sometime i read christgau and am amazed...

(I'm not into those French guys.)

I need a new job. This one leaves me too much dead time with a PC in front of me.

x-post: Rockist, who do you think actually falls in this category? Obviously, you can't say that about Christgau in general.

What I've seen of Christgau often falls into this category, but I haven't gone out of my way to read him.

xpost: DING DING DING DING DING

Sort of like salsa music, Rockist? Do you not think that's "worthwhile for its own aesthetic value, or for what it reveals about its author" either, since people dance to it? Bizarre. How, exactly, does walking prevent a person from chewing gum??

How it's different from music designed to be danced to I'd have to think about. I guess for one thing, in my experience, salsa or some other music made to accompany dancing is enjoyable to me when I'm just listening to it without dancing.

Also, if I went out to see a salsa band, with the intention of dancing, and found that they were going off on their own tangents which made it difficult to dance to them, I'd be frustrated and feel cheated (unless I just happened to really like their tangents). In a similar way, if I read one of Christgau's really compact, elliptical and hard to decipher reviews, when I wanted to get an idea of how something sounded, I'd be unsatisfied.

And I guess my complaint would be with critics who aren't taking care of the functional side of their work.

So mainly, you enjoy cookbooks, phone books, and auto repair manuals?

BUT...

I think that game reviewer as a whole definitely take the course that I think Rockist is talking about -- i.e. giving consumers nuts-and-bolts explanations of a consumer product and what works and doesn't work about it...

Obv. games are different because they are software as well as art--- bad graphics or technical glitches are just bad graphics and technical glitches -- there's no "lo-fi" charm in gaming...so we have a lot more simply "black and white" issues that aren't really a matter of taste or philosophy....but it is funny because this discussion would never happen with a bunch of game journalists....

I sometimes wonder as games get more complex in terms of plot/story/emotional content if this might change...obv. graphics are getting better and better so in the future technical issues won't be as paramount in the minds of gamers...hopefully they'll become more focused on the impact and style of the experience...

"Believes in reincarnation, wishes the pope had a bigger dick" = "All music is horrible." How could anybody have interpreted it otherwise?

x-post: chuck, that's a pretty limited view of what sort of books would fit my description.

Examples of critics I think do the fuctional thing well? I don't follow any particular music writers, so that makes it difficult for me to give examples. I'll try to think of an example. I like what I've read about Arabic music by A. J. Racy, though he's more ethnomusicologist than critic. I also found ethnomusicologist Lise Waxer helpful on salsa.

(What little exposure I've had to Christgau's writing gives me a really visceral negative reaction, which I guess is why I always end up jumping into these Christgau threads.)

*

Maybe this is a delayed reaction to my having spent too much time in my teens so focused on poetry? At any rate, I mostly read non-fiction books about things that interest me. The artistic side of reading is of pretty marginal interest to me.

The review was under his "Honorable Mention" category, which is reserved for albums that are good, even "solid," but not great. So I don't think he's being snide...flip maybe, but hey, it's not as if Blondie are strangers to flippishness.

how many people who contribute to these threads actually read Christgau

As the originator or the tread, I feel I should respond:

I've been reading Christgau since I discovered the Village Voice in the University of Illinois' (Urbana-Champaign) main library about 13 years ago. Since the music section is online now, I read just about every word he publishes. Hell, I even read (and finished, mind you) his Believer article on the roots of minstrelry.

Some of his articles have moved with me to every apartment I've lived in since the day I first read them. His article on Freedy Johnston's Can You Fly, titled Arguing with Perfection, is one of my absolute favorite pieces of music writing ever.

Sure, oftentimes I don't get him on the first read, or even the second read, or (I'll admit it) even on the third. When I do, I find myself paid in full for *my* (emphasis added for his editor, whom I understand thinks I need to be spoonfed) effort and his. But in all honesty, the pope's-dick line is such a throwaway as to come off as being for the guys on bathroom break at the symposium. "Hey, Greil! Chuck! Whadya think of that one? Heh, heh."

Like I said, sometimes I'm amazed, others confounded.

I'm just saying that if you're gonna argue that music criticism has an inherent aesthetic value (as you clearly believe), then for the sake of intellectual consistency an inherent respect for the aesthetic value of the musical work of others should follow as well. This particular case - Blondie/Xgau - I don't really give a shit about. It just irritates me to see people who dismiss other people's careers with 10 words get all hyper-defensive when the value of their own careers are questioned.

any idea where one can find this online?

It just irritates me to see people who dismiss other people's careers with 10 words

If you were paying attention, you'd understand that he's not dismissing their career. If you read more of his work, you might know that he called Parallel Lines "as close to God as pop-rock albums ever get, or got."

Thanks for playing.

(x-post)

What does this "inherent respect for the aesthetic value of the musical work of others" entail? You mean ALL PEOPLE'S MUSICAL WORKS OF ALL TIMES? If you believe rockcrit has worth, then you can't EVER be mean or irreverent or flip or silly or dismissive about a piece of music? Even ones you like? Why the fuck would anybody want to do that? NOBODY does this. Not critics, not listeners, not musicians, not fans, nobody. Maybe bizarro l'art pour l'art idolators do, but who takes THEM seriously?

this is what we call 'a distinction without a difference'

about a zillion x posts

The format of the 10-word joke review is inherently dismissive to whatever it's reviewing. By extension, being casually dismissive of the aesthetic value of that 10-word review is only fair.

even if it says more than 600 words? some examples.

do you think that 10 minutes songs are better than 3 minute ones?