Great albums Robert Christgau hates

If it ain't broke, etc. Leave Home and Nation of Millions didn't fuck with the sound too much either.

Evil Empire [Epic, 1996]
Three years late, it's the militant rap-metal everybody knew was the next big thing. Zack de la Rocha will never be Linton Kwesi Johnson. But collegiate leftism beats collegiate lots of other things, not to mention high school misogyny, and it takes natural aesthetes like these to pound home such a sledgehammer analysis. A-

No it's not. Jello doesn't sound a damn thing like Tiny Tim - he sounds like Ethel Merman, har! And basing half the review on a "I'm not sure what his background is but I am GUESSING he's a punk-come-lately" sort of thesis is stupid. And how can you even review that album without mentioning the lyrics?

The Daft Punk review isn't nearly as dismissive as what the Avalanches said (while being a lot funnier)

Well, this is more of a "this is one of the greatest albums I've heard and Rob just shat on it" thread than anything - "dumb crap"? "smart crap"? "ecological"? And what's with the jingoistic bullshit in the Daft Punk piece? Talk about butts being plugged...

dissing Christgau for dissing Clinton is like saying Joe Torre can't win in the postseason becuz he lost to the Angels (Christgau did list George Clinton as one of his best artist of the 70s, alongside Al Green and Neil Young, something not too many critics, nevertheless white critics, would have done at the time).

Yeah, but when did he name Clinton to that list? I'm pretty sure he wouldn't've based solely on the early acid-rock Funkadelic (which I admit to liking more than is probably recommended); he didn't give any Funkadelic record higher than a "B+" until 1975 ("But at this point I'm inclined to trust the music, which is tough-minded, outlandish, very danceable, and finally, I think (and hope), liberating"). I still think he's mostly wrong about their early stuff.

Walking With Thee has disappointed me more than any other album this year [...] so regurgitations that seemed really fresh the first time round merely seem regurgitated the second time out.

Yeah, it's disappointed lots of people, which leads me to wonder what the hell they were expecting - 12-minute free-jazz freakouts? It's their second full-length! The more people complain about how disappointing it is, the more I look for the great things about it, the more they stand out, and the higher it climbs onto my Best of 2002 list.
(I probably should have chosen less "revolutionary" examples and more examples of ordinary bands who continued to Not Suck when following up acclaimed albums with similar efforts. The Replacements' Hootenanny, maybe.)

Am I to assume you basically agree with his opinion of Abba?

I have better reasons for ignoring them besides "those fucking filthy evil Europeans like them".

Boy [Island, 1980]
Their youth, their serious air, and their guitar sound are setting a small world on fire, and I fear the worst. No matter where they're starting off--not as big as Zep, maybe, but not exactly on the grunge circuit either--their echoey vocals already teeter on the edge (in-joke) of grandiosity, so how are they going to sound by the time they reach the Garden? What kind of Christian idealists lift their best riff from PIL (or from anywhere at all)? As bubble-headed as the teen-telos lyrics at best. As dumb as Uriah Heep at worst. C+

Niggaz4life [Ruthless, 1991]
This is supposed to be where they finally slam nonstop. In fact, however, the music's just like the lyrics--market-ready. Catchy, yes, and funky in its laid-back electro way, but never hard enough to scare off the novelty audience. Which might be fun if they didn't outpig the LAPD in the bargain. Can Chuck D really believe they mean what they say? Sure they really hate women, and anybody else who looks at them funny. But unless they're even sicker than they seem, they're too greedy to murder anybody as long as they can make so much money fronting about it. And so they've calculated every rhyme to push somebody's button--to serve up the thrill of transgression to ghettobound and merely ghettocentric young-black-males, and also to the big score, culturally deprived white boys seeking exotic role models. That kids will take them at their word obviously doesn't concern niggaz who'll be hard-pressed to contain their pent-up hostility after the bubble bursts. It'd be nice to think they'll off each other when that great day comes, but I doubt they have the balls. So in the interests of public safety, pray they don't get taken by their investment advisors. C-

Just kidding. Means "on the money" (though I recently thought it meant "on the mark" - and originally "of the moment")

"Once there was a sensitive, conceited young fellow named Jonsi Birgisson who lived on a permafrost island surrounded by a cold, dark sea. Jonsi was a well-meaning person who loved music, and he yearned to put more warmth in the world even though he wasn't exactly sure what warmth was. Not just "throwing an electric blanket on the corpse of electronica," that he knew. Jonsi longed to blaze "inspired new avenues in sonic landscapes," to deliver "shamelessly tear-stained epics" in "the falsetto cadence of angels," to turn "4AD-styled, sepia-toned instrumental passages" into "awe-inspiring new-religious mantras." Stuff like that. He did all this and more on a thematically linked work where some of the sonic landscapes were entrancing (although not warm). Because he was conceited, sometimes he would announce that these soundscapes were destined to change musical history, and then sometimes mean people would make fun of him. But he always had the perfect retort. "You have to admit I'm smarter than Enya," he would say. And about that he was certainly right. B"

Hard to top that, really.

I am using OTM in this instance to mean I dislike the album, am annoyed by its good rep, and am glad Christgau slams it.

Certainly doesn't have a good rep on ILM...

And what's with the jingoistic bullshit in the Daft Punk piece?

Remember Nate, we are at CULCHER WAR! The American underdog must defend himself from the hordes of evil Europeans trying to shove Cliff Richard, Heino and Johnny Hallyday down his throat!

Hey, so when that kind of thing happens with various celebrities, do we assume that they find the reference of them using google? and since that type of response is relatively prompt more often than not, does that mean that they're googling their own names, like, almost every day!?

also he is unphased by Luomo's Vocalcity and DJ DB's History of Our World Pt. 1 and he is WRONG WRONG WRONG.

What, you DON'T?

Because he wrote or co-wrote the standard critical lines on the Stones, the New York Dolls, Al Green, the Clash, Public Enemy and any number of lesser-known artists of a similar level of achievement... More importantly, he and Greil Marcus brought SLEATER-KINNEY to the world's attention and thus is one of the greatest Americans not named Corin, Carrie or Janet.

The cultural war thing doesn't interest me much though, mainly because I don't listen to much self-consciously American music.

american music club -- falco -- the wipers -- screaming trees -- mudhoney -- the verlaines -- the proclaimers -- flaming lips -- the misfits -- swell maps -- pop will eat itself -- durutti column -- the primitives -- henry rollins -- the chameleons -- band of susans -- skinny puppy -- christmas -- social distortion -- talk talk -- squirrel bait -- felt -- everything but the girl -- gene loves jezebel -- swing out sister -- nitzer ebb -- the shaggs -- 24-7 spyz -- modern english

James : Assuming I know what you're getting at, given that in England an onion is a vegetable. The British use the word comes with an attmosphere of patrionizing derision (as opposed to "cunt" which comes with straight out agression)

B.Rad : This intrigues me. What are the "standard" lines on these artists? Is he famous because he invented lines everyone agrees with?

Tim : "Often when I'm listening to something and I'm struggling to articulate my reaction, I'll just read the relevant Consumer Guide entry and borrow Christgau's opinion wholesale." This is irony, right?

I have to admit that he does have a purpose: when he's slagging a band you hate, he is the Greatest Living Pop Culture Writer Ever.

Wasn't xgau notably complaining about rockism back in the late 80s?

i think just made someone change screennames

speaking of the dawn of the thread, i'm curious what lead you to reviving it. were you looking at xgau reviews, wanted to discuss it, and then searched for the appropriate thread? were you searching for christgau threads, found this one - started in 2002, last revived in 2011 - and then went looking for reviews that fit the bill?

― da croupier

i found this christgau site via wiki chronic page, and then searched for "christgau". why?

Hadn't noticed his thing or thang against Bernie Worrell until now, but will choose to ignore it, as one has to sometimes do with the Dean. In other words, Treeship otm.

i was curious, auk - there have been a lot of xgau threads over the years, and plenty in the last few months. for someone to open an old one with "HAHA Music Critics" with a piece of 20+ year old criticism - just wondered what would lead to that.

because music criticism is really all a big joke, it should be laughed at, because it's funny. i'm not saying i'm anti it, or hating on it, it's just a thing not to take seriously.

also not to say good music criticism isn't interesting. but when the most famous (?) music reviewer labels such albums as "duds" is funny.

lots of people think music criticism is a joke - that doesn't lead to them posting 20 year old examples on 3 year old threads

sorry, 13 year old threads last updated more than 3 years ago

but anyway, yeah - xgau! what an ironically dismissive clown. makes weird word choices, has obvious biases. only nerds like him can even parse his shorthand. xgau!

The scales have fallen

And I'm not even a big fan of Doggystyle and Chronic. They're not albums I have been interested in listening to that much.

Dirty Dancing [RCA Victor, 1987]
Five pre-Beatle classics plus six postmodern horrors equals the soundtrack to the world's longest rock video, a brutally depressing top-forty apotheosis. The comparisons are torture--revolting as the contempo material is, it sounds even worse in among the Five Satins and Mickey & Sylvia, who are in turn rendered unlistenable by the commercial manipulations that bring them back to commercial life. Even accessory before the fact Phil Spector sounds not just innocent but simple up against the technocratic ardors of Medley & Warnes's Grammy/Oscar-validated "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" or Eric Carmen's merely radio-validated "Hungry Eyes." The new songs epitomize AOR as CHR, turning everything rock and roll taught us about rhythm and emotion into the melodrama that prerock schlock left behind when it abandoned operetta and the drawing-room ballad. They're almost as good a reason to hate mass culture as Ronald Reagan. D

I'd hesitate to call the Dirty Dancing soundtrack a "great album", but that review is so incredibly wrongheaded and stupid that I had to post it here.

he did finally get Illmatic a couple years ago, enough to reevaluate:

Illmatic [Columbia, 1994]

In Mo' Meta Blues, Questlove describes "hip hop's funeral": the battle of the debuts at the Source Awards, when Biggie's Ready to Die buried Nas's Illmatic, already a critical and in-crowd legend, and he watched Nas "wilt in defeat" in the Tommy Hilfiger shirt his manager had just financed. Sez Quest to Black Thought: "He's never going to be the same. You just watch." And he was right. Nas immediately transformed himself into a hit-seeking faux gangsta of depressing conventionality and didn't make another good record for eight years. That still begs the question, however, of exactly how good this spartan effort was and is. Better than I thought at the time for sure--as happens with aesthetes sometimes, the purists heard subtleties principled vulgarians like me were disinclined to enjoy, especially beatmaking where Large Professor along with such fellow New York smoothies as Pete Rock, Q-Tip, and the great Premier convert samples into haunting looped groove elements. Also enjoyable is Nas's ability to transform simple lines like "I never sleep because sleep is the cousin of death," "I'm out for presidents to represent me," "The world is yours," and even "One love, one love" into de facto hooks. And my mind tells me that I have to admire how cagily he walks the line between doing the crime and hanging with homies for whom nothing else is "real" even if my heart isn't in it. All that said, however, Ready to Die still gets my vote. A-

And my mind tells me that I have to admire how cagily he walks the line between doing the crime and hanging with homies for whom nothing else is "real" even if my heart isn't in it. All that said, however, Ready to Die still gets my vote.

xp - I don't think he did.

If you think an ambivalent reaction is less interesting or honest than canned enthusiasm, then flap your wings, flightless wonder.

He placed Black Messiah at 17th best album of 2014. Above was things such as Azealia Banks, Beyonce and Kate Tempest mediocre run of the mills.

The man is not to be taken seriously.

If you think an ambivalent reaction is less interesting or honest than canned enthusiasm, then flap your wings, flightless wonder.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, April 20, 2015 2:35 PM (

Less interesting? You said he "finally got it". I said, he clearly states he didn't. And then compared it to his preference of Ready To Die. I declare: He doesn't get it.

we had a poster a while ago who would praise people for "getting it" and criticize them when they didn't "get it". people seemed to resent him.

The man is not to be taken seriously.

As far as xgau and nas/rap generally are concerned, arctic noon auk ... Otm

I've gone through a period where I've really disliked this guy; so many albums I've loved or were important to me have been dismissed with just a bomb or a scissors, kind of the equivalent of a guy rolling his eyes and going, "meh". And yes, his writing often makes no sense or makes you question whether or not he's actually heard the album. I only know him through the guides, which (similar to Allmusic) makes his grading system look silly, there are a lot of "really? you like this album and not that one?" moments when the reality is that it's more about how he's feeling on a particular day. But even I can't deny that he's a great writer who sort of conquered the concise-but-deep-and-thoughtful style of reviewing that nobody else I know of has done (now I think we'd call that 'Twitter-esque'). I'll still read what he has to say.

oh wow is Dirty Dancing up for rehab now too?

man, remember when frogbs was our raccoon tanuki

I've gone through a period where I've really disliked this guy; so many albums I've loved or were important to me have been dismissed with just a bomb or a scissors, kind of the equivalent of a guy rolling his eyes and going, "meh". And yes, his writing often makes no sense or makes you question whether or not he's actually heard the album. I only know him through the guides, which (similar to Allmusic) makes his grading system look silly, there are a lot of "really? you like this album and not that one?" moments when the reality is that it's more about how he's feeling on a particular day. But even I can't deny that he's a great writer who sort of conquered the concise-but-deep-and-thoughtful style of reviewing that nobody else I know of has done (now I think we'd call that 'Twitter-esque'). I'll still read what he has to say.

― frogbs, Thursday, April 23, 2015 3:05 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's just style over substance. No great connoisseur gets so much wrong in the way of taste as he does. It's like those art critics who dismissed Monet, turns out they were wrong, and clueless, and didn't get what they were seeing. The good ones get it. Xgau doesn't.

but what exactly is getting it "wrong" w/r/t musical taste? I agree that album to album he's weird, he loves the Beastie Boys (especially Licensed to Ill) and gives all their albums A's, except for Check Your Head which is a big ol' bomb

he actually gave check your head a "neither" not a bomb. dude loved jokey pop culture cut-ups, had several meters albums and didn't need one by these guys, though he grew to accept their noodling, judging by later reviews

there's basically a check your head review in the ill communication review

Ill Communication [Grand Royal, 1994]
Another you-gotta-believe record, just like Check Your Head--only less so, thank God, whose appearances herein are frequent and auspicious. Although once again it's short on dynamite, at least it starts with a bang. Two bangs, actually, one hip hop and one hardcore--their loyalty to their roots closely resembles an enlightened acceptance of their limitations. With each boy having evolved into his own particular man, the rhymes are rich and the synthesis is complex. You-gotta-love the way the ecological paean/threnody emits from a machine that crosses a vocoder and the p.a. at a taco drive-through, but their collective spiritual gains peak in the instrumentals, which instead of tripping up the Meters evoke the unschooled funk of a prerap garage band. If they've never run across Mer-Da's Long Burn the Fire, on Janus, maybe I could tape them one? A-

like, whether or not you agree, i don't think it's hard to get why someone who experienced the 70s as an adult dug licensed to ill and paul's boutique wouldn't have been happy when check your head showed up

so the frowny face is "indifferent"? didn't know that and yeah it makes more sense that way. and yes I get why, I just find it weird to praise that they've 'grown up' or that they're accepting their limitations here, when Check Your Head was basically where all that started, right? they're very similar records imo

well sometimes things take time to process - xgau def strikes me as the kind of writer where the grade for one album is sometimes a corrective for the previous

compared to say, a rolling stone album guide entry, consumer guide takes are mostly in the moment, though occasionally amended in hindsight for one of the books, but only in really egregious cases

I think that (correction of earlier grade) too --- the other explanation is that he is unusually considerate to late-career / post hotness offerings.

One of his more endearing qualities, although it messes with reliability (which, frankly, get a life critic-critics....write your own damn reviews, be better than what you complain about).

the other explanation is that he is unusually considerate to late-career / post hotness offerings.

haha yeah he's got a lot of "these old people are still full of life and just as vital as ever!" glances into the mirror imo

dude went out from the voice giving that first new york dolls reunion album (which is a decent new david johansen album even if the band sounds like paul schaffer's in it) an a+

he did it recently with Jay Z – reevaluated everything he'd underrated and missed.

Yeah his A+ just doesn't carry the same oomph later than the 70s book or at the very latest the 80s.

The time we had our first chat I gave him shit about the Dolls album and he got defensive ("What's the matter? It speaks to me!" or something).

yeah i never assume this shit is disingenuous - dude seems enough of an unrepentant screwball that his "and they mentioned Gore by name. A." shit represents an earnest salute to the cd player

Hey anybody who mentions Lesley Gore gets an A in my book.

oh come on, i clearly meant Martin.

exactly. I enjoy reading him even if I wouldn't take a music recommendation

" Like a lot of young black pop artists, Missy deals in aural aura rather than song, which means that even after you connect--as I did with "Izzy Izzy Ahh" well before "The Rain" hit MTV--she can take awhile to absorb."

I like that

Reminder that Christgau gave To Pimp a Butterfly the same score as Rae Strummond in the same week https://medium.com/cuepoint/robert-christgau-expert-witness-9fa87a06ebde

utter fool.

which of those two scores are you complaining about?

hehehe

That A- he gave Kendrick feels a little low for the review he wrote

Rob Unkut has been posting his reviews of classic hip hop stuff, just awful

SCHOOLLY-D (Schoolly-D) From the beginning, rap has been a music of aggressive, expansive possibility, claiming the world on beat and boast alone. This Philadelphia street tough claims only his turf. His powerful scratch rhythms are as oppressive and constricted as his neighborhood, and his sullen slur conveys no more hope or humor than the hostile egotism of his raps themselves. I'm not saying he isn't realer than all the cheerful liars the biz has thrown back to the projects, or that his integrity doesn't pack a mean punch. But he's still an ignorant thug, and he's cheating both his audience and himself by choosing to remain that way. B PLUS