sometime i read christgau and am amazed...

Yes. Clearly.

fox sports is the blender of sports journalism

hey! you dropped your spoon!

"...the mighty riff machine YES went into overdrive with riffs like “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” where Trevor Rabin took a flare gun and burned the corrupt apartheid state to the ground!"

The thing is, I had never really noticed that "Smoke on the Water" and "Owner of a Lonely Heart" have essentially the same riff! So the piece taught me something, as well as making me chuckle.

actually, i think it was you guys (Chuck, Blount, et al.) who made the shift from reader to "casual reader." it does make your points easier to defend. also, if i remember correctly, the guy who started the thread stated he was a regular reader of Xgau's.

well, it's amazing how dunderheaded some people can be. (look it up)

So let's keep those snappy putdowns coming! After all, that's the apex of music criticism for most writers.

That's me. And I am! I actually like the guy's writing! Chuck's though...peeee-ewe!

xgau often has nice little bits of critical observation in his reviews; but on other occasions it seems like once you've figured out the pun (and there are sometimes impediments to even doing that; a grammatical error here, a lack of context there), there's no further insight to be gleaned. that's no mortal sin; people are obviously enjoying his writing just the same. but it's not what i look for in a critic.

to cite an example of a critic whose writing can be impossibly dense, even obscure on occasion, and yet full of revelations and pointed observations, see manny farber.

i think my criticisms of xgau have been pretty mild, so i'm a bit bewildered by the vehemence of some responses here. i don't know what engenders this wolf pack defensiveness re rock criticism that i sometimes perceive.

could have something to do with all the rock critics lying around.

Actually, I think I've been fairly UN-vehement today, at least compared to yesterday, at least until my most recent post. Oh well!

You don't say?? Coulda fooled me, Shakey -- every piece in the Voice music section I edit reads EXACTLY like that Queen piece (which I, uh, comprehended and loved, though I did not myself edit or run it)! That's my rule: If you don't write like Dave Queen, don't even think of pitching me ideas! (And that goes double for all you jazz critics!)

(I assume Chuck's being sarcastic, since I don't read the Voice - I live in SF why would I bother...)

x-post

Well, you were the one to bring it up so I was curious.

Well, that explains a lot, Shakey -- if I didn't read the Voice music section, I'd under-rate the current state of rock criticism, too!