Indeed.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 13:55 (two years ago) link
he manages to be a bit idiosyncratic without actually being interesting most of the time
― ufo, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 14:00 (two years ago) link
Most of these are worthy of praise. Some of these are worthy of praise with sort of an asterisk (based on impact/import, say, or using hits collections as a kind of cheat). A few of these are A+ records only in Xgau's head, but keeping his tastes in mind for context I can see why he's at least argue the case. Like, there are a few things on there I don't personally *like* or listen to but I can see why they might mean a lot to someone else.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 14:02 (two years ago) link
100 CDs You Need To Own If You Are Opening Up A Coffeshop in 2008
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 14:07 (two years ago) link
Latin Playboys: Latin Playboys [1994, Slash/Warner Bros.]
This is the one that jumped out at me, atmospheric, slightly experimental latin roots rock.
His choices are certainly idiosyncratic - "Heart Of A Dog" is an A+ Laurie Anderson album?? And I dig Wussy but "Attica" isn't even their best. *shrug*
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 14:45 (two years ago) link
I love that Procol Harum album!
― what's fgti up to these days? nothing. she's fake (flamboyant goon tie included), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 14:55 (two years ago) link
imagine listening to so much music and still being so completely obsessed with posturing
― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:02 (two years ago) link
that is a dig at christgau to be clear.
― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:05 (two years ago) link
that Latin Playboys album is so good
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:07 (two years ago) link
I always look at lists like these to see what I can learn from them. I don't understand looking for overrated warhorses as an excuse to dismiss the entire list. Like, just now I started wondering, "maybe there's something I might appreciate in Lefty Frizzell...?"
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:11 (two years ago) link
chuckling at gogol bordello
― global tetrahedron, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:20 (two years ago) link
I see now that Wild Honey was part of that same RS 1967 roundup...He didn't quite list it on his Top 50 list recently (his wife did), but it was on his work list.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:29 (two years ago) link
yeah gogol bordello might be the only truly embarrassing selection
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:31 (two years ago) link
I don’t think the problem is a lack of overrated warhorses; for me, it’s a lack of many interesting/provocative choices around albums I do know (which would be signposts that there’s something to be learned from digging deeper). It just reads like some guy’s personal taste.
― like a d4mn sociopath! (morrisp), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:36 (two years ago) link
I don't know, I think those things are in there. Like, why this Tribe Called Quest album and not either of the first two? Why Sign o the Times and not Purple Rain? Flipside of that, why Born in the USA and not Born to Run? Many of these albums are warhorses or classics or canon or whatever because so much time has passed, but given so many of the artists listed are themselves warhorses or classic or canon themselves, sometimes the choices he makes can still be interesting. Again, like why that Ornette album, which iirc was even out of print for eons? Or why the first Paul Simon, but not Graceland (which got a rave of an A, which I suspect he downgraded from an A+ for political reasons)? Or how the African stuff might ostensibly be obvious (now), but honestly wasn't (and isn't) to the vast majority of Americans?
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:43 (two years ago) link
Or, for example, why those Dylan albums, out of all of them, including collections, get the A+s.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:44 (two years ago) link
that Tribe album is literally the only intersection with my own canon of 10/10s lol, difference being that I am not the soi-disant Dean of American Rock Critics
― imago, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:48 (two years ago) link
xp Well the Dylan choices are a good example—if those are someone’s three favorite Dylan releases since 1970 (including, exactly, the first few Bootleg Series collections), it’s hard to think our taste will be very simpatico. Somehow his choices are unexpected yet boring.
― like a d4mn sociopath! (morrisp), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:50 (two years ago) link
idgi, love and theft and the basement tapes are excellent picks
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:51 (two years ago) link
I think (per my Graceland example) his reasoning sometimes becomes more clear when you read the review(s). Other times, opaque and arbitrary, but it ain't a science.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:52 (two years ago) link
xpost But as canon building goes, would you tell someone to start with those? That's how I read his reviews when I was a lot younger. "Wow, an A+, I should start with such and such." Which I think is not necessarily the right way to do it.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:53 (two years ago) link
basement tapes is maybe a little unwieldy and steeped in its own myth, but fuck yeah i'd use love and theft to introduce someone to dylan and they'd probably really like it
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:54 (two years ago) link
One of his A plusses doesn't need to become an A plus for me (if I rated records) to be worth hearing.And true, these are not necessarily starter picks (though the compilations may well be).
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:54 (two years ago) link
I think just about every record up there is worth hearing. If they lead someone back to a better A- or B+ record, that works for me!
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:57 (two years ago) link
(xpost) I remember Graceland was an A+ on release, yes; Who's Next, too.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:57 (two years ago) link
Haha, I had no idea he like Procol Harum that much!
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:58 (two years ago) link
― imago, Tuesday, June 8, 2021 8:48 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
lj i feel there is stuff on this list u need to check out
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:59 (two years ago) link
*likes
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:59 (two years ago) link
A Thousand Leaves, excepting two standout tracks, is second worst SY album after NYC Ghosts. I was talking about this with a friend the other day— I don't go to SY for hippie noodling or for rocking indie-pop, I go to them for aggressive, noisy art-rock. A Thousand Leaves is a dull record and no critic will ever convince me otherwise.
― heyy nineteen, that's john belushi (the table is the table), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 15:59 (two years ago) link
they're good at hippie noodling though cf. murray street. a thousand leaves i would argue proves there's no binary between hippie noodling and noisy art-rock
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:01 (two years ago) link
it opens with "contre le sexisme" ffs
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:03 (two years ago) link
That's another good example—I'm not an SY head but I've listened to all the albums, and that one's like "huh?"
― like a d4mn sociopath! (morrisp), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:05 (two years ago) link
i'm not a christgau defender but i think he saw certain artists very clearly, chief among them al green and sonic youth imo
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:06 (two years ago) link
(I actually like NYC Ghosts, but I wouldn't give it an A+ either... I don't think they were going for a perfect grade, anyway, with that one)
― like a d4mn sociopath! (morrisp), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
thousand leaves is such a fucking awesome record and i encourage everyone to smoke a bowl and hang with it
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
With the exception of "Hits of Sunshine," I hear no hippy noodling on A Thousand Leaves.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
might be referring to "wildflower soul" as well idk
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:08 (two years ago) link
"Hoarfrost" is Ranaldo's best song, "Sunday" is the aggressive noisy art rock that table's looking for, and "Karen Koltrane" is spooky as fuck.
It's not an A+ but it's my favorite SY of the nineties: they stretched and it mostly worked.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:09 (two years ago) link
When CDs were still a thing, I burned or bought copies of Love and Theft to introduce skeptics to Dylan and it almost always worked. The reaction tended to be, "Whoa! This cranky old dude is fun!" Many skeptics come to him mythos-first, which would make me a skeptic too.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:10 (two years ago) link
upset that, AFAIK, "Karen Koltrane" has never been deployed in a horror film
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:10 (two years ago) link
Karen trips on a cloudSets down stars in her eyesShe's alone in a roomShe's deep inside of her mind
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:11 (two years ago) link
I wish I'd hung onto the LP.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:11 (two years ago) link
This reminds me, there was once a thread entitled something like "Would you trade all your records for those that Christgau rated A or higher?", which is a demented concept unless you are 10 years old or hate your music collection for some reason.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:12 (two years ago) link
"Hoarfrost" is Ranaldo's best song
This is the most absolutely wrong thing you've ever written on these boards, fwiw.
― heyy nineteen, that's john belushi (the table is the table), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:12 (two years ago) link
And also further proof that I shouldn't listen to y'all about SY. A Thousand Leaves sucks.
― heyy nineteen, that's john belushi (the table is the table), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:13 (two years ago) link
I contain wrongitudes!
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:13 (two years ago) link
The mere existence of "Mote" disproves your opinion about which is Lee's best track, and also "Goo" came out in 1990, so it wins for best SY of that decade afaic.
― heyy nineteen, that's john belushi (the table is the table), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:14 (two years ago) link
I gave up on Sonic Youth after hating the single from Dirty. I came back for Murray Street because the Borbetomagus horns were guests on one track, but it turned out they were barely audible, so I gave up again. I keep telling myself I should deep-dive their 90s/00s catalog, but something more enticing always comes up.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:15 (two years ago) link
Ranaldo's my least favorite of the songwriting trio precisely because he makes the most effort to make his okay lyrics legible, but I love at least a dozen of his songs.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:15 (two years ago) link
I mean, it's not like the Grateful Dead never got noisy. There's a similar sort of loose, jammy, psychedelic quality to ATL, although it's SY doing their take on it with their vocabulary, so I get what someone means if they call it "hippie noodling". (I also get why Dead- and Television-loving Christgau likes it.) I like it but I like all their albums.
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Tuesday, 8 June 2021 16:17 (two years ago) link
Fab! My own fave rave US Beatles cobble---in late 70s, used to play it at parties between Bollocks and B-52s debut:
Beatles VI includes two tracks featuring searing John Lennon vocals, recorded specifically for the North American market:[5] "Bad Boy" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", both covers of Larry Williams songs, and both recorded on Williams' birthday (10 May 1965), marking perhaps the only time that the Beatles recorded material especially for North America. "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" was part of the set of their 1965 US concerts and was soon included on the British release of the Help! album, but "Bad Boy" was not released in the United Kingdom or anywhere else in the world until 1966, when it appeared on the compilation A Collection of Beatles Oldies. These two songs, along with "Act Naturally" the following month, were the last cover songs recorded and released by the Beatles until "Maggie Mae" appeared on the Let It Be album in 1970.
Beatles VI also included:
the remaining six tracks from Beatles for Sale (i.e., those left off Beatles '65, although 2 such songs had been released on a single in February 1965)"Yes It Is", the B-side to the single "Ticket to Ride". This is a "duophonic" stereo remix from the original mono track, with additional echo and reverb.two other tracks from the forthcoming UK release of Help!: "You Like Me Too Much" and "Tell Me What You See"As on Beatles for Sale, the "Kansas City"/"Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" medley was originally listed only as "Kansas City". After attorneys for Venice Music notified Capitol of its error, the record label was soon corrected, although the album cover never was.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatles_VI
― dow, Saturday, 16 October 2021 17:22 (two years ago) link
Note wiki links to reviews; it did not always go officially unappreciated.
― dow, Saturday, 16 October 2021 17:24 (two years ago) link
Guitar Paradise of East Africa [1991, Earthworks]
Amazingly found an ancient blog post on this album from January 31, 2007 that also included a download link:http://whatsinmyipod.blogspot.com/2007/01/guitar-paradise-of-east-africa-kenya.html
And one of the compilers ("Dave") caught wind and posted this comment 1 year and 8 months later:"Thank you for daring to post this. As one of the compilers of this release it does my heart good to see that others enjoy this music as much as we did, sitting in dark rooms for months arguing which are the essential tracks to include. Viva Earthworks!"
Links were refreshed in 2014 - the "uloz" one still works.
― birdistheword, Saturday, 22 January 2022 17:28 (two years ago) link
I think I have that on cd.
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 22 January 2022 18:57 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I do too. Bought it because of xgau's review, and liked it, but seemed more low-key than what I was hoping for, not paradise of guitarrr celebration.
― dow, Saturday, 22 January 2022 19:14 (two years ago) link
from January 19 Christgau substack email:
You haven’t reviewed an Elvis Costello album since 1991 and haven’t A-listed one since 1986. Is there any hope that he will ever release an album up to your standards again? — Adam S. Fenton, Menifee, California
By “review” you seem to mean a full paragraph as opposed to an Honorable Mention sentence/clause. But Honorable Mentions are reviews by me. They represent at least three to five listens, often more while less is very unusual. Sometimes the writing is dashed off—if something succinct comes to me I thank the prose gods and go with it. Usually, however, I put real time into the first draft and go over it many times. In addition, at the bottom of my Costello page you’ll find a full-length review of his Roots show and collab written for MSN in 2013. Have played the new one once. Thought it began strong. Will return at my own pace.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 26 January 2022 05:22 (two years ago) link
In terms of the Universal era, he skipped When I Was Cruel altogether but besides the positive Roots show review he gave *** (the "highest" honorable mention) to Painted from Memory, The Delivery Man and The River in Reverse. Sounds about right though I'd probably do 'choice cuts' for the latter - some of the originals are gems, but as fine as the covers may be, I'd rather play the better known vintage recordings by Lee Dorsey et al.
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 26 January 2022 19:09 (two years ago) link
(Also IIRC honorable mentions are all B+'s, or would have been pre-honorable mention, which is kind of weird but that's what he said in a recent podcast interview.)
― birdistheword, Wednesday, 26 January 2022 19:11 (two years ago) link
Straying from the thread topic here, but I can't let a mention of Painted from Memory pass without repping for its sibling, The Sweetest Punch, with Bill Frisell arranging the former's songs for and fronting a truly fantastic band. A beloved album in my home.
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Wednesday, 26 January 2022 19:14 (two years ago) link
He's got two good songs, one brushed by chamber-y strings, the other by a bridge that leads me back though his album with Bacharach, briefly, though overall the setting of this one comes off kinda Motown---they both also end up fitting pretty well into Johnny Cash--Forever Words (Expanded Edition), the 2021 re-re-issue, which finally got to 34 tracks, sailing along. It's an army of artists responding to JC's previously unset lyrics, poems, even a sample of his comments on some of that, with the words coming through clearly enough on Costello's (and all other) ventures, seeming like some directions he might have gone in or come back to if he'd lived longer. Costello does 'em his way, but okay by (non-stan) me.
― dow, Wednesday, 26 January 2022 21:41 (two years ago) link
some directions that Cash might have etc.
― dow, Wednesday, 26 January 2022 21:42 (two years ago) link
Two good new songs
― dow, Wednesday, 26 January 2022 21:43 (two years ago) link
Christgau top albums of 2021 list is up
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 January 2022 01:12 (two years ago) link
how'd Wussy do?
― Animals must have a name (morrisp), Thursday, 27 January 2022 01:13 (two years ago) link
https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/deans-list-2021?r=khofd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
― o. nate, Thursday, 27 January 2022 01:28 (two years ago) link
lol Neil Young
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 27 January 2022 01:35 (two years ago) link
So although preliminary listening and research persuades me that Rolling Stone had reason to put Puerto Rican pop phenom Rauw Alejandro’s Vice Versa high on its list, there’s no way he’ll ever be Olivia Rodrigo or even Harry Styles for me unless he starts singing in English (as he probably will, to exactly what effect is another matter). And while there’s no denying that Toronto’s Tamara Lindeman showcases actual songs on Pitchfork’s seventh-ranked Weather Station album Ignorance, their smug gentility reminds me all too vividly of Joan Baez putting me off lo these many decades ago. Which isn’t even to mention the impressionistic musical poesy of Pitchfork’s second-place L’Rain, or the huzzahs that greeted my old fave Jazmine Sullivan when she compensated for her songwriting drought by inviting women to contribute spoken-word accounts of their sexual travails and got album-of-the-year plaudits from Pitchfork for the dodge
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 January 2022 15:54 (two years ago) link
Correct about Sullivan, RONG about the Weather Station.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 27 January 2022 15:57 (two years ago) link
Figures: he's always had a blind spot about Baez's better albums, and, closer to Lindeman's sound, early Joni as well. Haven't gotten into L'Rain's album, though will listen more; she's effective on the xpost Bowie trib, Modern Love.
― dow, Thursday, 27 January 2022 16:45 (two years ago) link
I remember noticing a couple years back that Firesign Theatre was the first act to whom he'd awarded two A+ grades, and a friend rightly said, "how like Christgau of you to notice"
― three of the doctor's valuable bats are now dead (broom air), Thursday, 27 January 2022 17:24 (two years ago) link
sexual travails: manages to be a lofty shit even "just" en passant; that's some A Movable Feast-level shit, class out the ass!
― dow, Thursday, 27 January 2022 17:36 (two years ago) link
Something Scott Woods created, a tribute to some of Christgau's A+ albums. I'm one of the readers, fumbling my way through his Attica review--also Kevin Bozelka and a couple of others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIIfvvDzI2w
― clemenza, Friday, 28 January 2022 15:55 (two years ago) link