OTC: Pretty much universally shit on upon release in 1972, now recognized as a classic, precursor to half the clattery electronic music made in the mid-1990s, a proto-No Wave stroke of perverse genius, subject of an entire boxed set, etc, etc, etc.
>>65477621
There were a lot of jazz albums that critics were lukewarm or critical about that are now viewed as some of the greatest of all time
NWA Straight Outta Compton
Placed #6 in the Pazz & Jop poll in 1989. So, pretty sure it doesn't qualify here.
As for On The Corner, Christgau gave it a B+ (way lower than it deserved, but not exactly loathing, either), and Lester Bangs put it on his Top 10 albums of the decade list when the '70s ended. (tied for first place, with The Clash and Raw Power.) Of course, it had been out a few years by then. And maybe jazz critics (and other rock critics) did loathe it when it came out -- I'd be interested in reading some examples of such reviews, if they still exist, though.
In 1967 when the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the critical and public acclaim was such that the band needed an armed police guard for six months, and in a tearful review on BBC1's flagship arts show Aquarius, Malcolm Muggeridge declared that the album had made all previous music "irrelevant", and that the ouevre of Mozart was "some old bollocks" in comparison. And yet today, the record is probably the single most detested element in the Beatles' discography, leading one Pitchfork reviewer to describe it as "pitiful sub-Deerhoof cuntery" and music critic Paul Gambaccini to wipe his arse with a copy of the album sleeve on BBC1's flagship arts show The One Show.
Swells reviewed Straight Outta Compton for the NME, it was a shit review and the fact that he mistook the word "wack" for "white" didn't help much.
I'm sure I read a Tom Ewing article about how the first Sabbath album, arguably the first ever heavy metal album, was called derivative by critics upon first release. Not sure if it was Lester Bangs who described it as a subpar Cream rip off or something to that effect
BTW, Stan Crouch never changed his mind on OTC. To this day, he still craps on that record.
https://books.google.com/books?id=WP3vqad5-1gC&pg=PA240&lpg=PA240&dq=Stanley+Crouch+%22On+the+Corner%22&source=bl&ots=7rZKm7AD8v&sig=M5w0lAmOLa-ZlVklzg3xQwQfQYk&hl=en&ei=Hmh2Tae5KZCqsAOzxrHOBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Stan Crouch literally reminds me of the Simpsons.
"See, the kids today, they listen to the hip-hop which gives them the brain damage, what with their hippin' and a hoppin' and a bippin' and a boppin'. So they don't know what the jazz is all about."
Speakin of the hip-hop's...
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/midnight-marauders-19931125
>>65477621
On the Corner is actually fucking bad though, and I say this as someone who loves Miles Davis with all my heart
>>65477816
B+ is very good for Christgau you fucking cuck
>>65478536
>>65478414
his hatred of it isn't as baffling as his estimation that it is a commercial/sellout record. Yeah, free-form jazz skronk was really burning up the airwaves in 1972 oh wait... it's as if Crouch had never actually listened to a rock record or James Brown or whatever. it's bizarre.
Didn't they dismiss Aerosmith as a cheap Rolling Stones or New York Dolls copy?
yeah i think there were plenty of jazz people who thought that miles was catering to the freaks. hippie freaks.
Black Sabbath wins the award for biggest turnaround of any band ever between how they were viewed in 1970 and in 2016.
Harder challenge: An album that was critically acclaimed upon release but is now viewed as shit.
I'm thinking the early hip-hop albums in the 80s, but then again a lot of that happened in NYC where Christgau and a large percentage of critics were based so of course they were much more likely to know about stuff happening in their backyard.
That said, were Run DMC's early releases critically lauded in general?
>>65478946
Easy. Sgt Pepper,
>>65478704
Well, they weren't wrong
>>65478598
One of Miles' best periods was from 1972-1975 imo.
Some of those contemporary reviews of Sabbath, Yes, and Led Zeppelin are almost comical to read.
I would just like to go on record as saying the Average White Band fucking suck.
>>65479038
AWB did not suck! sheesh, why would anyone say such a thing?
>>65479087
>>65479038
Yeah, at the very least the singles (Pick Up The Pieces, Cut The Cake) are great. Try as I might, though, Inner Mounting Flame is WAY too wheesdlywheedlywheedly.
urgh AWB is like the quintessential "white guys doing a slick job of ripping off black guys" schtick. drives me up the wall.
Pick Up the Pieces is literally just a bunch of James Brown licks strung together.
I don't want to airbrush Sgt. Pepper out of history and some people still treat it as a landmark album, but it's not nearly as beloved as it once was. The album finished #1 in Gambaccini's greatest-ever book from the late 70s. I doubt that would happen today unless the people doing the review were rabid, foaming at the mouth nostalgic baby boomers.
I used to frequent a black bar in my town and they had a classic hits station on there that would regularly play AWB and Steve Miller Band in between James Brown and Kool & The Gang.
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres71.php
1971's P&J Poll. The Rod Stewart is good but not held up in the way it used to be. I've never heard anyone describe Joy of Cooking as canonical. (Afaik, I've never heard the band.) That Procol Harum would probably not be ranked over Led Zeppelin by most people today.
>>65477621
I'm pretty sure David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy wasn't too loved when it first came out.
>>65479298
Joy of Cooking is the quintessential critics' darling that faded out of existence (didn't have big hit singles and wasn't reissued until the CD era) and while a lot of critics of that time like Christgau may still have a boner for it, it's been largely forgotten by the mass of people.
Also Tusk was pretty well-reviewed at the time (despite being huge, the Mac were still big critic's pets), it just wasn't as popular with the public.
>>65479393
Joy of Cooking is a great record. not sure i agree it's quite a A+; forgotten but it deserves or at least deserved better than Xgau's lone championing.
Ram and McCartney II
>>65479448
I don't think McCartney II was ever all that loved. Aside from spawning two big singles, the rest is mostly considered awkward and pretentious.
On the other hand, Tug of War was well-regarded at the time, now not so much. Which is too bad because I think it's Paul's best solo work. A lot of what turns people off is the slick 80s sound.
>>65479224
It seems to kind of be a generational thing; boomers slobbered over Sgt. Pepper and probably a lot still do, but Gen Xers and Millenials are more dismissive. I think it's probably because that was the album that basically created prog and for the younger generation, Pepper is harder to "get" given how much prog advanced since.
Dunno if this counts, but Rolling Stone gave the Who's It's Hard five stars in 1982. But RS was (is) notorious for such reviews in exchange for cover stories/access to stars.
Thankfully Christgau wasn't fooled and he gave that album the turkey it deserved.
>>65479528
Depends if you mean the average music fan or critics, because I don't think most 60s rock journalists (Christgau, Marsh, Bangs, etc) regarded Pepper as the Beatles' sole masterpiece, but one gem in a brilliant catalog.
Has time been kind to Grand Funk Railroad? I know they were pretty much hated by critics at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJDlbgwzxhU
The only good songs on It's Hard are the three penned by John Entwistle.
>>65479008
nope, 1954-59 senpai, or maybe 63-68, or 59-62,
>>65479582
The Quiet One is a good song, but that was on Face Dances. The three tracks Entwistle contributed on It's Hard are among the worst examples of commercial 80s rock in existence. They manage to make Journey sound like Bob Dylan.
Was trying to think of who, among first generation rock critics, was actually a big Sgt. Pepper proponent and then remembered: Meltzer
It makes pretty good sense that a lot of the 60s rock critics were let down by how rock became increasingly slack and commercialized after 1972 and why they all creamed themselves when punk happened and in Christgau's case, punk and hip-hop. I also don't begrudge their distaste for Black Sabbath and GFR.
>>65479582
What do you think of Face Dances? A lot of people claim it's not a "real Who album," but I think it's pretty solid, maybe even better than Who Are You.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhuLhcbY_08&index=9&list=PL1HPN8SoyDKllmfp_rGjenPLlZUG_JIw8
Right. Most of the first generation rock critics were pretty disillusioned by post-Exile Rolling Stones, Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Kiss, and other bloated mid-70s stadium rock as well as most of the big prog groups. Lester Bangs said that Band On The Run was good muzak and nothing more and these guys were listening to jazz and R&B/funk, but but were they reviewing the artier end of things pre-punk? the exploratory and progressive underground strains a la krautrock and the whole tumultuous island/harvest/vertigo revolution of folkpsychprogjazznoisewhatever bands that were building on the technical and spiritual and artistic successes of the 60's? did xgau or marcus ever review amon duul records? what did they think of can? can were not grand funk. and they were exciting and punk (in their way) before the school of '76.
>>65479750
You do realize that krautrock was barely even known in the US in the 70s.
>>65479750
Could you elaborate? I've read a few explanations but never really understood it. Prog and the more artsy side of rock seemed to be natural evolutions of the Beatles and Hendrix, both of whom were major label artists (besides, all those singer-songwriters like James Taylor and Neil Young were major label as well, not indie or anything close to it). And punk almost seems as if it was directly descended from 50s rock-and-roll as if the 60s had never happened.
What's really incredible about most of the reviews of prog and hard rock from the 70s is that the critics always seemed to trash the music for being prog or hard rock, not for failing to achieve its goals. It's almost the equivalent of reviewing 100 house tracks and complaining that they all have this repetitive 4x4 beat.
>>65479809
Why, what's hard to get? By 1975, rock had become a stale, bloated, commercialized shitshow completely divorced from the idealism and social change of the 60s and then punk came along to remind us that rock could still be simple, fun, and not require a multimillion dollar budget or le epic guitar hero antics. All of course ignoring that tons of fun, innovative stuff did happen in the years preceding the Sex Pistols, but nobody knew about it. There was no Internet in those days and most critics probably were unaware of much beyond major label releases.
>>65479869
Yeah, that's the usual narrative from those critics. I just have trouble squaring it with the actual music they were writing about.
I assumed that a lot of the dislike towards prog and metal was generational. At least, Christgau kind of admitted to it. "The good thing about being old is that I'm neither wired to like metal or tempted to fake it." "I was born far too early to have had my dendrites rewired by progressive radio", etc.
They thought that bands like Black Sabbath were con artists out to sell false rock to gullible white teenagers for money. "Yeah, you kids are so dumb not like us college educated critics in the Village Voice offices." Also in general, the biases against music with a blue collar/white trash fanbase (because most critics were autistic nerds that got the shit kicked out of them by jocks in high school).
>>65479941
This makes a little more sense, like it was more a social/cultural issue than a musical one... "We thought this stuff was going to bring a revolution in the 60s and now it's not even trying anymore, it's just another mass produced corporate product for the passive suburban masses"?
All criticism says as much about the critic as about the music.
Ok, I get it that a lot of critics didn't like Sabbath, Uriah Heep, or Yes, but at the same time they creamed themselves over New York Dolls, Stooges, Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Moot the Hoople, Slade, and Lynyrd Skynyrd (sometimes also Blue Oyster Cult, Thin Lizzy, and Alice Cooper all with plenty of white suburban teen fans). So it's misleading to claim they hated all of 70s rock, more that they liked the stuff that they felt sounded more like, oh I dunno, rock-and-roll? Which is understandable. I can see why they didn't like Black Sabbath - it's slow af, doesn't swing or boogie, and you can't dance to it (though I still don't understand why they disliked Grand Funk Railroad).
>>65479869
Yeah I do think most critics of Christgau's generation worshiped punk because it was simple, no-bullshit, and fast. It reminded them of their childhood listening to Elvis and Chuck Berry. Granted, there was a lot of amazing stuff going on in continental Europe, Latin America, and Japan in the 70s but pre-Internet there was almost no way for Americans to ever know about it.
I was under the impression that as much as The Ramones confused a lot of the public, that they were mostly loved by critics, a disproportionate number of which were based in NYC, because critics generally liked new and unique (with notable exceptions) and this (and the other NYC stuff) was happening in their backyard/playground.
I also think the UK punk went over well in the UK, partially for the same reasons and also because those tabloids seemed to love controversy as much as good music and the early punk stuff was certainly controversial at the time.
AM radio in the late 70s played almost nothing but disco and pop, occasionally a hard rock single if it charted high. But mostly just top 40, which meant lots and lots of Bee Gees and Fleetwood Mac. Punk was just a curiosity and as huge as the Sex Pistols got in the UK, none of their songs charted here at all.
>>65480010
Going back to this, I guess it's more just that, in general, even the best-liked hard rock and prog bands almost never seemed to get the sort of widespread acclaim that subtle singer-songwriters or garage punk rock bands got. As you noted, Aerosmith's ratings were only good compared to other hard rock bands'. They did better than AC/DC but those are still pretty middling ratings. Even the fourth Led Zeppelin album (the #1 album in your metal book!) only placed at #30 in the 1971 P&J poll, below Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. And that's after merging the critics' and readers' polls. So I do see a broad genre-based bias in journalistic/critical attitudes from that time. (To be fair, it is worth noting that the albums ahead of Led Zeppelin on that poll include Mahavishnu Orchestra, Procol Harum, and Jethro Tull. I still think there's something to what I'm saying though. None of them was ever going to beat Van Morrison, for instance.)
I'm older than many of you guys (1966 mustard race) and I distinctly remember that in the late 70s, you definitely did not hear much, if any hard rock on mainstream AM stations. Once in a while, there might be an Aerosmith or Van Halen or Kiss single, but I never ever recall hearing Black Sabbath or Judas Priest. The only place you could hear that stuff was on rock radio.
It's hard for young guys to understand exactly what the music landscape back then was like. They get the impression that if you put on the radio in 1978, the first thing you heard was Van Halen or Priest. They also think every teenager in America had the Clash or the Ramones in his 8-track. Sure as hell not. Shit, vintage punk is more popular today than it was when it was new!
>>65480198
To be completely honest, Sabbath were on their last legs by 1978 so it's not surprising you wouldn't hear them on the radio.
Speaking of Black Sabbath, Born Again was absolutely _despised_ when it came out. Most every critic in 1983 tore it a new one, calling it "every bad metal cliche in the book, almost like it was a parody metal album". However, Scott Seward of Rolling Stone gave Born Again three out of five stars and described the album as a "monstrous beast and one of the best Sabbath albums that hardly anyone has heard."
Funnily enough, Ozzy himself said it was the best album they did without him and Axl Rose liked it enough to steal pieces for AFD.
>>65480300
And speaking of 1983, how about Madonna S/T? That album was sure trashed back then. Christgau was really one of the very few critics who appreciated it and didn't drop the thing in his shitbucket.
>>65480315
It doesn't seem like Madonna's debut is all that well-liked even now. Most contemporary reviewers still brush it off as vacuous bubblegum pop with super-dated production.
This is the nicest, most civil thread I've ever seen on /mu/.
>>65480332
Yeah, Like A Virgin was a little better received, but most critics didn't take her seriously until the third album.
From Christgau's 1984 P&J essay (though he's talking about the single here, not the album):
Read what you will into the burlesque escapism of "Ghostbusters" or the pathological deceit of "Like a Virgin" (or the pulp-fascist sadism of Shout at the Devil) I trust that most Voice readers, if not most New Republic readers, still prefer rock and roll's hegemony to the president's.
For me the taste treats were John Waite's "Missing You" (the most unequivocal such commodity to chart, though the loathsome "Like a Virgin" came damn close) and the Romantics' "Talking in Your Sleep" and especially the Thompson Twins' "Hold Me Now."
Also, same year:
give thanks that neither Madonna album snuck into the top 100
"Destroyer" is now considered the one Kiss album that it is OK to like. I am pretty sure the critics hated it just as much as they did all other Kiss albums back in 1976 though.
>>65480401
First edition of Rolling Stone Record Guide, 1978, Destroyer was the only Kiss album to get four stars. All the other regular studio releases got two or less. So it's possibly always been the critics' favorite among their albums.
>>65480411
Christgau didn't like Destroyer though; he complained it was overproduced and only gave it a C+.
Personally I think the first album was their best one, although Christgau never did review it.
Destroyer generally is liked by most people though, aside from knee-jerk Kiss haters who simply write off their entire catalog.
There is also a category of albums who are at first almost universally praised as masterpieces, then experience a very obvious critical backclash, but then in a few decades retrospect enough critics tend to admit that, yes, it was a good album even though maybe not the historical masterpiece it was originally thought to be. Examples of this I feel may be albums like "Born In The USA" and "Brothers In Arms".
I still get 20-something guys come into my used record store and ask for Springsteen on vinyl. I've never ever seen one of them ask for Dire Straits records and those usually sell for <$5.
tons of early 80's r&b STILL ignored by critics to this very day.
Most extreme metal was very badly received in the metal press throughout roughly 85-94 - the big mag editors were all NWOBM fans.
>>65480539
Maybe in the mainstream press, but in the metal press it got plenty of attention.
What was the U.S. metal press in the '80s, beyond say Circus, Hit Parader, Creem Metal and (later in the '80s) RIP? Or are those the magazines you're referring to? Didn't most of those just basically concentrate on whatever was selling, or on MTV? So what NWOBM did they really care about, beyond say Judas Priest and Iron Maiden? Not arguing; I just didn't look at them all that much, especially early in the '80s, so I'm curious. (I don't even get the idea that Kerrang, say, was all that easy to find in the U.S.)
Extreme metal was almost universally despised in the press until the 2000s.
Metal Edge? Metal Something Something? I was pretty young at the time, but I feel like Leppard and Maiden and even Motorhead, Venom, Priest, etc, were still getting a bit of attention through the 80s although I guess post-86-87 that might have dimmed a bit. Didn't feel like until the rise of hair metal anyway that metal mags were too influenced by MTV (since it's not like outside of Leppard metal bands got much MTV play anyway prior to that)
Do Ratt, Quiet Riot, Twister Sister count as hair metal? (I guess so -- 1984 must be the dividing line. And I'm not sure how often Van Halen or AC/DC were on MTV before then.)
Motorhead, Venom, Priest
These make sense -- or least Motorhead and Priest do -- though I always think of them (especially Priest) as having been around too long to count as NWOBM, and Motorhead being too pub rock or punk rock or something, and Venom more being the beginning of "extreme"/speed/thrash-etc metal. Guess it depends where you draw the line. Actually, related subject, I've got this issue (well, most of the issue -- cover's missing) of Extra Kerrang! (whatever that was) from c. 1984 that has this goofy roundup column called "Janet And John Guide To Metal" by Paul Suter and Xavier Russell, where they go off on how horrible all these Angel Witch, Bathory, Cirith Ungol, Voivod, Slayer, etc., LPs are, in a section called "The Devil Is Alive And Well But Highly Embarrassed About All This S**t Going Down In His Name." No idea how common that was at the time, though.
Yeah Kerrang! were mostly pretty negative about first wave Black Metal, but then they put Duran Duran in there so fuck them. I was born in 66 as I said earlier and I graduated HS in 85. I remember none of the kids I went to school with liked BM at all and the vast majority of them only listened to whatever was on MTV, so Maiden, Leppard, Kiss, Twisted Sister, Ratt, etc.
I don't think 80s critics hated anything with synths in it, but the sort of synth heavy music that had its roots in white and straight scenes (rock, punk, new wave) was certainly rated higher than the synth heavy music that had its roots in black and/or gay scenes (disco, R&B, soul). That is why they wrote a lot about synth pop and new pop, whereas boogie, Italo, early house, and hi-NRG were mostly ignored.
Besides, most music critics back then were staunch rockists and very few of them liked disco or dancepop at all.
>>65480625
Some rock critics didn't like disco, although Christgau was always very soft on it and rarely found a disco record he gave less than a B to. Most rock critics also probably liked at least some disco songs.
Did anyone like the early Judas Priest stuff critically?
"Sad Wings Of Destiny" is a motherfuck but I wonder how it was received (and the band didn't really get popular off that release).
Rocka Rolla was extensively reprinted all through the 80s, so getting a copy of it was easy, but when I was in high school from 81-85, none of the people I knew liked it at all. The Priest we knew was the Priest of British Steel and Vengeance. This trippy, psychedelic 70s boogie rock on RR was completely wtf to us. Yet some people really like that first JP album. No idea what it was ranked as in 1975 though.
>>65480655
Since the album only sold about 1000 copies, all in the UK, I doubt Americans even knew it existed back then.
The Rolling Stone Album Guide from 1979 however brushes off RR as nothing but pastiche Led Zeppelin while giving one star each to Sad Wings and Sin After Sin.
>>65480675
Go read the 1983 Rolling Stone Album Guide for lulz. This time they give all nine Judas Priest LPs a one star.
>>65480685
ouch
Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet
>>65480685
>>65480675
Christgau just put JP in his shitbucket Meltdown list and never bothered reviewing any of theirs or Maiden's albums.
I'm still astonished that he rated Reign In Blood a B+
>>65478983
stop with this meme
>>65478946
It'snot exactly shit but Yankee Hotel Foxtrot got a perfect 10 from Pitchfork.
Fugazi's Steady Diet of Nothing was met with indifference as if it was just the leftovers of Repeater, but plenty of Fugazi fans including myself recognise it as a great album in its own right
Before Dark Side of the Moon was released, it was played for a few select journalists. Apparently they started talking and smoking cigarettes before halfway in. Also, iirc Wish You Were Here got lukewarm reviews
Music journalism is a joke desu. I cant imagine taking someones word knowing that it was probably just paid off by the label. Thank god for the internet
>>65477816
It was disliked by Jazz critics.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/oct/26/jazz.shopping
>>65477792
So post them, that's why OP made the thread.
>>65478946
Jenny Death
>>65479827
the worst kind of reviews, that shit just makes me mad
>>65478946
all of years 2002-2010
>>65479827
if you want to see a true stereotypical review, look up eat a peach's review from rolling stone. it's like you know they'll like something before the first note.
btw p4k is already that way too
>>65478946
Source Tags & Codes
>>65477976
I would have assumed that was their early work, but okay. I'm pretty sure SPLHCB only attracts more hate because it's more notable than other Beatles albums (i.e. more attention = more love and more hate)
Souvlaki was panned to shit back then because of britpop
>>65479018
sauce?
New Morning was considered a grand comeback for Dylan at the time.
Also there was a time when John Wesley Harding was his best selling albums.
>>65479018
Yes is still largely loathed by everyone outside /mu/ and the stevehoffman forum
Rolling Stone pretty much hated The Grateful Dead back in the day, especially when they first ditched their jazziness for americaness.
>>65480357
shut the fuck up pleb
>>65478598
>On the Corner is actually fucking bad though
>>65478946
I can't think of any examples. However, countless early 00s garage rock revival/post-punk revival records were critically acclaimed when they came out and now no one remembers them. Some The Rapture album got album of the year from pitchfork but you never see anyone talk about it nowadays.
>>65486083
JWH is fantastic though desu
>>65478946
Well, I mean, it's going to happen to Lemonade in a couple decades, same with most of Beyonce's shit.
>>65486846
Oh, it is, it's just weird to think that for a time it was the Dylan album more people had in their homes than any of his previous stuff.
>>65486989
Yeah I 100% agree, I can see why though, since it's a return to his mostly acoustic format
>>65479312
This is a good one. Low was generally regarded with a "What the fuck?" at the time, but now is a critical and audience darling, and that says nothing of "Heroes".
>>65478946
A Moon Shaped Pool
just wait
>>65487087
Agreed, I can see why the critics are hailing it (a return to band format, less bloopydoops) but my god if it isn't the most sterile and boring thing they've ever done
>>65478946
The Life of Pablo
>>65478946
Carter 3 comes to mind
>>65478946
Anything even tangentially related to Madchester
>>65478946
U2's discography
