Robert Christgau A+ reviews POLL 1967-1990

sorry--if not for Riot, followed by Sign. THEN Field Day. it was my favorite record in high school.

Thanks for the Field Day discussion, guys. I'm going to dig it up and relisten (Crenshaw's always been a blind spot).

My high school crush was Crowded House. They and Crenshaw have nothing in common besides guitars and concision, but I mean this as an example of how these touchstones cross over.

kinda curious about G-Man, though no one repped for it. Is it great?

Still wonder what the Crenshaw-influenced-artist equivalent of KJB's Debarge-influenced-artist list might be. Is he considered, say, a major inspiration for alt-country? Certain emo bands? Spoon? Who?

And G-Man is definitely real good, yeah.

Crenshaw's done some songwriting with/for some of AAA '90s bands--I think he cowrote the Gin Blossoms' "Found Out About You," for example. So probably that stuff if anything. But I don't care if he influenced anyone or not, I still love Field Day to pieces.

i was the ONLY hurley/unholy modals vote???

I kind of regret not voting Have Moicy! instead of the Dolls' debut, actually.

good grief, what a turnout! one question: where'd all the Fear and Whiskey votes come from? it's def in my top five of the above listed.

oh, and, Chuck: do i remember correctly that you once gave G-man a C+? (i'd like to think that it was payback for Christgau giving AC/DC's Blow Up Your Video a C+ back then. but i'm likely just imagining tales of rock-crit-beef-past again, right?)

Ha ha, I think I rock-a-rama'd G-Man in Creem (probably expressing mixed feelings), but don't think there was a letter grade involved.

Crenshaw's done some songwriting with/for some of AAA '90s bands--I think he cowrote the Gin Blossoms' "Found Out About You," for example.

"Til I Hear It From You," methinks.

hmm, it could be. i honestly thought it was something you wrote for the Voice, tho.

xp

Nah -- Pretty sure the only jazz I ever reviewed for the Voice was Ronald Shannon Jackson once. (And I've never done a graded consumer guide anywhere.) So maybe it was somebody else?

doubt it. i don't think it was a CG kinda thing, more like a Xgau loves Sonny and hates AC/DC sorta thing. so, in retaliation, you do a quick CG-type review of G-Man and proclaim it as being no better than a C+). probably was in Creem, tho--i forgot that i was buying that rag right up to the bitter end--now that i think of it. (is any of that Rock-a-Rama stuff online? shit was pretty funny.)

So someone out there does have the Pulnoc unreleased tape in digital form? ... any information on it is much appreciated ... holy grail for Christgau fans (and Pulnoc fans, too, I'm sure!) -- many thanks!

Of Human Feelings needs a nice reissue, similar to what was done for Song X.

Thelonious Monk's Mysterioso is Christgau's A++++.

was Freedy Johnston's Can You Fly? ever an A+ album? I read somewhere that Xgau called it "perfect"...

Yup

yeah, it's his fave for '92.

xp

^...which is another album i feel would be better served minus the +, fwiw.

btw, if anyone wants/needs a copy of Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned, give me a shout.

So someone out there does have the Pulnoc unreleased tape in digital form? ... any information on it is much appreciated ... holy grail for Christgau fans (and Pulnoc fans, too, I'm sure!) -- many thanks!

not yet, but working on it.

I love how the Television voters (like myself) were a silent majority. Won the poll, barely mentioned on the thread.

Marquee Moon is pretty unfuckwithable -- out of all those records, it seems like the most "perfect" to me. it's interesting to me that it got that A+ Christgau review, the rave from Nick Kent, but (as far as I know) didn't really make much of a commercial breakthrough ... I guess it was more popular in Europe?

How much of a dent did Television make in Europe? (In the U.S., neither album even charted in the Top 200, which doesn't strike me as particularly surprising. Verlaine's Dreamtime did reach #177 in 1981, however.)

Not that it's definitive, but via Wikipedia: "Television's first album Marquee Moon was received positively by music critics and audiences, despite failing to go near the Billboard Top 200 - though it sold well in Europe and reached the Top 30 in many countries there."

28 Television Marquee Moon Album Mar 1977
30 Television Marquee Moon Single Apr 1977
25 Television Prove It Single Jul 1977
36 Television Foxhole Single Apr 1978
7 Television Adventure Album Apr 1978

The UK. "Glory", the single, did not chart. Mind you, if they'd issued a 12" version, it might well have been their biggest hit.

might've gone Fear & Whiskey over Sign o' the Times

yeah, Television was real popular in England. I almost voted for G-Man, too. but I dunno, it's great, Rollins is fantastic. but I notice that Christgau also gave A plus to another jazz record in the '90s, David Murray's Shakill's Warrior. which is a very fine record indeed. probably, his point on both is that these are records that are "jazz" but which would appeal to "rock and rollers" or whoever. interesting.

as for Field Day, I make no claims for the universality of power-pop, actually, but this is in my power-pop-nerd opinion one of the three or four definitive examples of same. Christgau's point here was that production values can expand the music in ways that aren't always perfect, predictable. in this case, that happens; aesthetically, it's kind of a weird record because it sounds hollowed-out in a way, but the songs are really immediate. but def a bringdown to some, after the perfection of Crenshaw's first record.

I guess it isn't that universal--a boy and his guitar and his record collection, dreaming of looking up some skirts in Manhattan--but if there ever was an A plus record, Field Day is it. probably he did influence some alt-country folks--students of "classic songwriting"--but Crenshaw as a writer and as guitarist is in a class of his own, in my opinion. and I would say that most people who are fans of Crenshaw like Freedy Johnston, too, and while I think my choice (Manfred Mann's Earth Band) is suitably semipopular in a discussion of Christgau, the best record on that list is probably Jack Johnson. no words to fuck anybody up, except at the very end.

yeah, damn poll suffered from an embarrassment of riches; Culture et al gettin' the goose egg.

so who's staring the '90s poll?

I voted for Field Day and stand by it.

Some people bow before Jesus Christ. I bow before Thus Sang Freud.

preach it, brutha!!!

Yours is coming soon. Big delay cuz none of the tracks have titles. Will rectify soon.

what u mean, Kevin? i got mine today! (am planning to upload sometime tomorrow, hopefully.)

no, the thing I promised YOU

hah--just realized that's what you meant. that's awesome, dude! no worries on my end--whenever you get a chance; i'm not in a hurry.

Sundar: i'll try uploading Egon Bondy's tomorrow as well.

I'm blushing, here.

here's a link for EBHHCB, for anyone that wants it:

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=UmNLb3BBNDRVVGxFQlE9PQ

Pulnoc pt 1:

https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=UmNLb3BHcWZWRDlFQlE9PQ

and pt 2:

https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=UmNLb3BESEJEa1d4dnc9PQ

here's the full track list:

Disc 1

Intro
Podivna Je Podivna
Nikde Nikdo
Konorek
Dopis
Je To Nebezpecny
Pisen Pro Nico

Disc 2

Tygr
Pulnoc
All Tomorrow's Parties
Magicke Noci
New York City
Huchu Zlalej
Kniha Noci (partial)

X'gau was right about this Pulnoc! and You guys dRULE! the only pulnoc i'd heard before was city of hysteria and it's good, but a little "slick" sounding. this is powerful stuff

yeah, i agree (about Hysteria vs. Live, that is. although, yes, it is also true that i do drule on occasion.) ;^)

"marquee moon" #1? but that is the dullest guitar noodling around, in the guitar wank department it is worse than the worst jazz-rock. and "london calling" at #3 is the most average punk album imaginable. two records for the bin.

I'll take them if you don't want them

Good idea. Is that the official live Pulnoc, or the xgau tape (which I've got, but with no titles)?

Xgau tape.

Arrggh! For some reason, I dl'ed the first part of the Pulnoc Live at P.S. 122 tape but not the second part. When I went to link above o get the second part, it had expired. Is there any way that anyone at all could re-up the 2nd part? Please, please, please!

Hysteria vs. Live

Hysteria [Mercury, 1987]
You know about the music, and if you don't think you'll like it you won't: impeccable pop metal of no discernible content, it will inspire active interest only in AOR programmers and the several million addicts of the genre. In short, it's product--but as product, significant, because it's product for the CD age. Stuck with over an hour of material after four years (after all, could twelve songs be any shorter?), they elected to put it all on one disc because as technocrats they instinctively conceive for formats that can accommodate an hour of music: cassettes, which now outsell vinyl discs, and CDs, which outdollar them. The cassette sound is a little too dim, as commercial cassette sound usually is, and though I sometimes find myself preferring the depth of the vinyl once I've turned my amp up to six or seven, the clarity of the CD gets more and more decisive as the needle approaches the outgroove. I mean, I have trouble perceiving these guys as human beings under ideal circumstances. Not docked a notch because at least they didn't pad it into a double. C

Throwing Copper [Radioactive, 1994]
On stage, this intently mediocre young band is U2 without a guitar sound. On record, it's R.E.M. without songs. Fittingly, it generates the "idealistic" arena-rock U2 is no longer hungry enough to bother with and R.E.M never had the stomach to work up. Only with the old guys I wouldn't put the saving word in quotes. C+

are we doing 1991-present?