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

With Christgau, even the simplest concepts get tangled and bent. To wit: "What the noisemakers proved is that Lydon's (not to mention McLaren's) exultant contempt for their supposed incompetence--even in this era of good feeling, the story circulates that two decades' worth of accrued skills compelled them to practice being 'bad'--is mean, defensive bushwa." You're constantly backpedaling, shaking the meaning loose from the knotty chain, scraping the meat off of an alien bone structure that's as dense and spindly as a dead, curled-up tarantula. It's unnecessary. Some would even say it's bad writing. (I'm waiting for a bolt of lightning to crash through the heavens and strike me dead.) Bad writing. Real crap.

(enough of this ^ plz, thx)

While the latter is certainly possible, it's seldom worthwhile.

"This U.S. debut, a best-of that highlights the soulful ache in the vocals and the quirky opacities in the lyrics and does what it can for a modest tune sense, honors that suspect notion."

i suspect he didn't read it a second time, and who edits this? fire him..

I read somewhere - I think an interview on rockcritics.com - that Chuck Eddy edits Christgau's stuff. I do not know if this is true or not...

Okay, I looked it up and he does:

Steven:   Do you edit Christgau's music stuff?
Chuck:   Yeah, almost all of it.
Steven:   You do?
Chuck:   Yeah, I edit both the "Rock & Roll &" column and the "Consumer Guide."

http://www.rockcritics.com/interview/chuckeddy.html

This is even more ungrammatical than Christgau's original! The part before the semi-colon needs to be an independent clause in order for the use of the semi-colon to be correct (ie., you seem to be overlooking the "when" at the beginning - the same mistake I made when I first read the sentence (which, by the way, I'm still not 100% sure I understand, even though I think I am now parsing it correctly)).

Sometimes I think this board is like an entire OG Star Trek civilization that based itself on a left-behind copy of the Consumer Guide.

Anyhow, don't really understand the Xgau cult, but I haven't spent enough time with him to really develop a strong opinion.

wow. where to find, please?

On Metal and Shells
by R. Christgau

When what the Brits
call pop
isn't popular,
it's usually rock and roll chamber music
if it's any good at all.

This U.S. debut,
a best-of that highlights
the soulful ache in the vocals
and the quirky opacities in the lyrics
and does what it can for a modest tune sense,
honors that suspect notion.

It's not stylized,
and not static either,
but it's pretty subtle,

and its half-finished edges
and kinetic lyricism
are best appreciated in tranquility
if not repose.

Where it can be expected to unfold for quite a while.

That review reads a lot better in the poetry format, with all the whitespace. My eyes have been opened.

The "suspect notion" is a sly nod to Stiff Little Fingers "Suspect Device."

It's in her book Love Trouble which every American should own.

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2003/12/rmn_holiday_box.html

A final point will be that if you're interested in Christgau's ideas but find his writing difficult (and his ideas incomplete), then your contribution to a thread like this will be more interesting than if you have no interest in the man or his ideas.

(Btw, I find Christgau maddening because he doesn't take his ideas as far as he should, or clarify them when he needs to, but I wouldn't find him maddening if I didn't think he had incipient ideas worth thinking through.)

My beef w/ Christgau is similar to Kogan's - his near-mystical vagueness. When his observations don't resonate they read like someone enjoying the pleasant tones of his own voice. When his ideas don't hold up I feel like I've just used the record review section of the newspaper as a Word Jumble substitute; mental excercise without the benefit of revelation. When they do, well, it's why he's worth reading at all.

Susan OTM re: the cult. Question Christgau and some people react like you're doodling cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

I wish this was true – it's a good line.

Please post so I can convert to free verse.

New Order, Low-Life
Where once they determined to keep all affect out of their music, now they determine to put some in. Any dance-trance outfit that can lead off its Quincy Jones debut with an oblique "Love Me Do" quote has its heart (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in the right place, so one doesn't want to quibble. But inserting affect isn't the same as actually feeling something, and it isn't the same as expressing (or even simulating) a feeling, either. B+

Where once they determined
to keep all affect out of their music,
now they determine to put some in.

Any dance-trance outfit
that can lead off its Quincy Jones debut
with an oblique "Love Me Do" quote

has its heart
(or a reasonable facsimile thereof)
in the right place,

so one doesn't want to quibble.
But inserting affect
isn't the same as actually feeling something,

and it isn't the same as
expressing (or even simulating)
a feeling, either.

"Main Entry: 1af·fect
Pronunciation: 'a-"fekt
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin affectus, from afficere
1 obsolete : FEELING, AFFECTION
2 : the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes"

He's basically saying that once they studiously avoiding displays of emotion. Now they seem to be trying to inject some, but Christgau's not buying it.

i thought this was an example of how they insert the affect. how can they have their "heart in the right place" with it and yet its not meaningful. heart in the right place is weird. it seems like he's contradicting himself, but he's just using heart in the right place as their intentions were right...ok but isn't the problem the intentions. NEVERMIND! i'm probabaly lagging behind :(

and susan, i think heart in the right place just means, he's sympathetic to their effort even if he thinks they're not quite up to it.