So, what is the worst music review ever then?

Aletti = one of the great music writers, can't wait to get that new book of his disco columns that's coming out in April. I don't agree with that review either, though I think it's funny.

Now here's a gaffe that TO THIS DAY they continue to apologize for at every opportunity:

The popular formula in England in this, the aftermath era of such successful British bluesmen as Cream and John Mayall, seems to be: add, to an excellent guitarist who, since leaving the Yardbirds and/or Mayall, has become a minor musical deity, a competent rhythm section and pretty soul-belter who can do a good spade imitation. The latest of the British blues groups so conceived offers little that its twin, the Jeff Beck Group, didn't say as well or better three months ago, and the excesses of the Beck group's Truth album (most notably its self-indulgence and restrictedness), are fully in evidence on Led Zeppelin's debut album.

Jimmy Page, around whom the Zeppelin revolves, is, admittedly, an extraordinarily proficient blues guitarist and explorer of his instrument's electronic capabilities. Unfortunately, he is also a very limited producer and a writer of weak, unimaginative songs, and the Zeppelin album suffers from his having both produced it and written most of it (alone or in combination with his accomplices in the group).

The album opens with lots of guitarrhythm section exchanges (in the fashion of Beck's "Shapes of Things" on "Good Times Bad Times," which might have been ideal for a Yardbirds' B-side. Here, as almost everywhere else on the album, it is Page's guitar that provides most of the excitement. "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" alternates between prissy Robert Plant's howled vocals fronting an acoustic guitar and driving choruses of the band running down a four-chord progression while John Bonham smashes his cymbals on every beat. The song is very dull in places (especially on the vocal passages), very redundant, and certainly not worth the six-and-a-half minutes the Zeppelin gives it.

Two much-overdone Willie Dixon blues standards fail to be revivified by being turned into showcases for Page and Plant. "You Shook Me" is the more interesting of the two – at the end of each line Plant's echo-chambered voice drops into a small explosion of fuzz-tone guitar, with which it matches shrieks at the end.

The album's most representative cut is "How Many More Times." Here a jazzy introduction gives way to a driving (albeit monotonous) guitar-dominated background for Plant's strained and unconvincing shouting (he may be as foppish as Rod Stewart, but he's nowhere near so exciting, especially in the higher registers). A fine Page solo then leads the band into what sounds like a backwards version of the Page-composed "Beck's Bolero," hence to a little snatch of Albert King's "The Hunter," and finally to an avalanche of drums and shouting.

In their willingness to waste their considerable talent on unworthy material the Zeppelin has produced an album which is sadly reminiscent of Truth. Like the Beck group they are also perfectly willing to make themselves a two- (or, more accurately, one-a-half) man show. It would seem that, if they're to help fill the void created by the demise of Cream, they will have to find a producer (and editor) and some material worthy of their collective attention.

JOHN MENDELSOHN
(Posted: Mar 15, 1969)

pretty soul-belter who can do a good spade imitation

stopped reading

"posted"

Dunno if it's the worst but Glam, the singer from Wig Wam of 2005 Eurovision fame, recently complained about a review in a newspaper of his recent solo album. The review was written in a way which actually made his kids believe their dad had been reported to the police. Because, well, the reviewer thought the album was so bad that he should be for making it...

Besides, I dunno if there is a minimum requirement about the rewier to actually call it a review, or Rate Your Music is crowded with contenders for this thread.

Check this one out: http://www.island50.com/albums/detail/five_leaves_left

No wonder Nick Drake topped himself.

Also see the Bob Woffinden review of I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight on the same site. Basically it says "Good album but why don't they cheer up a bit?". I would love to read what Bob had to say about What's Going On or Blue or Blood On The Tracks. But I'll forgive Bob as he is now one of the few people in the UK writing about miscarriages of justice which is perhaps the great neglected issue of our age.

Rock criticism as we know it hadn't really begun properly then. OK, it had in Rolling Stone, which was probably more critical then than it is now. But in Europe, critique was still mainly "Do I hear a hit here?". And Peter Sarstedt did sell more records than Nick Drake. At least back then.

Btw. I am pretty sure Sex Pistols got some truly awful reviews back then. On the other hand, maybe those critics were the ones who were right, after all. :)

: )

Peter Sarstedt sounds like he might be onto something....a review from AMG on his Where Did You Go, Lovely album....wondering about that "sub-Donovan sense of melody and delivery" though.

<<"I looked up from my book and thought, I am a cathedral, in the shadow of St. Stephen." The very first line of Sarstedt's debut LP gives fair warning that you're dealing with a writer who isn't going to let a little thing like overblown cosmic pretension be a cause for embarrassment. If you want more along that line, there's the song about "Many Coloured Semi Precious Plastic Easter Eggs," and if you want an over-ambitious subject, there's "The Sons of Cain Are Abel." He does show a sense of humor, though, in "My Daddy Is a Millionaire." Elsewhere, his overtly observational, oh-so-slightly self-satisfied sense of wordplay dominates. His sub-Donovan sense of melody and delivery isn't bad, and the precious baroque orchestration both dates the record and invests it with a peculiar fascination. Originally released as Peter Sarstedt, it features the huge European hit title track. >>

I have to admit, I don't really get the habit of digging up bad reviews of now-legendary material and having a laugh at the writer's expense, often because I don't think the writers are actually all that wrong -- and because they were in a position to have pointed out obvious aspects of the material that people are too cowed by the legendary status to say anymore without the whole thing being vexed and controversial. Okay, obviously it's funny and ironic when someone's dismissing some legends and saying they're never going to get anywhere. But pointing out that Funkadelic can be a bit jumbled and muddy and aimless at points is, like ... sort of true! This is why a lot of people who are generally fond of Funkadelic don't listen straight through their albums all the time!

I sort of like seeing that -- the ultimate example, I guess, being Edmund White reviewing Ulysses and saying "this is terrific, but seriously, all the Homeric illusions get to be kind of a chore at some point, we get it"

Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone [Startime International, 2002
Just what we always wanted--Jonathan Fire*Eater grows up. Put some DreamWorks money into a studio, that was mature. Realized Radiohead was the greatest band in the world, brainy. Stopped playing so fast, hoo boy. And most important, switched vocalists from Nick Cave imitator to Rufus Wainwright imitator. Wainwright makes up better melodies with a dick in his mouth, and not only that, Cave has more literary ability. New York scene or (hint hint) no New York scene, DreamWorks isn't buying.

- Robert Christgau

Not only tin-eared and way-off-the-mark (regardless of what you think of The Walkmen), but offensive!

hahahaha the Walkmen hahahaha

ha?

hahaha--that Funkadelic review is brilliant! i don't agree with it at all, but that is the best description of what the thang actually sounds/feels like i've ever seen anywhere. wonder if he warmed up to it at all later on?

But pointing out that Funkadelic can be a bit jumbled and muddy and aimless at points is, like ... sort of true!

That review says considerably more.

yeah dismissing "funk for funk's sake" kinda um misses the whole point of P-Funk

its like criticizing a rap album for having too much rapping

Add "indulgent" to the list? I mean, leaving aside the value judgments, I think the points of criticism there are actually fairly accurate. But like I said, I'm a sucker for the point where legendary things were still new and people felt free to point out obvious things about them, like "oh, this Nick Drake album is a bit monochromatic." (I'd be even fonder of anyone who wrote "I dunno, this Drake fellow's a bit depressing.")

the ultimate example, I guess, being Edmund White reviewing Ulysses and saying "this is terrific, but seriously, all the Homeric illusions get to be kind of a chore at some point, we get it"

illusions or allusions?

Wainwright makes up better melodies with a dick in his mouth

?!

HOW DROLL

that's how you get to be The Dean (TM) i guess

Not the worst, but pretty boneheaded and offensive:
http://cdn1.libsyn.com/dsco/GJ1.jpg?nvb=20090306220633&nva=20090307221633&t=0bdaa3cb8017b456322dc
http://cdn1.libsyn.com/dsco/GJ2.jpg?nvb=20090306220958&nva=20090307221958&t=03eebebb3cb9f3490dbb3
http://cdn2.libsyn.com/dsco/GJ3.jpg?nvb=20090306221035&nva=20090307222035&t=05287b557abc3888ddd48

meant "allusions" obv

Wainwright makes up better melodies with a dick in his mouth

?!

― straight up, you're payin' jacks just to hear me phase (M@tt He1ges0n), Friday, 6 March 2009 21:14 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Guess that's what they call a humjob.

>>Wainwright makes up better melodies with a dick in his mouth

Love to know what kind of research the Dean did for this one.

Although I think it's outside the OP's intentions to include Rate Your Music reviews, this one did cause some mirth last night:

I'VE NEVER BEEN ONE FOR ALL THE HAIR METALS. I DON'T SEE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROCKING THE FABIO LOOK OR BANGING ONE OUT TO MEGADEATH. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS LOOK AT MY PROFILE PICTURE TO SEE I LIKE THINGS SHAVED. HEH. ALL THINGS! HEH. SERIOUSLY GUYS ALWAYS SHAVE DOWN THERE, YOU'LL THANK ME LATER HEH WOAH! FORGOT I HAVE AN ALBUM TO REVIEW HERE. LIVE ALBUMS ARE ALWAYS HIT AND MISS, BUT HOLY COW IF THIS ALBUM DOESN'T KEEP THINGS GOING. PUT 12 OF THE MOST PUNISHING RIFFS OF ALL TIME BY THESE LEGENDS ON ONE DISK AND LET EM' PLAY. I LIKE TO KEEP MY LIFE ORGANIZED AND PEACEFUL NOW IN DAYS (BEEN WORKING ON MY ZEN GARDEN LATELY, HEH), BUT EVERY NOW AND THEN I LIKE TO PULL OUT THIS OLD CLASSIC AND WHIP OUT SOME OF MY OLD GEAR FROM THE 80S AND ROCK ONE OUT TO "THE TROOPER" OR "RUN TO THE HILLS". JUST MAKE SURE GRAMPS ISN'T IN THE ROOM YOU'LL SEND HIM TO AN EARLY DEATH. HEH!

I'VE GOTTEN A LOT OF MAIL SINCE I STARTED REVIEWING ON THIS SITE (MOSTLY FROM LADIES ASKING IF I'M SINGLE...ANSWER STILL TO COME, HEH!) AND A LOT OF PEOPLE POINTED OUT I OFTEN TALK ABOUT MY SMOOTHIES. HELL, I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE HONEST! HEH. GUESS IT SHOWS YOU WHATS ON MY MIND ALL THE TIME. I DON'T CONSIDER MYSELF A BUSINESS MAN BUT A SMOOTHIE MAN. YOU COULD TAKE AWAY MY BUSINESS AND I'D STILL TALK ABOUT ALL MY FAVORITE SMOOTHIES (BUT MAN WOULD I BE PISSED!) ANYWAY, I THOUGHT IT'D BE A COOL IDEA TO COMPARE THE ALBUM I REVIEWED TO ONE OF THE SMOOTHIES ON MY MENU. DUE TO THE INDULGENT, EVIL NATURE, AND GUILTY PLEASURE THEMES OF LIVE AFTER DEATH, I'M GONNA SAY THIS REMINDS ME OF MY PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE SMOOTHIE. THROW SOME BANNANAS, CACAO, AND A SPECIAL NUTRITION POWEDER AND YOU GOT YOURSELF SOMETHING THE FUFILLS AND FILLS IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. ALRIGHT, THANKS GUYS FOR BEING SO SUPORTATIVE OF THE REAL IRONMAN. MAYBE THEY'LL MAKE A MOVIE AFTER ME YET, HEH!

As far as I know Pitchfork have yet to file an ALL CAPS gonad-obsessed "concept review", but this could serve as a good template.

It had me at "I've never been one for all the hair metals."

Since I've got my Rolling Stone cover-to-cover fired up and my screen capture up and running, I might as well post this one as well. One hopes these Rolling Stone reviewers eventually completed their comp lit PhDs and got the respect they so clearly craved!
http://cdn3.libsyn.com/dsco/Auto1.jpg?nvb=20090306223606&nva=20090307224606&t=09ffeab57f47ac9ad651e
http://cdn4.libsyn.com/dsco/Auto2.jpg?nvb=20090306223719&nva=20090307224719&t=01b1750ff4e10e57d9efb

hahahaha the Walkmen hahahaha
― Matos W.K., Friday, March 6, 2009 8:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

I don't get it

the name is indeed funny..

I don't mind that Grace Jones review. Who do you find it offensive? But that Mendelsohn Kraftwerk one is pretty awful. I'm mildly stunned RS ran ersatz Meltzer that late in the game.

WHY do you find it offensive?

Jealous of your ImageCapture (sp?) for sure.

The Kraftwerk review obviously missed the point as they would go on to become legends. But as a negative review, I think it was well written and funny.

hahahaha the Walkmen hahahaha
― Matos W.K., Friday, March 6, 2009 8:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

still don't get it

never could forget how dumb this review was:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/17348-east-river-pipe-the-gasoline-age

"What kind of music is this anyway, space-country?"

were the grace jones and kraftwerk reviews cut and pasted from the archives of readers digest (circa 1950)?

i don't mean bcoz of content, i didn't read them tbh, just the look of them.

leave John Mendelsohn alone!!!

"disco music for people who never went to discos"

hahah, perfect.

(hey guys, funniest does not equal "worst")

I really do want Matos to explain the "hahaha the Walkmen" thing.

I'VE GOTTEN A LOT OF MAIL SINCE I STARTED REVIEWING ON THIS SITE (MOSTLY FROM LADIES ASKING IF I'M SINGLE...ANSWER STILL TO COME, HEH!) . . . I DON'T CONSIDER MYSELF A BUSINESS MAN BUT A SMOOTHIE MAN

Stay classy.

I really do want Matos to explain the "hahaha the Walkmen" thing.

Me too!

Aletti = one of the great music writers

OTM. Give or take Michael Freedberg, probably the greatest disco critic ever. (Wrote some excellent disco liner notes in the late '70s, too.)

hahahaha the Walkmen hahahaha

Also OTM.

So it's like a fancy-music-critics-got-each-others'-backs thing? Because that review is fucking garbage, regardless of whether or not you think the band is funny or whatever. Weak, fellas.