Do you ever read one of Christgau's reviews and go, What the hell is he talking about?

http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/csisp/PDF/deluze_spinoza_affect.pdf

If anyone can make heads or tails of this, please to summarize.

Substitute "emotion" and that seems relatively clear: "Sounding emotional on your record isn't the same thing as actually having emotions, and it isn't the same as expressing (or even simulating) emotions, either." It works even better if you plug in a specific emotion, like anger.

But I'll admit to not following what he's getting at with the "simulating" part. If you took it out, the whole sentence would read like he's saying New Order are simulating emotion -- i.e., "acting like you have feelings doesn't mean you have them, or that you're expressing them to me." By putting that "simulating" in parens, it's like he's trying to indicate that it even goes a little beyond that, that he has some little distinction in mind beyond what the sentence can tell you. And that's something that gets a bit Talmudic and annoying. If he doesn't have the space to unpack some really small distinction, it's easy to wish he hadn't mentioned it, cause trying to figure it out can be awfully distracting. It's like mentioning a joke but not offering the punch line -- it makes you think, sure, and pretty deeply, but sometimes you'd just rather they'd let it pass.

If the sentimental fallacy
of good American rock and roll
is roots,

the sentimental fallacy
of good British rock and roll
is amateurism.

Not that these veterans
distinguished themselves
from themselves

before Yank guitarist Brix E. Smith
righted husband Mark E.'s
feckless avant-gardishness.

Still, what they've
arrived at now is
cunningly sloppy,
minimally catchy
Hawkwind/Stooges

with each three-chord
drone long enough
to make an avant-gardish statement
but stopping short
of actual boredom.

And yeah,
it beats roots
by me.

With its technological mastery
and its conventional wisdom
once-removed,
this is a kitsch masterpiece--

taken too seriously by definition,
but not without charm.

It may sell on sheer aural sensationalism,
but the studio effects
do transmute David Gilmour's guitar solos
into something more
than they were when he played them.

Its taped speech fragments
may be old hat,
but for once they cohere
musically.

And if its pessimism is received,
that doesn't make the ideas untrue--

there are even times,
especially when Dick Parry's saxophone
undercuts the electronic pomp,
when this record brings its cliches to life,
which is what pop is supposed to do,

even the kind with delusions of grandeur.

while I dig that you're saying "that's how it seems," the real-life truth is that he'll talk music with you all day - passionately, irasciably yes, but with a refreshing sense that it somehow matters: no matter what, you know he's never gonna resort to "oh, well if that's what you're into" or similarly nutless tropes

I totally do not understand how anything in that New Order review is less than crystal-clear and OTM

xpost-should we still not email him?

Newman's truisms
always concise
never confessional
are his own

Speaking through
recognizable
American
grotesques
he comments here on
the generation gap
(doomed)
incendiary violence
(fucked up, but sexy)
male and female
(he identifies with the males)
(most of whom are losers)
(and weirdos)
racism
(he's against it)
(but he knows its seductive power)
and alienation

He's for it

Newman's music
counterposes
his indolent drawl
the voice of a Jewish kid from L.A.
who grew up on Fats Domino
against an array
of instrumental settings
that on this record
range
from rock
to bottleneck
to various shades of jazz

And because his lyrics
abjure metaphor
and his music recalls commonplaces with-
out repeating them
he can get away with
the kind of calculated effects that
destroy
more straightforward meaning-mongers

A perfect album

Isn't 'inserting' affect refering to the aforementioned allusion to Love Me Do, and, I would think, to some of the samples on Blue Monday, etc. (that *was* on the US version of the album wasn't it?)

which isn't the same as actually conveying an connect with whatever affect was inserted, nor is it the same as expressing your own emotion (or even convincingly simulating it, which would be fine enough).

The Singles 1969-1973 [A&M, 1973]
The combination of Karen Carpenter's ductile, dispassionate contralto and Richard Carpenter's meticulous studio technique is admittedly more musical than the clatter of voices and silverware in a cafeteria, but it's just as impervious to criticism. That is, the duo's success is essentially statistical: I'll tell you that I very much like "We've Only Just Begun" and detest "Sing," but those aren't so much aesthetic judgments as points on a graph. C+

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

(These are better than some others I could have quoted.) Ultimately, I sometimes kind of wonder why he even bothers reviewing albums in these genres if that's all he ever has to say. (Because people like me keep reading, obv.) I find him very frustrating on 70s and 80s rock for essentially this reason. He just seems to not care for certain large genres and reviews them anyway, saying little of interest and to my eyes applying different standards to them than he does to the mass produced pop music he actually likes.

What, for example, does this actually say?:

Silent Alarm [Vice, 2005]
Benetton boys adrift on Tony Blair's morass of neoliberal compromise ("Helicopter," "Pioneer").

On the other hand I think he got at a potentially fundamental problem with Branca here:

The Ascension [99, 1981]
Okay, so he makes hot "experimental" ("serious") ("classical") ("new") music. What we wanna know is whether it's cool rock and roll ("rock"). Not by me. It's great sonically, with ringing overtones that remind me of a carillon or the Byrds, but the beat's overstated and the sense of structure (i.e. climax) mired in nineteenth-century corn. This can be endearing in Pete Townshend or Bruce Springsteen (maybe even opera), but it sounds weak-minded in an artist of such otherwise austere means. B

Kaiser Chiefs
Employment [Universal, 2005]
Provincial lads make a go of Tony Blair's morass of neoliberal compromise ("Saturday Night," "Born to Be a Dancer"). *

1) He's the Peter Gammons of music criticism

2) The idea of "Def Leopard as technocrats" is comedy of a very high order.

That's exactly how I view Bloc Party! (and I like them)

The combination of Karen Carpenters
ductile, dispassionate contralto
and Richard Carpenter's meticulous

studio technique is admittedly more
musical than the clatter
of voices and silverware
in a cafeteria, but

it's just as impervious to criticism
That is.

The duo's success is
essentially statistical:

I'll tell you that
I very much like "We've Only
Just Begun" and detest "Sing,"

but those aren't so much
aesthetic judgments as points on a graph.

The combination
of Karen Carpenter's ductile, dispassionate contralto
and Richard Carpenter's meticulous studio technique

is admittedly more musical
than the clatter of voices and silverware in a cafeteria,

but it's just as impervious to criticism.

That is,

the duo's success is essentially statistical:

I'll tell you that I very much like "We've Only Just Begun"
and detest "Sing,"

but

those aren't so much aesthetic judgments

as points on a graph.

In which Chuck Cleaver—Ass Ponys, you remember, they still play out around Cincinnati—joins unknown Lisa Walker, multi-instrumentalist Mark Messerly, and amateur drummer Dawn Burman for 11 three-minute songs, all about perfect, one after the other after the other. Small, but about perfect, with Walker handling the human detail and Cleaver tossing off metaphors—a sideshow horse, a shunt to drain the fear from his brain. It's an ideal partnership—vocally and lyrically, Walker grounds the old guy and he lifts her. The band sound is more Velvets than Burritos, yet country still. It's as if they've reduced all of white Ohio to an articulated drone, unlocked a silo or warehouse of hummable tunes, and worked out the harmonies.

Just wondering - should we turn this into a rolling Xgau thread so we don't do it all over again when the next CG comes out?

http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0543/ann-xgau.jpg

On Hysteria
by R. Christgau

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.

Okay,
so he makes hot
"experimental"
("serious") ("classical") ("new")
music.

What we wanna know
is whether it's cool
rock and roll
("rock").

Not by me.

It's great sonically,
with ringing overtones
that remind me of a carillon
or the Byrds,

but the beat's overstated
and the sense of structure
(i.e. climax)
mired in nineteenth-century
corn.

This can be endearing
in Pete Townshend
or Bruce Springsteen
(maybe even opera),

but it sounds weak-minded
in an artist of such otherwise
austere means.

which isn't the same as actually conveying an emotional connect with whatever affect was inserted, nor is it the same as expressing your own emotion (or even convincingly simulating it, which would be fine enough).

Thanks, slb, I think that's probably the best explanation I've read about what Christgau could possibly be on about in that New Order review. I think that's probably what he meant. New Order are neither expressing nor simulating an emotion (because that would mean suggesting that they themselves are experiencing the emotion) - rather they are presenting an emotion to us as a scientist might present a bacterium on a slide - something for our dispassionate and objective perusal.

Melding classic reggae and
Miami booty-bass,
Muddy Waters harp and
Schoolly-D scratch,
cocktail vibes and
sacred quartet.

The Native Tongue beatmaster
turned gravedigging heretic

assembles
"senseless skitstyle material"
by

"a motley crew of ill
characters and cronies
from around the way who
resemble a P-Funk on crack

(wait, P-Funk was on crack)"

into a disturbing laff
riot whose dramaturgy is

more musical than De La Soul's songs.

There's even a sweet-chorused
romantic ballad about
rape and homicide

two of each
but don't worry--
they're only a dream,

with a fake Viennese
muttering eager encouragement
in the background.

Unlike most punk lifers,
they've always yukked it up,
accepted outsiders,
and thought about

their feelings.

So I was pleased
rather than surprised
to learn that they'd
made their politics explicit.

Their attacks on religion
and hater hating
are right on

And why shouldn't
the guy who reads Zinn
and Chomsky
and then votes Nader
be confused?

Concomitantly
I was disappointed
rather than surprised
to find that the songs
about their personal world
are deeper than those
about our political one.

So
I'm glad quadriplegic Nubs
gets her impolitic two minutes.

And
my hopes for all humanity
leap

when a boy and girl
fall in love over the vinyl
they both own.

These 15 songs
are Muslim
like Philip Roth
is Jewish
irreverently, idiosyncratically, and to the marrow

Their North African provenance
means their sense of Islam is at least
unorthodox
and often
cosmopolitan/European

and so, of course, does their pop provenance

East-West instrument mixing
is standard
mystical intensity
a hook
Women
hold their own

Some of these professional entertainers
are seekers after the catchy tune
others folkloric types
who sound authentic to us and impure to adepts
and as many come from Paris or Barcelona
as from Cairo or Marrakech

You wouldn't think to listen
that they're all championing a cultural tendency under attack
But Islamists hate them as much as they hate us

if not more.