads.

Excuse me?

haha never mind

"threads"

really matos? i recall long stretches of threads where you and other folks spent much time essentially accusing critics of playa-hatin. am i thinking of somebody else? jess maybe?

"Playa-hatin"? Vomit.

Or are you using that the way I used to use "transcendent" or something?

I mean there are long stretches of threads where I basically say, "He means this, not that," which boils down to knowing his stuff well vs. not.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/99/pics/99pjenny1.jpg
These freaks are all player-haters. But you are player-participaters. I feel you! You know what I'm saying.

ok, i take it back then.

5:29

lolololololololol

6:28 - “Reality is the basis to Eminem’s work.” - Expert Bro

From his review of John Cale's Fear:
With Phil Manzanera flailing his axe like rocksy music was a thing of the future and Eno doing his best Baby Cortez imitation it sounds as if somebody just played "Sister Ray" for Cale and he thought the world of it.

wait what

What's unclear?

That blurb actually persuaded me to give Cale a try fourteen years ago.

The implication that "Sister Ray" is somehow unfamiliar to Cale, I guess, or am I misreading it? I just now realized that maybe Christgau meant someone played it to him and he went "OH MY GOODNESS I HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO ROCK OUT, I WILL RESUME FORTHWITH," but the phrasing "thought the world of it" makes it sound like it's something new to him.

It means "This album is so wild that it reminds Cale of what his last few albums weren't."

Yeah.

yeah - "it sounds like Cale has been reminded of what he's good at & in a way that makes doing it feel new & fresh to him," only put more cleverly

maybe too cleverly

Christgau clearly not a supporter of the old writing adage that anytime you're particularly proud of a turn of phrase, you should immediately chop it out and rewrite.

it means Manzanera rules

Christgau clearly not a supporter of the old writing adage that anytime you're particularly proud of a turn of phrase, you should immediately chop it out and rewrite.

this adage has good intentions but is kinda bullshit imo

like, it's applicable to people whose ability to write is in question, maybe - I hope to fuck that all the writers I like publish as many turns of phrase that they're proud of as they can get published during their lifetimes

Lost in Space [SuperEgo, 2002]
I've never understood this ice queen thing myself. What's the big thrill--getting to see them bite their lip when they come?

i guess my only problem with this review is that it (maybe) implies fear is better than paris 1919 which i don't buy altho i love fear

like, it's applicable to people whose ability to write is in question, maybe - I hope to fuck that all the writers I like publish as many turns of phrase that they're proud of as they can get published during their lifetimes

― in which we apologize for sobering up (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Saturday, May 15, 2010 11:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

fair enough, but choosing a snappy one liner (or an inscrutably tangled one) over a plainer truth or insight all the time gets a little exhausting when the guy's reviews are frequently only one line long.

but how many people would read him if he spoke in plain and clear english

uh, wrote

but how many people would read him if he spoke in plain and clear english

Setting aside the plain fact that nobody reads music criticism, period, I do actually think Christgau is a "critics' critic"; his primary audience is his peers. (Which I think is true of all music critics, but even more so in his case. Even people like me, who find his writing little more than a collection of linguistic/rhetorical tap-dancing, reflexive praise for heroes of long standing, and blind spots, still feel the need to pay attention.) I have no idea what the traffic numbers on his Consumer Guide pages are, though MSN's clearly inflating them through click-for-the-next-review trickery. But I suspect that far more people read Jon Pareles or Nate Chinen or Ben Ratliff at the New York Times, each of whom writes far less gnomically than Christgau.

he invented twitter.

see what I told you about heavy rock crit? ;-)

Also linked on the year-end polls 2013 thread. Wasn't sure which Christgau thread to post it on

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-Consensus-Has-Consequences/ba-p/12189 his essay

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-2013-Dean-s-List/ba-p/12191

85 albums but no singles

Here's some of the albums

1. Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City (XL)
2. The Uncluded: Hokey Fright (Rhymesayers)
3. The Julie Ruin: Run Fast (TJR)
4. Jeffrey Lewis & Peter Stampfel: Hey Hey It's...the Jeffrey Lewis & Peter Stampfel Band (self-released)
5. Live from Festival au Desert Timbuktu (Clermont Music)
6. Lady Gaga: Artpop (Streamline/Interscope)
7. Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (Deluxe Edition) (Aftermath)
8. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba: Jama Ko (Out Here)
9. Gogol Bordello: Pura Vida Conspiracy (ATO)
10. The Knife: Shaking the Habitual (Mute)
11. Parkay Quarts: Tally All the Things That You Broke (What's Your Rupture?)
12. Rilo Kiley: RKives (Little Record Company)
13. Rachid Taha: Zoom (Wrasse)
14. Deerhunter: Monomania (4AD)
15. Kate Nash: Girl Talk (Have 10P)

Anybody interested in this has probably already seen it, but if not, Christgau's 10 favourite movies:

Chinatown - Roman Polanski
A Hard Day’s Night - Richard Lester
Jackie Brown - Quentin Tarantino
Jules and Jim - Francois Truffaut
The Last Detail - Hal Ashby
Make Way for Tomorrow - Leo McCarey
Nothing but a Man - Michael Roemer
One-Eyed Jacks - Marlon Brando
Roma - Alfonso Cuaron
Where Is the Friend’s Home? - Abbas Kiarostami

Bill James announced he was giving up his online site today, so readers have been posting well wishes all day. In my comment, I mentioned the reader-question forums that Christgau and Marcus include on their sites, both of which came much later than James's "Hey Bill" feature. Another reader posted this after my comment:

I went to the same elementary school as R. Christgau, a few years behind, and he evidently had been so remarkable that some of the teachers would sometimes reference him, probably to both the pride and chagrin of his little sister who was in those classes of mine.

(My response to him: "Trying to imagine Christgau in grade school...The only kid ever who, at the end of the day, graded the teacher: 'Loved the math lesson, my attention started to wander during science, but overall, you're making progress from two months ago: B+.'")

"Forget Donna Summer—this is the real disco porn. She's covered on the cover right up to the clavicle, her rhythms sound more binary than her producer's, and she can't sing a lick. But even if you haven't seen her movies, she projects an exhibitionistic suck-and-fuck tractability that links the two pervasive fantasy media of our time, and from such conjunctions Great Art arises."

— More, More, More, reviewed in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981)

...

find one more xgau thread to stick this blurb!

Eh.... Don't you have some review to write that makes some really obvious error?

;-)

I will be sure to marvel at the size of women's breasts that I will get wrong.

(NB: I have way, way less patience for Christgau these days, so fire away)