sometime i read christgau and am amazed...

how is that a "questionable call" unless he's changed his mind? (which in any case we are all allowed to do?) i mean i pretty much disagree but if that's what he thinks...

personally i consider that i have had 0 "questionable calls" to date, bar a couple of times when i gave something 4 stars when it should have had 3

damn u must be the best critic ever

he doesn't like metal; this is not fucking news

I thought I saw Christgau write somewhere that once he settles on a letter score for a record he never changes his mind. Has anyone else seen a quote to this effect?

to me it's not so much the opinion as howlers like "I feel entitled to put this in its place" that make the Sabbath review worthy of ridicule, although really he said much more embarrassing shit about Hendrix

I like Master Of Reality (and have yet to listen to The END as the singles grate, though its possible it works once your fifteen minutes deep into their madness) but looking at the words rather than the grades, the only thing i really question is the idea that black sabbath is an "amoral exploitation."

xpost he changed quite a few grades from print versions before publishing each decade's consumer guide boook, and he said "aw, this shit should be an A, not an A-" after reading his capsule for Ready To Die at a record store in Philly a couple years ago, so no, he doesn't seem to be set in stone on these things at all.

lol i don't think he actually said "this shit," thoughtless paraphrase on my part.

well i don't think the comparison of sabbath to grand funk has really held up either

Doubt their American audiences were all that dissimilar, fwiw. (Plus they both did songs called "Paranoid"!)

He especially seems to change Madonna and Graham Parker grades, for some reason. (Or at least he used to.)

he definitely missed what's made black sabbath so enduring, but the context of the comparison is that,apparently at the time, a lot of critics felt like what's a hit with the rock kiddies must be good, and that like, grand funk, he felt black sabbath was in danger of getting the same unwarranted approval. that people continue to like sabbath and nobody talks about grand funk doesn't change that.

xpost

haha xhuxk do you ever think two acts using the same song title actually has some profound meaning or do you just like dropping it into conversations as if it does?

Yes.

i talk about grand funk all the time. i'm people!

x-post

you and homer simpson

at the time, a lot of critics felt like what's a hit with the rock kiddies must be good

Don't think it was a lot of critics. Probably just a couple punks at Creem -- Bangs, obviously, and Marsh, who was more ambivalent about it. Maybe a stray Metal Mike Saunders too, but hardly a major movement, I don't think. (But yeah, they were who Xgau was reacting to. Though I'm pretty sure Metal Mike, at least, "actually played the records". Possible that Christgau hadn't actually met him, though.)

the funny thing is that now it's hard to think of anything that was popular in the '70s that no critic would be willing to stick up for, pretty much everything has its champions now.

Hey, it was a great decade! (Actually can imagine some sub-soft-rock MOR stuff that nobody's ever made a case for, actually. But give it time.)

yeah when i was trying to think of caveats only some kinds of soft rock came to mind

the funny thing is that now it's hard to think of anything that was popular in the '70s that no critic would be willing to stick up for, pretty much everything has its champions now.

inlcuding this fucking guy?

http://dummidumbwit.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/manilowyoungpiano.jpg

pretty sure xgau was talking about a trait in regards to popular rock not like "well if the jackie gleason orchestra is at #1 it must be good"

don't think marsh embraced sabbath at all, populist sympathies or o/wise - he certainly gave their recs really stinky reviews in the ROLLING STONE RECORD GUIDE

i've been flipping through the 1983 edition of that puppy a lot lately and man, it's a shame that in a time of so much dross (just in sheer numbers) that you don't see a ton of one-star discography slams of Pete Yorn or whoever in newer books.

"Lester Bangs and I have both been listening to Black Sabbath a lot -- actually, I sort of leave it up to him to put it on, since I'd OD'd on Master Of Reality before his return from Sweet Home San Diego, and sometimes things need a rest." -- Dave Marsh, "Crazy About the La La" (his defense of Grand Funk, Sir Lord Baltimore, and other "third generation rock"), Creem, 1970 (reprinted, and also recanted actually, in Fortunate Son: The Best Of Dave Marsh.)

pretty sure xgau was talking about a trait in regards to popular rock not like "well if the jackie gleason orchestra is at #1 it must be good"

― da croupier, Tuesday, February 9, 2010 11:13 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

pretty sure "xgau" was talking out of his fucking ass.

"Doubt their American audiences were all that dissimilar, fwiw."

How is this relevant at all?

^^^iommi sock

man it must be flattering when people are frothing at the mouth about your capsule dis almost forty years after the fact

Totally -- I wish people would do that to my 25-year-old Rock-a-Ramas.

what's a rock-a-rama

this revive mainly revolving around Sabbath and Walkmen reviews that have been discussed on ILM many times before makes me think the guy can't really have that many reviews that make easy targets for ridicule

wait, hold on.

the grand funk reference appears to be to xgau himself. he's saying he spearheaded, or at least joined, a critical bandwagon that claimed that GF was returning to the rock 'n' roll verities. xgau thinks this has gone too far, and so for some obscure reason he wants to compensate by putting the brakes on ANOTHER supposed critical cliche, the celebration of black sabbath. or something.

like a lot of xgau it's sort of hermetic but whatever he's saying he's not really likening GF to black sabbath sonically.

xpost

xgau has TONS of weird capsule reviews which we've discussed ad infinitum on ILM.

i sometimes admire the density of xgau's capsule reviews on a level of linguistic invention (except when they become SO compressed and elliptical that practically nobody can follow what he's saying, which we discussed on a thread about one of his missy elliott reviews) , but in terms of what he is actually saying about the music i often find it wanting.

really tempted to repost that "her varieties were delicious" freaky-sex-tales-with-Sarah-Vaughn one again, even though I'm sure it's been discussed on ILX before

kneejerk dismissals of xgau are about as boring as other folks' ardent, sometimes clannish, defense of everything he has ever written.

xxpost

shame rockcrit is too ghettoized for that to have placed in the annual "bad sex in literature" awards

ah, hell.

Sarah caught my eye at a Romare Bearden opening. Two nights later I bought her dinner at Alison on Dominick. The sex was lush, cushiony, companionable, matter-of-fact--no tricks to speak of, but she knew her own body and had ideas about mine. The subtlety of her variations was delicious. Later, though, I heard she'd wrinkled her nose at my personal hygiene. Sassy, my sweet, what are a few skid marks between friends?

After Lucille beat me at nine-ball in the back of a keno parlor, we went out for ribs and ended up bringing some Bacardi back to her place. The sex was hot and candid, lots of tongue, teeth, and growl, and though I'd expected raunch, only toward the end did she get all "I'll do it to you honey till I make you shit." This wasn't literally true, but it might as well have been. Later, though, I heard she'd bad-mouthed me for not delivering on that rim job. Bessie, I swear, it just slipped my mind.

seriously though let's get back to that mama cass review. what the hell? is that supposed to be some meta-offensive thing (like he's cryptically distancing himself from the "fatso" line)? is it a lame shock tactic--"i'll offend propriety and good taste in the name of insulting this terrible album"?

seems like the pre-internet equivalent of trolling, honestly.

xpost

anyone who describes anything sexual as "delicious" is instantly creepy.

kneejerk dismissals of xgau are about as boring as other folks' ardent, sometimes clannish, defense of everything he has ever written.

^

good christ what in the fuck is that

full link (from 2005): http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/recyc/vaughan-05.php

as much as i can appreciate the metaphorical attempt of that review, i dunno if anyone can defend publishing the sentence "sassy, my sweet, what are a few skid marks between friends?"

so he's basically comparing vaughan's sophisticated-but-sultry ballad singing to lucille bogan's raunchy single-entendres via an elaborate narrativized sex metaphor? seems sort of show-offy.

if some kid at a college newspaper wanted to review a sarah vaughn comp and the "shave em dry" dirty blues comp by talking about how it was when he fucked both the singers, well, what would everyone think of that?

ask Chuck, he edited it after all.

i would want to see a photo of the college student who wrote "the subtlety of her varities was delicious" is what i'd think

actually a college newspaper would probably be dunderheaded enough to publish that.

honestly the review doesn't really offend me, it's just a dumb literary conceit that should have been ixnayed by the editor on the grounds of its stupidity. hi chuck.

xgau dot com should have comments boxes

ilm would die a lonely death.