Got a question for Christgau?

Wait, what?

more like Raymond Ham Bone

Yesterday was Xgaus 80th bday.

"Reactionary gentility" is otm.

Another thing they had in common was throwing their own shit at the audience, and I will never forget Kurdt for what happened

as far as i know xgau never gave a capsule review to gg allin. he is on the "meltdown" list though.

And not to be cruel, but based on what I know of GG Allin, "lifeworks" seems a little lofty. (It'd be a ridiculous tweet no matter who he was trying to defend.)

Sometimes on one of the Christgau threads people will quote stuff he wrote 50 years ago to show how out of touch he is. This came up in his reader-mail column today, something he once wrote about Betty Davis. He began by acknowledging the problem ("I'm certainly aware of this issue") and finished with this: "And by the way, I make it a principle not to censor myself--or simply avoid criticism--by removing anything I’ve published from my site even if I have regrets about it in retrospect." I think that's admirable; not everyone will.

I don't mind the grades or his not liking Flack or Davis; I mind the terms under which he dismissed Flack for instance. Respectability politics.

I revere "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," but in the midst of one of the greatest periods for Top 40 soul ever--Al Green, the Stylistics, the Spinners, the Dramatics, etc.--I can certainly put myself in the mind of a critic who came of age during Motown and the '60s in general who wouldn't.

Sure! And Marcus is far worse about calling out Black middle-class politics.

I actually sent in a reader e-mail to Marcus not three weeks ago about "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Was surprised to learn he liked it at the time, even if he's tired of it now. (His misinterpretation that I was aware of critical support when I was 11 is funny.)

Greil — I’m wondering if you’ve ever commented on Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” I don’t think it had much critical support at the time. I was 11 when it was a hit: it was one of my favourite songs from my favourite year then, and remains so today. I don’t think I’m alone in the deep impression it made on me: it’s been used memorably in episodes of both Mad Men and, more recently, Atlanta.
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I’m kind of shocked that you had the concept of critical support in your head at the age of 11, not that the record needed it. It was a natural hit and made its own atmosphere. I liked listening to it, admired its craft, but it dried up for me very quickly, like “Live to Tell” and “Every Breath You Take,” which came on so strong, promising eternal wisdom and world domination and then became good songs you’d heard enough.

alfred otm

not sure i agree with the dean's definition of censorship there

There was a major war fought throughout the middle decades of the 20th century against censorship in the name of freedom of expression, including the freedom to express vulgar, ugly, inappropriate, etc. things. It felt like a big deal at the time, and many artists and friends of artists felt like they had to line up on the side of freedom of expression. That war is now largely forgotten, but for someone of a certain age, there is still something noble to be said for openness and transparency even if feelings are hurt or people are offended.

Dear Xgau,
Is Joe Levy still the Crown Prince Poobah, and if not, who has taken his place?
Yours,
JR &tBs

xp idk, removing something published on yr own site that you can no longer stand by in order to make it better reflect your views, that kinda seems like the opposite of censorship to me? its fine to not like betty davis but the last line of that review is straight up racist, by modern & 1970s standards, & he should feel shame & guilt about it. standing by it in 2022 as a point abt self censoring is a low bar for noble imho

I can't speak for Xgau but I get the feeling he feels like he has to be true to the Xgau who wrote that line, who was perhaps imperfectly trying to express something, even if he wouldnt use those exact words today.

i dont disagree necessarily, but being true to the xgau who wrote that line is bad imo, or at least not admirable

Also I don't really get the point of how him censoring words he wrote in the past because he's embarrassed about them today would be the "opposite of censorship"? You mean like censorship is itself a form of expression because it expresses the censor's desire for purity? Seems a bit Orwellian.

i don't think that correcting something you said in the past should be called "censorship". it needs a different word.

to me censorship implies not being able to express something that you believe. so if he no longer believed what he wrote, not just regretted saying it or was embarrassed by it but truly felt he could no longer stand by it, then freely a piece on his own website to more perfectly reflect his actual views ... imo thats editing, not censorship, 2 very different things. but if he truly doesnt regret those words & still believes them & was only changing them to avoid criticism, then i suppose it would be self censorship. "transparency" is a more useful term for what he might be talking about - taking accountability for past errors in judgement by not trying to hide them or scrub them away. but idk if that's what hes thinking.

or, what karl said in 10x fewer words than i used

It's generally a complete archive of what he wrote (i.e. he'd probably want to include as much as he can if not everything), and it's clear from his Q&A's that his opinions all evolve over time, so it becomes a bit of a morass in terms of how he'd handle past reviews that he'd change now, whether for regrettable statements or different views. I know some other critics with their own archival sites will put a small disclaimer when republishing a lengthy review, but that's usually a paragraph for a feature-length piece. I want to say there's no perfect solution - just engaging in dialogue about something he wrote before may be the best way about it. At least it allows for a thorough discourse with him on something he wrote in the past.

The last line of the Betty Davis review should never have been typed, but as for the rest of what he said...he's right, she mostly sucks.

Like I said, I've no problem with a person who thinks she sucks (I agree or is at least a footnote worth studying and citing, no more) or is bored by Flack, but he gets weird about Black artists when they don't meet his ideals of (a) transgression (b) domesticity.

Yeah, I agree about that. His argument that he grants them the same disrespectful hauteur he grants white acts doesn't hold up at all, because his bored response to Flack and Hathaway doesn't track with his adoration of bland-as-fuck singer-songwriters.