Christgau, Chusid, or DeRogatis: Which critic is the most useless?

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Who are the people pictured?

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:08 (seventeen years ago) link

"Having fun?"

http://www.calvin.edu/news/photos/faculty/pauley.jpg

― scott seward, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.musicobsession.com/Pictures/f/l/flipper46222.jpg

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:12 (seventeen years ago) link

They appear to be photographs of Rbt. Christgau, Irwin Chusid and Jim DeRogatis, at various points in their careers.

― Pye Poudre, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Except for that last one. I don't know who that is.

― Pye Poudre, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:14 (seventeen years ago) link

You will also notice that George Bush's point of view is more often discussed and evaluated than that of my Aunt Nina. This is not necessarily because George Bush's point of view is deemed better.

But by saying this, you are actually suggesting that rock critics have a great deal of power and authority, beyond just being people sharing their opinions like anyone else. And I think they do have some influence amongst people who take a serious interest in the music and have played a large role in shaping how people perceive things like popular music history, in shaping how people perceive what's worth talking about and in which terms, in forming a canon.

So I also sometimes wonder why journalistic rock criticism has taken on this cultural position. I might be a snobby academic, and this is kind of a half-formed thought, but I can at least understand why e.g. formally trained music theorists and historians have this role in classical music.

On the other hand, I can see why there's something great about the fact that someone can become a tastemaker without needing any formal music-related qualifications.

― Sundar, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link

hah the idea of academics being the alternative cultural gatekeepers makes the current situation seem a bit better doesnt it.

― deej, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha okay Sundar, substitute "Maureen Dowd" in that zing.

― nabisco, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, I'm not saying that would necessarily be better but why do you think it is better that journalists are the cultural gatekeepers?

― Sundar, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:22 (seventeen years ago) link

more democratic

― deej, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:22 (seventeen years ago) link

i mean i'm certainly not defending the 'state of things' as it is ...

― deej, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:23 (seventeen years ago) link

wait, the capitalist workplace is more democratic than academic institutions?

― Tim Ellison, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Lester Bangs might have produced the occasional tasty bon mot, but his opinions were no more valid than yours or mine.

But he's a better writer about music. Or me. That makes him more valid, o young one.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:36 (seventeen years ago) link

*better writer about music than you.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:38 (seventeen years ago) link

No, Sundar, I think you're right, and I chose the analogy a little lazily -- a president, once elected, has concrete authority over certain matters, whereas the authority of critics, editorial-writers, and pundits works via audience and persuasive argument and whatnot. That's not necessarily any less powerful a way for influence to work, but obviously a president has a few powers beyond that.

There's certainly stuff to judge there about the function of major critics as gatekeepers (and maybe our desire to make them gatekeep in a certain way, which still seems to be at stake when people get mad at a critic for liking the wrong thing -- people don't just care about the critic's taste, they care that the critic is convincing other people of it, on the record, gasp), but my main point was that there's always a common center of importance that we pay attention to and discuss, not because we deem it somehow authoritative and worth discussion, but just because it's in a position of centrality, and that makes it somehow inherently notable. (E.g., the news will cover Major League Baseball first, but that doesn't mean the minor leagues didn't have a more eventful game that day.)

― nabisco, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Actually I think what I'm circling around there is the difference between our respect for institutions and our respect for individuals: people who care if there's crap in the Voice music section care because they have a sense that the institution of the section itself should be good. People care about top-rank critics (when they do) in large part because those critics either occupy or ARE institutions that people have some stake in seeing be good.

― nabisco, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

That and "other people are paying attention to this, therefore it has importance whether I want it to or not, and therefore its content is important."

― nabisco, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:42 (seventeen years ago) link

a.k.a. "the reasons for you starting this thread are the same reasons that make critics meaningful"

― bernard snowy, Monday, 26 March 2007 22:56 (seventeen years ago) link

OMG HI 5Z WE DID IT

― nabisco, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:08 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.levity.com/corduroy/images/doughty1.gif

M. Doughty (1970 - )

Onward to Victory, mule,
with a subatomic glimmer of rage
humming a hot inch below the cheekbones

moving down Water Street like an ox
hound in fleshy lumber, muscles and lumps
pouched up and numb like insect bites

Inside the contours of veins blown up
by mosquitos into tidek balloons,
a single radiowave transmits itself
into loose bits of metal scattered around;
Keys. Beltbuckles. Scissors. Headphones.

Streetlights sizzle like bees being taken to slaughter.

On Water Street, two legs
are the chick of drills
spearing into the blacktop

in the light further down
what you can only hope will be
some Imperial China is actually
the orange noise
at the ends of cigarettes
glowing at your approach

T H E I N C R E D I B L E
M A G N E T I C M A N

Looking for a guy who�s done it? M. Doughty�s the dude. Once, a million years ago (like, in 1994) he was like, ticket-taker at a jazz club, moonlighting as a poet who dared to work with bongo accompaniment, OK?. Now, he leads the hit band Soul Coughing, touring the world and laying out the map for poetry�s Crossover Revitalization Program.

― rps, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Since learning that I had some favorite records/ groups in common with X'gau I've followed him pretty closely. He has turned me onto more good music than i care to go into. In my meager opinion he generally has great taste, that is, it coincides with my likes (which are radically different than almost everyone i know). And he can say more in fewer words than anybody. A+

― outdoor_miner, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Streetlights sizzle like bees

― rps, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:13 (seventeen years ago) link

If you don't like rock critics, DON'T FUCKING READ THEM!! You think I waste my free time browsing Robert Christgau's piece of shit website?

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:26 (seventeen years ago) link

yes

― m coleman, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Erm... bad english. Sorry about that. How do you "read" a rock critic?

Anyway, I hope you get my point.

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:28 (seventeen years ago) link

as always

― strongohulkington, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:32 (seventeen years ago) link

But he's a better writer about music (than you). That makes him more valid, o young one.

I disagree. It may have made his opinions more eloquently or cleverly expressed, but his writing skills bore no relationship to his taste. I can see what you're going for, but I think the argument is misguided.

I've got nothing against Lester Bangs. And I'm the first to admit that my own opinions are no more valid than anyone else's. The point is that any kind of artistic appreciation is wholly subjective, so criticism is basically an exercise in futility, no matter how much intellectual credence one may wish to lend it.

― souldesqueeze, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Christgau is the only person I've ever found who's as passionate about the Archers of Loaf as I am, so that alone endears him to me.

― bernard snowy, Monday, 26 March 2007 23:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Lester Bangs knew a hell of a lot about music and one might argue that he was an insightful thinker.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 00:03 (seventeen years ago) link

GRRRRRRRRRRR okay I'm sorry but I get REALLY sick of that fucking argument, and will not countenance it except maybe from well-meaning 16-year-olds who just had their MINDS BLOWN by the cool English teachers they're going to get their college-app recommendations from, or MAYBE stoned college freshmen just learning the wonders of the Stoner Solipsism Bubble, because at least that's preferable to their getting their Mind Blown Explanation to the Universe(TM) from Ayn Rand or Macro-econ 101.

Our opinions are subjective, no shit; if this makes talking about them an "exercise in futility," then you are claiming that ALL HUMAN COMMUNICATION IS POINTLESS, yes, no point sharing our subjective impressions and comparing them and being interested in other people's and maybe letting other people's subjective impressions influence our own, etc. etc.

And we know for a fact you DON'T BELIEVE THAT, because you've bothered posting to a message board and trying to communicate with other people, beyond which you're STILL ALIVE, and if you honestly believed in such a bullshit anti-human fake-logical position, you would be so much better off just killing yourself and not bothering the rest of us in our alleged Solipsism Bubbles.

P.S. All those caps are not just textual emphasis and are literally me YELLING AT YOU.

― nabisco, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 00:04 (seventeen years ago) link

"snrub otm!"

http://www.calvin.edu/news/photos/faculty/rooks.jpg

― scott seward, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 00:04 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, WTF, is it the INTERNET that's causing this ridiculous explosion of Solipsism True Believers who go around bothering you and (of all fucking things) TALKING TO YOU about how communicating with other people is totally futile??? This is the most ridiculous, pathetic, and (if you SERIOUSLY believe it) patently evil position a human being could possibly take, and yet here go people thinking it's some kind of brilliant idea.

― nabisco, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 00:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, he was also arguing that critics are full of themselves.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 00:10 (seventeen years ago) link

nabisco is yoga flame for all time

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 00:10 (seventeen years ago) link

"the musings of a self-proclaimed authority"

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 00:11 (seventeen years ago) link

http://cache.bordom.net/images/cb38cb5004473ea6ba5e8f8c2f602940.jpg

― NYCNative, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 00:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Don't worry, I'm not debasing the value of human communication. Jesus, people need to chill.

All I'm saying is that I don't believe in there being a heirarchy of opinion with regards to artistic media. People with a wider palate of a certain medium—by which I mean, those who have seen more films or read more books or listened to more records than the average person—can parlay that background into a potentially more comprehensive perspective, but that in and of itself does not make their opinions any more valid than those of your regular popcorn moviegoer. Even the most well-versed music lover has his or her own likes and dislikes, which are bound to skew their interpretation of a certain piece. No one's opinions should be taken as gospel; that's all I meant.

― souldesqueeze, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:09 (seventeen years ago) link

BRING BACK LOUIS JAGGER

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Let's face facts here—what M. Doughty does is generate mail.

― deusner, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:19 (seventeen years ago) link

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/rcmerritt/images/web/captain-obvious.jpg

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:19 (seventeen years ago) link

DAMN YOU PASSANTINO XXPOST

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:20 (seventeen years ago) link

"Jesus, people need to chill."

http://www.calvin.edu/news/photos/faculty/stapert.jpg

― scott seward, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Soulde, honestly the only person you're proving useless with this thread is yourself. You're spouting a bunch of cliched tripe about music criticism to a bunch of people you don't know, many of them music critics who have spent way more time thinking about this stuff than you have and have already encountered everything you're saying a million times.

If it's any consolation to you, new posters do this sort of thing all the time. In fact, I did it in some form by first defending "rockism" without really knowing what it was and then starting a thread where I was going to show all these 80s-lovers why they were actually wrong and the 80s were a crap decade for music.It's a little like sitting in on someone's second or third-year philosophy class and interrupting the professor in the first ten minutes by saying "But how do we really know anything?"

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:21 (seventeen years ago) link

It's a little like sitting in on someone's second or third-year philosophy class and interrupting the professor in the first ten minutes by saying "But how do we really know anything?"

This is one of the most otm things on this thread.

― max, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Damn, everything I'm saying is both clichéd and ignorant. Oh, but wait, it's okay, because other people have made similar asses of themselves here before. What a relief.

What percentage of users here get paid to review their mail?

― souldesqueeze, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:28 (seventeen years ago) link

well I can only speak for myself here, but sometimes I soak the stamps 'til the postmarks come off and then reuse them

― bernard snowy, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Isn't it spring break? Go out and do something disreputable.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:30 (seventeen years ago) link

I really hate loan offers that are made to look like official documents from a lender you're already using.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Thanks, but I'm long out of school.

― souldesqueeze, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Thanks, but I'm long out of school.

Ask for your money back.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 27 March 2007 01:33 (seventeen years ago) link

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