Great albums Robert Christgau hates

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