Great albums Robert Christgau hates

Apologies in advance if this ends up getting posted twice. My internet is pretty dodgy at the moment.

But you still haven't answered my question, which had little to do with your "um...anyway" and everything to do with your calling my original Darnielle/Dylan/DDR post dodgy. Again, I'm simply curious: what's the dodgy part? If you haven't heard/experienced DDR, then it clearly can't be that, because you're way too smart (not sarcasm -- I've read and enjoyed your writing) to formulate opinions on things you've never heard. So was it my overenthusiasm for Darnielle? Dylan? If I were to take the joke out my original post and restate it straight, it would simply be: "Still underrated. Tallahassee is, with the possible exception of Love and Theft and DDR, my favorite album of this century so far." Given that this century is only a few years old, this doesn't strike me as any more shaky than any other statement of musical enthusiasm. So again I ask: what do you object to, exactly?

As for my cat, he is fine, but he thanks you for your concern.

In any event, I think the critical blind spot towards 'rhythm games' is an interesting subject, but it's clearly tangential to the original thread, so I'll shut up about it now. But if anyone else wants to start a new thread on the subject, I'm all ears. Or eyes, fingers, whatever. As for my mini-micro-imbroglio with Michelangelo, all I can say is that his original post just goes to show why, although I hate them just as much as the next message board poster, emoticons are sort of a necessary evil. One : ), or even :P, and I wouldn't have written a word in response.

Look, I know that Hathaway is the main classic soul man that rock critics bash, and I know that african american musical artists who arent trying to bling bling out are widely considered pretentious by white music critics. I understand that any african american person tries to express himself in a way that is outside a racial box is considered a freak and ostracized. But it bothers me when it the criticism becomes personal.

And I fine the perverse racial boxes that most " enlightened" music and cultural critics, just as damaging and harrowing as any aspect of institutional racism in america. If christgau just hated donny hathaway's music, the level of his critical denigration would have been strictly to his art. My problem with the " Lives on in duet after duet." is that it relates to his person. I know christgau doesnt like music from genteel white people either, but nearly everytime I have heard him talk about music and his critical dislikes, Donny Hathaway comes near the top of his list. Now coming from a man who has reviewed thousands of CD's over a 35 year span as a reviewer that's saying something profound.

My question is why? I'll be the first to tell you that his albums are flawed( sans his live one). But the core of donny hathaway's music and his motifs: were gospel influenced music and lyrical imagery, a kind of healing, a search for an innerself through humane gospel imagery, made flesh and all too human through one of soul's most powerful and arresting baritones. Now much of what I said is my opinion. But the work itself, Humanist Gospel influenced soul music, is what it is.

My question out of all the turgid, intolerable and inhumane crap that has been put out in modern popular music, in which one can listen to during a 35 year span, why would be someone like hathaway be on top of any sane person's list?

Lastly, I guess what sticks at my gut is that to lump him in the same boat with barry manilow as "genteel" and milquetoast overlooks or ignores the immense amount of pain, that any person with a scintilla of feeling can here in his music. I'm not saying that just because he committed suicide, either. " thank you master for my soul" is an entendred way of donny thanking god that he didnt kill himself that day. Or the way on " I hear voices" he tries to humanize schitzophrenia by contextualizing his voices in a hip fashion. Or " givin up" or " lord help me" or " a dream", to name some examples. What christgau,(and marsh and marcus who perversely rated him on that death scale he had) doesnt see is that hathaway's music comes from and is a link to the core of the spirituals and work songs, that it music made by a people to keep from killing themselves. IMO, to describe his music as genteel and milquetoast is assuming a freedom that hathaway, along with the millions of african americans who sing gospel or come from the gospel tradition, never had.

I know I will be and have already been piloried ( by a wonderfully sarcastic aide by vahid)for saying what I just said. And I know my way of thinking is quite reviled around these parts. But I had to say It.

"They bitch because everybody compares them to Joy Division, and they're right. It's way too kind, and I say that as someone who thanks Ian Curtis for making New Order possible."

DUDS:

Christgau

NEVER FORGET

-- Anthony Miccio (anthonymicci...), December 7th, 2002.

OTM

we all think shit like this at times, but why put it in print?

never cared much for donny hathaway myself, but the man upthread's got a point.

His "work" illustrates the perils inherent in doing that, as evinced by the fact that he has come to the wrong conclusion about nearly every record he has "listened" to.