Christgau's Consumer Guide Grade List: A+

I LOVE Jack Johnson. There's more great stuff from his electric period, but I would pick that as my favorite too. Laser focused and tight.

DeBarge: In a Special Way [1983, Gordy]

this is my favorite album that he loves a lot

i also assume had he ever written a capsule review about it, thelonious monk's misterioso would be on there, as it's his favorite album of all time

Actually, the New York Dolls' One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This is one I'd object to. I love the Dolls, but this reunion album is nowhere near as good as Johansen's best stuff, much less anything by the original group. I'm willing to give it another listen though, and "Dance Like a Monkey" was a very good single to hear in the political climate of that year.

Louis Armstrong: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: 1923-1934 [1994, Columbia/Legacy]: this box set actually makes a lot of sense, and it's great to hear a wider selection from Armstrong's peak years put together like this. (Not just the Hot 5's and 7's but also highlights with Fletcher Henderson and King Oliver among others). But the sound quality is kind of lacking. I'd sooner get the much cheaper JSP set mastered by the late, great John R.T. Davies - the Penguin Guide to Jazz rightfully singled that out for years as the best Armstrong set anywhere.

Charlie Parker: The Legendary Dial Masters [1996, Jazz Classics]: I'd sooner get the Complete Savoy and Dial sessions, an 8 CD set that put the work from both labels together for the first time ever (and in correct order to boot). That's a real A+.

As for some of those Ken Burns-approved intros:

Thelonious Monk: Ken Burns Jazz [2000, Columbia/Legacy] and Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Monk Trio [2001, Prestige]: Christgau's a huge Monk fan but personally I would recommend the complete Blue Note recordings, which has been available in various forms. They've really improved the sound on those reissues since 2000 thanks to better sources.

Billie Holiday: Ken Burns Jazz [2000, Verve]: I prefer the Columbia master takes, which can be bought on a budget 4CD Sony reissue, or the Verve master takes.

Ella Fitzgerald: Ken Burns Jazz [2000, Verve]: If I had to pick one Ella album, it's the "Best of the Songbooks"- a great single disc compilation. But the Duke Ellington Songbook is probably my favorite of the famous Songbook series, even though the Cole Porter and Gershwin sets are probably more popular.

There’s now a 3CD Parker set, The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes, that’s my go-to. I had the 8CD one and there were way too many alternate versions, false starts, etc. I’m not Phil Schaap; I don’t need every note Parker ever recorded, just the core curriculum.

I think those are an odd trio of Dylan albums to award an A+, but whatever.

but the Ken Burns CD's are at best nice beginner's introductions.

rson), Monday, June 7, 2021 9:57 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

You're an odd trio

j/k

lol, you got copy & paste trigger happy :P

There’s now a 3CD Parker set, The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes, that’s my go-to. I had the 8CD one and there were way too many alternate versions, false starts, etc. I’m not Phil Schaap; I don’t need every note Parker ever recorded, just the core curriculum.

In this case, it's much less of an issue for me because 1) the sequencing wisely places the alternates after the masters, so in many cases just hitting "stop" earlier avoids the alternates - the problem with some earlier jazz CD reissues was when they stacked alternates on to the master takes; 2) the masters were typically the best group performances, but Parker had great, inventive solos on many alternates that shouldn't feel redundant at all - take 2 of "Parker's Mood" is especially a highlight; 3) it's CD so skipping through tracks takes so little effort, it doesn't bother me the slightest. If anything, it's the perfect format for more inclusive sets like these - if it was vinyl or cassette, it would be a colossal pain

I mean...that’s exactly the point, isn’t it? It’s a Consumer Guide, the discographies of the artists covered in the Mr. Burns series are daunting for those newly discovering them...so XGau’s advising casual/new arrivals on some of the entry points.

I also noticed Christgau emphatically stating that "A plusses should be eternal" to which I agree in the sense that they're eternal to the same listener (which may be what he means as well). What's nice as an introduction can feel very unsatisfactory once you've become very familiar to the same artist. Most "greatest hits" sets are like that - they're typically great if you know nothing of the artist, but to me an A+ greatest hits will also feel like the definitive word on the same artist once you get through their albums or the era covered by them. (Like Sly & the Family Stone's pre-Riot hits collection - you can't do better.)

There are many albums here that I agree are classics, many others that I can understand if someone thinks they are classics, and many that I'm not very familiar with. There are not too many that I know pretty well and think are mediocre. In that category I might be tempted to put "Modern Vampires in the City". He seems to have a weakness for late-career albums that surpass expectations, but perhaps shouldn't be rated ahead of the stuff that made them famous, but I admire him for sticking to his guns on those.

Sonic Youth: A Thousand Leaves [1998, Geffen]

oh this is my other favorite. he's right

mvotc is the critical favourite vw album still i think, despite clearly being their worst

neon bible is just solid rather than classic or anything, weird pick

wild honey as his beach boys pick is a pretty unconventional choice too

For what it's worth, as you move back into the '60s, reviews are more scattershot. (I think the CG began in '68 or '69.) The Who Sell Out is there because it was part of a big 1967 roundup he did in Rolling Stone, long after the album came out. Some things turned up as reissues, and there are lots of '60s compilations. But my guess is that Wild Honey isn't his favourite Beach Boys album, it's just one that's covered by the life of the Consumer Guide.

is music over? why the retrospective mood?

he seems to have a weakness for late-career albums that surpass expectations

Yes. Or realizing an act is good, thereby deserving an overrated second or third album

birdisthe word: Xgau values concise albums; he acclaims compilations that are able to cover long careers in a short span of time. He'll often say review certain large box sets as "for specialists only" or "completist rather than listenable". One appeal of the Ken Burns Jazz CDs: they are still the only career-wide compilations for some of the featured artists. Also, an A plus for Slam Jams may just mean "I loved every song on this CD every time I put it on".

clemenza: Wild Honey predates the Consumer Guide. I'm sure it's his genuine favourite Beach Boys record, he wrote recently and touchingly about how "Darlin'" helped him and his wife through some sort of health scare/downturn.

Some of these ratings are peculiar to their era: he gave SMiLE such a high rating partly because he believed the record would motivate boomers to return to their youthful idealism and vote Bush out in 2004.

There are a lot of great records here: I'm partial to A Salty Dog but he has more recently said that it's not good enough for an A plus.

what a dull fucker

Indeed.

he manages to be a bit idiosyncratic without actually being interesting most of the time

Most of these are worthy of praise. Some of these are worthy of praise with sort of an asterisk (based on impact/import, say, or using hits collections as a kind of cheat). A few of these are A+ records only in Xgau's head, but keeping his tastes in mind for context I can see why he's at least argue the case. Like, there are a few things on there I don't personally *like* or listen to but I can see why they might mean a lot to someone else.

100 CDs You Need To Own If You Are Opening Up A Coffeshop in 2008

Latin Playboys: Latin Playboys [1994, Slash/Warner Bros.]

This is the one that jumped out at me, atmospheric, slightly experimental latin roots rock.

His choices are certainly idiosyncratic - "Heart Of A Dog" is an A+ Laurie Anderson album?? And I dig Wussy but "Attica" isn't even their best. *shrug*

I love that Procol Harum album!

imagine listening to so much music and still being so completely obsessed with posturing

that is a dig at christgau to be clear.

that Latin Playboys album is so good

I always look at lists like these to see what I can learn from them. I don't understand looking for overrated warhorses as an excuse to dismiss the entire list. Like, just now I started wondering, "maybe there's something I might appreciate in Lefty Frizzell...?"

chuckling at gogol bordello

I see now that Wild Honey was part of that same RS 1967 roundup...He didn't quite list it on his Top 50 list recently (his wife did), but it was on his work list.

yeah gogol bordello might be the only truly embarrassing selection

I don’t think the problem is a lack of overrated warhorses; for me, it’s a lack of many interesting/provocative choices around albums I do know (which would be signposts that there’s something to be learned from digging deeper). It just reads like some guy’s personal taste.

I don't know, I think those things are in there. Like, why this Tribe Called Quest album and not either of the first two? Why Sign o the Times and not Purple Rain? Flipside of that, why Born in the USA and not Born to Run? Many of these albums are warhorses or classics or canon or whatever because so much time has passed, but given so many of the artists listed are themselves warhorses or classic or canon themselves, sometimes the choices he makes can still be interesting. Again, like why that Ornette album, which iirc was even out of print for eons? Or why the first Paul Simon, but not Graceland (which got a rave of an A, which I suspect he downgraded from an A+ for political reasons)? Or how the African stuff might ostensibly be obvious (now), but honestly wasn't (and isn't) to the vast majority of Americans?

Or, for example, why those Dylan albums, out of all of them, including collections, get the A+s.

that Tribe album is literally the only intersection with my own canon of 10/10s lol, difference being that I am not the soi-disant Dean of American Rock Critics

xp Well the Dylan choices are a good example—if those are someone’s three favorite Dylan releases since 1970 (including, exactly, the first few Bootleg Series collections), it’s hard to think our taste will be very simpatico. Somehow his choices are unexpected yet boring.

idgi, love and theft and the basement tapes are excellent picks

I think (per my Graceland example) his reasoning sometimes becomes more clear when you read the review(s). Other times, opaque and arbitrary, but it ain't a science.

xpost But as canon building goes, would you tell someone to start with those? That's how I read his reviews when I was a lot younger. "Wow, an A+, I should start with such and such." Which I think is not necessarily the right way to do it.

basement tapes is maybe a little unwieldy and steeped in its own myth, but fuck yeah i'd use love and theft to introduce someone to dylan and they'd probably really like it

One of his A plusses doesn't need to become an A plus for me (if I rated records) to be worth hearing.
And true, these are not necessarily starter picks (though the compilations may well be).

I think just about every record up there is worth hearing. If they lead someone back to a better A- or B+ record, that works for me!

(xpost) I remember Graceland was an A+ on release, yes; Who's Next, too.

Haha, I had no idea he like Procol Harum that much!

that Tribe album is literally the only intersection with my own canon of 10/10s lol, difference being that I am not the soi-disant Dean of American Rock Critics

― imago, Tuesday, June 8, 2021 8:48 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lj i feel there is stuff on this list u need to check out

*likes

A Thousand Leaves, excepting two standout tracks, is second worst SY album after NYC Ghosts. I was talking about this with a friend the other day— I don't go to SY for hippie noodling or for rocking indie-pop, I go to them for aggressive, noisy art-rock. A Thousand Leaves is a dull record and no critic will ever convince me otherwise.

they're good at hippie noodling though cf. murray street. a thousand leaves i would argue proves there's no binary between hippie noodling and noisy art-rock

it opens with "contre le sexisme" ffs

wait, after all these years? It's one of his best!

I didn’t like Young Americans when I first heard it, which was the Ryko reissue. I didn’t dislike it, I just felt neutral towards it, so I ended up selling it. Some years later, I bought the Parlophone reissue, and now I love it. I dunno how much of that is due to the mastering, or how much is due to how my feelings about it have changed over the intervening years, but I find it thrilling in a way I definitely didn’t before.

(Also, the Ryko CD was hilariously packaged in a CD holder/display unit, coupled with a “bonus” CD of “Fame” remixes, which were all essentially worthless.)

so many damn rhythm guitars recorded!

"Fascination," my favorite album track, is essentially transformed.

Cool, I'll try it, thanks! A strange gap for me, but yknow 70s and here came all the young dudes, flooding the news, and I was ballin' on a budget (though I did manage to buy or hear everything else from that era, mostly for better, sometimes for worse)

Every other Bowie album from that era, I mean.

Looked for Parlophone version on Amazon, seeing customer reviews of several editions all together: Are you referring to, say, the 2016 remaster, also associated w Rhino? If so, favorable comments on that.

I should look at discogs, but the ads have been crashing my old computer lately.

2016 yeah

The 2016 Parlophone remasters were distributed by Rhino in the U.S., but yeah, same mastering.

The new 2016 remaster is also the best digital mastering of Young Americans because the Rykodisc CD accidentally used alternate mixes for half of the tracks. Rykodisc used what they thought was the best-sounding tape without realizing the mix was actually different. (The songs with the original mixes were sourced from a production copy. It's possible the original master tape for Young Americans has been lost since the '70s or '80s, unless they found them for the new remaster - I was under the impression they hadn't.)

Very cool, thanks, guys.

OMG, yall are right! Just listened: Phlly Soul as proto-alt.r&b, Bowie and Vandross and other voices swimming in the bass, in the buttermilk, developmental and accomplished. Ancestry of BlackStar, even.

Really some peak work of Vandross, seems like, though I'm far from expert. Anybody heard his 70s (60s?) band Luther?

Judge for yourself how much of Vandross' composition Bowie used:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plr5r-RmFp4

Oho, never heard him do anything like that before, can imagine Nicky Siano spinning it at The Gallery (hopefully there's more on the album, and this is the radio edit, developing to a peak, sticking around just long enough to make sure it's registered, then "Get up" and gone).
Maybe Young Americans got mixed reviews because it didn't sound like the 2016 mix? Wild details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Americans#cite_note-CG81-49

Just to clarity, the 2016 reissue is a new mastering, not a new mix. In fact, it's the original mix that was used on the original LP as well as most CD releases.

The only exception is the Rykodisc CD which used alternate mixes on some (but not all) tracks.

FWIW, mastering is just the process of cutting the final mixdown on to a vinyl record or "encoding" it for digital release. At minimum it's just transferring to the relevant medium (and in the case of vinyl, making sure it can play back properly since it's much more complicated to do). But mastering can also entail a lot of aesthetic choices (or destructive revisionist choices, sadly) like EQ, additional compression, and other processing. Mixing is kind of like editing in a movie, and mastering is kind of like the color correction and finishing you need to do when creating the DCP or film prints.

Thanks. Seems like this 2016 master might possibly have been an influence on the new Bowie trib Modern Love, which also has me imagining a 90s Red Hot + Bowie, with cosmopolitan R&B voices x synths gliding through each other--and, right after hearing this remastered original, was esp. struck by the way Khruangbin's cover of "Right" stands on its own (unlike several fairly meh tracks before it).
Contributors seek to bring out the Bo's soul, funk, jazz and gospel traits---this last in the nay-saying, yet "Get me to the church on time" of the title track so gospel not gospel?!
Mostly they go for less-obvious, and often less-well sung originals, a or the major exception on both counts being We Are KING's "Space Oddity," with fun production, but the cool voices keep a lid on excitement, as his herky-jerky fervency def didn't.
Modern jazz development of "Heroes" (centered around also cool but affecting singing of Michael Taveres) is the damndest thing/honors the original (this would be yer Hal Willner 90s track)(Not jazz but also w appropriate and decided difference from orig.:Léa Sen's "Golden Years."
Since I'm in this deep, Ill say that my favorite playlist from this, because cohesively eerie and intense and mobile, is:
2.Sound and Vision – Helado Negro 03:21
7.Right – Khruangbin 05:08
10.Move On – L’Rain 04:00
14.Golden Years – Léa Sen 02:56
15.Fantastic Voyage – Meshell Ndegeocello 03:58
17.Heroes – Matthew Tavares 08:41
Also like these, which can work interspersed with those:
8.Silly Boy Blue – Nia Andrews 02:37
9.Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family – Foxtrott 03:11
11.Modern Love – Jonah Mutono 03:19
12.Where Are We Now – Bullion 03:31
13.Tnght – Eddie Chacon, John Carroll Kirby 03:35
https://bbemusic.bandcamp.com/album/modern-love
Also RIYL Moses Boyd's jazzoid Dark Matter, which suggest some shadings of early Massive Attack and Soul II Soul and maybe Bowie-Eno

I liked this line in his Lou Reed (covers) CG review today: "Equally impressive is the lyricism of such varied female admirers as June Tabor, Rachel Sweet, Tracey Thorn, and Susanna Hoffs all singing as if Nico has never crossed their minds."

FWIW, Christgau now says he's downgraded Marshall Crenshaw's Field Day to a solid A, but suggests he'd add two Beatles albums, writing "How could I not nominate the two I put on my Rolling Stone list: Sgt. Pepper and The Beatles’ Second Album, the latter of which most Beatles scholars don’t believe counts [because it's a Capitol/US reconfiguration of a UK release] if they even acknowledge it exists?"

Fab! My own fave rave US Beatles cobble---in late 70s, used to play it at parties between Bollocks and B-52s debut:

Beatles VI includes two tracks featuring searing John Lennon vocals, recorded specifically for the North American market:[5] "Bad Boy" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", both covers of Larry Williams songs, and both recorded on Williams' birthday (10 May 1965), marking perhaps the only time that the Beatles recorded material especially for North America. "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" was part of the set of their 1965 US concerts and was soon included on the British release of the Help! album, but "Bad Boy" was not released in the United Kingdom or anywhere else in the world until 1966, when it appeared on the compilation A Collection of Beatles Oldies. These two songs, along with "Act Naturally" the following month, were the last cover songs recorded and released by the Beatles until "Maggie Mae" appeared on the Let It Be album in 1970.

Beatles VI also included:

the remaining six tracks from Beatles for Sale (i.e., those left off Beatles '65, although 2 such songs had been released on a single in February 1965)
"Yes It Is", the B-side to the single "Ticket to Ride". This is a "duophonic" stereo remix from the original mono track, with additional echo and reverb.
two other tracks from the forthcoming UK release of Help!: "You Like Me Too Much" and "Tell Me What You See"
As on Beatles for Sale, the "Kansas City"/"Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" medley was originally listed only as "Kansas City". After attorneys for Venice Music notified Capitol of its error, the record label was soon corrected, although the album cover never was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatles_VI

Note wiki links to reviews; it did not always go officially unappreciated.

Guitar Paradise of East Africa [1991, Earthworks]

Amazingly found an ancient blog post on this album from January 31, 2007 that also included a download link:
http://whatsinmyipod.blogspot.com/2007/01/guitar-paradise-of-east-africa-kenya.html

And one of the compilers ("Dave") caught wind and posted this comment 1 year and 8 months later:
"Thank you for daring to post this. As one of the compilers of this release it does my heart good to see that others enjoy this music as much as we did, sitting in dark rooms for months arguing which are the essential tracks to include. Viva Earthworks!"

Links were refreshed in 2014 - the "uloz" one still works.

I think I have that on cd.

Yeah, I do too. Bought it because of xgau's review, and liked it, but seemed more low-key than what I was hoping for, not paradise of guitarrr celebration.

from January 19 Christgau substack email:

You haven’t reviewed an Elvis Costello album since 1991 and haven’t A-listed one since 1986. Is there any hope that he will ever release an album up to your standards again? — Adam S. Fenton, Menifee, California

By “review” you seem to mean a full paragraph as opposed to an Honorable Mention sentence/clause. But Honorable Mentions are reviews by me. They represent at least three to five listens, often more while less is very unusual. Sometimes the writing is dashed off—if something succinct comes to me I thank the prose gods and go with it. Usually, however, I put real time into the first draft and go over it many times. In addition, at the bottom of my Costello page you’ll find a full-length review of his Roots show and collab written for MSN in 2013. Have played the new one once. Thought it began strong. Will return at my own pace.

In terms of the Universal era, he skipped When I Was Cruel altogether but besides the positive Roots show review he gave *** (the "highest" honorable mention) to Painted from Memory, The Delivery Man and The River in Reverse. Sounds about right though I'd probably do 'choice cuts' for the latter - some of the originals are gems, but as fine as the covers may be, I'd rather play the better known vintage recordings by Lee Dorsey et al.

(Also IIRC honorable mentions are all B+'s, or would have been pre-honorable mention, which is kind of weird but that's what he said in a recent podcast interview.)

Straying from the thread topic here, but I can't let a mention of Painted from Memory pass without repping for its sibling, The Sweetest Punch, with Bill Frisell arranging the former's songs for and fronting a truly fantastic band. A beloved album in my home.

He's got two good songs, one brushed by chamber-y strings, the other by a bridge that leads me back though his album with Bacharach, briefly, though overall the setting of this one comes off kinda Motown---they both also end up fitting pretty well into Johnny Cash--Forever Words (Expanded Edition), the 2021 re-re-issue, which finally got to 34 tracks, sailing along. It's an army of artists responding to JC's previously unset lyrics, poems, even a sample of his comments on some of that, with the words coming through clearly enough on Costello's (and all other) ventures, seeming like some directions he might have gone in or come back to if he'd lived longer. Costello does 'em his way, but okay by (non-stan) me.

some directions that Cash might have etc.

Two good new songs

Christgau top albums of 2021 list is up

how'd Wussy do?

https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/deans-list-2021?r=khofd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

lol Neil Young

So although preliminary listening and research persuades me that Rolling Stone had reason to put Puerto Rican pop phenom Rauw Alejandro’s Vice Versa high on its list, there’s no way he’ll ever be Olivia Rodrigo or even Harry Styles for me unless he starts singing in English (as he probably will, to exactly what effect is another matter). And while there’s no denying that Toronto’s Tamara Lindeman showcases actual songs on Pitchfork’s seventh-ranked Weather Station album Ignorance, their smug gentility reminds me all too vividly of Joan Baez putting me off lo these many decades ago. Which isn’t even to mention the impressionistic musical poesy of Pitchfork’s second-place L’Rain, or the huzzahs that greeted my old fave Jazmine Sullivan when she compensated for her songwriting drought by inviting women to contribute spoken-word accounts of their sexual travails and got album-of-the-year plaudits from Pitchfork for the dodge

Correct about Sullivan, RONG about the Weather Station.

Figures: he's always had a blind spot about Baez's better albums, and, closer to Lindeman's sound, early Joni as well. Haven't gotten into L'Rain's album, though will listen more; she's effective on the xpost Bowie trib, Modern Love.

I remember noticing a couple years back that Firesign Theatre was the first act to whom he'd awarded two A+ grades, and a friend rightly said, "how like Christgau of you to notice"

sexual travails: manages to be a lofty shit even "just" en passant; that's some A Movable Feast-level shit, class out the ass!

Something Scott Woods created, a tribute to some of Christgau's A+ albums. I'm one of the readers, fumbling my way through his Attica review--also Kevin Bozelka and a couple of others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIIfvvDzI2w