This kills the metalfag.
The OG poptimist
>>65754518
He's a punkimist faggot
Nobody's Daughter [Mercury, 2010]
Lots of people don't like her and I don't either for that matter. And it's true that stuff like the oil spill is just another thing for her to pretend to care about. Thing is, I could use some new punk fury in my life and unless you're a fan of BP Petroleum or Goldman-Sachs, so can you. And what better person to deliver it than a 45 year old woman who knows how to throw her weight around better than half the zitted faces and dweens who make up the scene nowadays. B
>>65754694
>punk fury
Vat. That album sounded like a bunch of Avril Lavigne B-sides.
>>65754717
this is right though
it's amazing some 70 year old grandpa understands it but a music board of teens and twenty year olds doesn't
>>65754745
Soulja Boy influenced practically every rapper this decade. Considering Christgau was like 64 when he wrote that, it's almost comical how much more on the ball he was about SB than /mu/.
>>65754824
>influence = good even when it's an ultra-commercialized work coming from a clueless idiot
>>65754856
(Youu)
>>65754824
Doesn't change the fact that Soulja Boy's music is steaming shit.
>ersatz shit
Never Forget
>>65754824
>>65754717
Part of me chuckles slightly when I picture his graying 60-something self listening to 2000s Atlanta krunkcore.
has he ever written anything that isn't a pithy newspaper blurb with nothing to say about the musical content of a record?
>>65754950
I mean, shit. Lester Bangs at least wrote several paragraphs when reviewing an album.
>>65754408
why?
>>65754408
very punchable face
>>65754408
>Ramones [Sire, 1976] A
>>65754969
yeah I won't knock christgau's ability to write about cultural context via his essay work but it's hard to deny his influence on generations of absolutely tone-deaf critics
hell, even fantano (with his limited musical vocabulary, the man should be a poet or a public speaker not a critic) attempts to provide some sort of insight into how an album sounds
>Audioslave [Epic/Interscope, 2002] *bomb*
>Out of Exile [Epic/Interscope, 2005] *bomb*
Why.
>>65755500
Because Audioslave is garbage you Reddit fuck
>>65755037
He's like 90 you'll kill him
>>65754926
What did he mean by this?
Californication [Warner Bros., 1999]
New Age fuck fiends ("Scar Tissue", "Purple Stain") **
How to make an album Christgau will like:
1. Catchy
2. Fast
3. Loud
4. Songs are under 3.5 minutes
5. Left wing
6. Optimistic
7. Also helps if the artist is from NYC
>>65754408
No it doesn't. Christgau is a weenie and I don't care what he thinks.
t. metalfag
>>65755609
huh?
>>65754529
He frequently praises top 40 pop music. He gave some Lady Gaga albums A-s.
>>65755649
I find it hilarious that he struggled to like Another Green World. It was just too 'oh so weird' for him to get before he reconciled himself with it. But he gathered his listening skills for an artist he liked and found it within himself to embrace Eno's album. A truly beautiful moment in rock music journalism, where a famous and well-respected critic figured out how to appreciate a sort-of experimental album. Christgau probably listens to The Big Ship and thinks, "not punky enough".
What a fucking hack.
>>65755649
spot on
>guy who uses art rock as a blanket term for anything he doesn't like
>>65755555
worse than shit, i.e. he is saying ITCOTCK aspires to be a shit album but only manages an ugly version of that
>>65757734
also
>implying art rock is inherently a bad thing
christgau is one of those music fans/critics who while criticizing pretentiousness manages to be more pretentious than anything or anybody else.
>>65755649
He's like the nega-Scaruffi
Black Sabbath [Warner Bros., 1970]
This is all the worst excesses of the counterculture on a plastic platter--drug impaired reaction times, bullshit necromancy, lengthy solos. They claim to oppose war, but if I don't believe in loving my enemies then I don't believe in loving my allies either and I've been worried that something like this would happen ever since I first saw a numerology column in an underground newspaper. C-
Paranoid [Warner Bros., 1970]
They do take heavy to undreamt-of extremes, and I suppose I could enjoy them as camp, like a horror movie--the title cut is definitely screamworthy. After all, their audience can't take that Lucifer bit seriously, right? Well, depends on what you mean by serious. Personally, I've always suspected that horror movies catharsized stuff I was too rational to care about in the first place. C-
Master of Reality [Warner Bros., 1971]
As an increasingly regretful spearhead of the great Grand Funk Railroad switch three years ago, in which I defined Grand Funk as a good old-fashioned white boy blues band, even though I knew of no critics, myself included, who actually played the records. Grand Funk are American--dull. Black Sabbath are English--dull and decadent. I don't care how many rebels and incipient groovers are buying, I don't care if the band actually believes their own Christian/liberal/Satanist muck. This is a dimwitted, amoral exploitation. C-
We Sold Our Souls For Rock And Roll [Warner Bros., 1976]
By concentrating heavily on the first three records and omitting such pro formula tempo virtuoso moves as Rat Salad, this makes an appropriate mock nostalgic "document". Ten cuts hail from the first three and only six from the later albums, including four off the cleverly-named Black Sabbath Vol. 4, which I never got around to putting on back in 1972. And you know, I still haven't heard a thing on it. C+
Everything Rocks And Nothing Ever Dies (1990s)
>>65754717
Is this real? I don't believe this is real.
>>65755555
Dressed To Kill [Casablanca, 1975]
Like most hard (not heavy) bands wildly favored by young teens (Alice Cooper, Grand Funk Railroad, etc), these guys have always rocked harder than most adults are willing to give them credit for and the songwriting is very much improved over albums one and two. Unfortunately, Kiss brings back the old liberal fantasy of rock concert as Nuremberg Rally, with sexism hinted at in its cruelest in songs like Room Service and Ladies In Waiting. This combined with their ominous refusal to bare the faces that lie underneath the makeup. You can damn well bet if they didn't have their eyes set on maximum commerciality, they'd call themselves Blowjob. B-
>>65755555
WITNESSED
>>65754950
No, of course not.
Let's not forget his best review:
>Although Tim's vocal traces are in his genes as surely as John's are in Julian's, it's wrong to peg him as the unwelcome ghost of his overwrought dad. Young Jeff is a syncretic asshole, beholden to Zeppelin and Nina Simone and Chris Whitley and the Cocteau Twins and his mama--your mama too if you don't watch out.
http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Jeff+Buckley
Master of Puppets [Elektra, 1986]
I feel a distinct generation gap between myself and this music. Not because my weary bones can't take its power and intensity, but because I was born far too early to have had my dendrites rewired by progressive radio. The speed and momentum of this band can be impressive and on the surface, I suppose the album presents a good moral message--antiwar, anti-conformity, even anti-coke. Fine. The problem is that the image of heroes that it conjurs up is that of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian, all flowing hair and huge pecs. That's not the revolutionary heroes I envision--they aren't male chauvinists too naive to know better, and I'm no more entitled to feel heroic from listening to this music than I would be the 1812 Overture. B-
And Justice For All [Elektra, 1988]
Problem isn't that it's more self-conscious than Master of Puppets, which is inevitable when your stock in trade is compositions not songs. Problem is that it goes on longer--which is also inevitable when your stock in trade is compositions not songs. Just ask Yes. C+
Metallica [Elektra, 1991] *bomb*
Load [Elektra, 1996]
The nice thing about being old is that I'm neither wired to like metal nor tempted to fake it. Just as I suspected, these Johnny-come-lately-meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss can no more do grunge than they can double ledger bookkeeping. So regardless of what riff neatniks think, this is just a metal album with the tempos slowed and the songs shortened, which is good because it concentrates their chops, and bad because it means more singing, which they can't. C"
>>65758827
Load is shit though.
>tfw Christgau gave one of your band's albums an A-
>>65754408
I hate this meme's format. It's so obnoxious.
goddamn at least prindle was entertaining
>I don't believe in loving my allies
>I was too rational
>Grand Funk are American--dull
>This is a dimwitted, amoral exploitation
>Just as I suspected, these Johnny-come-lately-meet-the-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss can no more do grunge than they can double ledger bookkeeping
>he doesn't have the heart to pull the pin
>clueless punks
>Plus side--makes being called a faggot something to aspire to, which in this terrible time, it is
>>65754408
>christgau
>ever
lol k
>>65759131
dude according to him YOU are better than King Crimson, Black Sabbath, etc.
Blood Sugar Sex Magik [Warner Bros., 1991]
They've grown up, they've learned to write, they've earned the right to be sex mystics ("Give It Away", "Breaking The Girl") **
>howcum they didn't choose to echo Graeco-Roman, Hebrew, and African culture as well as the lost Indian, Chinese, Central American, and Atlantean ones?
>Typical hyperromantic exoticism is one answer, and everybody would know they're full of shit is the other.
>Radiohead wouldn't know a tragic hero if they were cramming for their A levels
>I guess the fools who ceded these bummed-out Brits U2's world's-greatest-rock-band slot actually did care about what bigger fool Thom Yorke had to say
>art-rockers without the courage of their pretensions
>>65759248
>clueless punks
Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables [Cherry Red, 1980]
I want there to be more punk rock, I do, I do. I want there to be more left wing New Wave. But not from a singer with a Tiny Tim vibrato who spent the first half of the 70s perfecting rock cabaret. And it sounds as if, although I could be wrong, that Jello Biafra started listening to the Stooges in 1977. C-
Tonight The Stars Revolt [DreamWorks, 1999] *bomb*
>The one where her beloved turns into Hitler is art-rock
>And then there's "Running Up That Hill," a woman's orgasm in 4:58
>merely shite with tunes to uplift or gull the unenlightened masses
>anything you don't understand being mysterious so long as it's geographically or historically remote (hence not your own self-deluded life)
>Jive Dr. John? Yes, jive Dr. John
>>65754717
I always thought Christgau was a hack but it honestly amazes me how accurate this is
>>65759410
>hating on Jello
>not mentioning any other qualities of the band
Fuck this guy.
Frontiers [Columbia, 1983]
For those who truly believed the jig was up this time, I'll remind you how much worse it could get--this top 20 album could be outselling Flashdance or Thriller or Pyromania. My suggestion is for Steve Perry to shed his video game interests and run as a moderate Republican from, say, Nebraska, where his oratory would garner excellent press. And then stealthily ram the tape tax through. D+
>Sad pretensions
>to cringe with dismay at the survival of a generation
>It's hardly news that this platinum product is utter dogshit even by heavy metal standards
>in which Vince Neil actually seems to boast about how fast he can ejaculate (or as the lyric sheet puts it, "cum")
>programmatic misogyny rooted in sexual rejections that were clearly deserved
>The most obnoxious band currently making a killing on the zonked teen circuit
>Suck their dicks or pussy as the case may be
Scaruffi > Christgau
>>65758827
>The problem is that the image of heroes that it conjurs up is that of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan the Barbarian, all flowing hair and huge pecs. That's not the revolutionary heroes I envision--they aren't male chauvinists too naive to know better
What a wimp.
American Idiot [Reprise, 2004]
For hints on what this concept album means, look no further than the cover art--a raised fist clenching a bleeding heart. This is a visual culture we live in and Billie Joe's takeaway message is that the bleeding heart will explode any minute unless he throws it, only it won't because he doesn't have what it takes to pull the pin. The emotional travails of two clueless punks, one passive and one aggressive, both projections of the auteur, serve as stand-ins for the sociopolitical content the vague references to Bush, Schwarzenegger, and war (not any war in particular, just "war") are thought to indicate. There's no economics, no politics, no race, hardly any compassion. Billie Joe name checks his home town of Berkeley as if it represents the entire country and then name checks Jesus as if he's never met anyone who attended church. And to give his maunderings rock grandeur, he ties them together with devices that sank under their own weight back when The Who invented them. Plus side--makes being called a faggot something to aspire to, which in this terrible time, it is. C+
21st Century Breakdown [Reprise, 2009]
I tried, I swear. Played it over and over so the music would sink in before I assessed a concept unlikely to prove profound. That way I could give it up to individual tracks whatever the state of Billie Joe Armstrong's geopolitical acumen. But all this did was convince me that I disliked the tunes I remembered even more than those I didn't--especially the slow ones that set up the fast ones within the same song, a hotcha-gotcha device with which the Broadway-bound ex-punk is deeply smitten. I don't like right-wing Christianists either. But as every oppressed teen in the right-wing orbit knows full well, they're not as garbled and simplistic as Armstrong's anthems insist. C
>self-pitying wimp harmonies
>Oh wow
>This disgraceful performance inspires the first Consumer Guide Competition
>Pondering the fate of post-September 11 pop, everyone predicted what they already wished for--Slipknot undone
>if this piffle got them through it, how dark could their night have been?
>I'm content to be sterile, square, and white
A Farewell To Kings [Mercury, 1977]
The most obnoxious band currently making a killing on the zonked teen circuit. Imagine a power trio Kansas or Uriah Heep with the vocals cranked up an octave. Or two. Or three. D+
skippy peanut butter is disgusting, it looks like plastic
Done With Mirrors [Geffen, 1985]
Aerosmith always had something going with their knack for the small song and small use for guitar hero/costume drama. With a decade of bad records and nonexistent airplay behind them, they had a big hill to climb. And against all odds, the old farts light one up. B+
>Ugh.
>He pisses me off because he's as sterile and chickenshit as the polite elevator funk he uses to sell his message--too chickenshit to mention, for instance, that he believes "Mr. Jewish Man" and "Mr. Muslim Man" are doomed to burn in hellfire. Heed my advice, people.
>the heavy metal hordes
>>65754950
absolutely not. he's a hack who hides behind his "blurbs" and quirky ratings so he doesn't actually have to produce content
>>65757852
very accurate. any earnest attempt at making music more experimental or artistic is automatically seen as pretentious to him, which is ridiculous
plus fucking this >>65754717. so embarrassing
Ten [Epic, 1991]
In life, misery loves company. In music, riffs work even better ("Once", "Even Flow") **
Foreigner [Atlantic, 1977]
You've heard of Beatlemania? I propose xenophobia. C+
Double Vision [Atlantic, 1978]
I like rock and roll so much that I catch myself getting off on "Hot Blooded," a typical piece of cock-rock nookie-hating carried along on a riff-with-chord-change that's pure (gad) second-generation Bad Company. Fortunately, nothing else here threatens their status as world's dullest group. Inspirational Verse: "She backhanded me 'cross my face." C-
Head Games [Atlantic, 1979]
This isn't as sodden as you might expect--these are pros who adapt to the times, and they speed the music up. I actually enjoy a few of these songs until I come into contact with the dumb woman-haters who are doing the singing. I mean, these guys think punks are cynical and anti-life? Guys who complain that the world is all madness and lies and then rhyme "science" and "appliance" without intending a joke? C
I didn't expect him to give Marquee Moon a good score, just because of the long tracks and art rock sensibilities but i guess it has punk roots and they're from NYC so that made it work for him
Television: Marquee Moon [Elektra, 1977]
I know why people complain about Tom Verlaine's angst-ridden voice, but fuck that, I haven't had such intense pleasure from a new release since I got into Layla three months after it came out, and this took about fifteen seconds. The lyrics, which are in a demotic-philosophical mode ("I was listening/listening to the rain/I was hearing/hearing something else"), would carry this record alone; so would the guitar playing, as lyrical and piercing as Clapton or Garcia but totally unlike either. Yes, you bet it rocks. And no, I didn't believe they'd be able to do it on record because I thought this band's excitement was all in the live raveups. Turns out that's about a third of it. A+
Nevermind [Geffen, 1991]
For years, the Seattle scene churned out noise fragments that occasionally assumed song form on singles no normal person ever heard until now. This is what hard rock was generally understood to be before metal moved in. They make it sound so simple too, and it's a shame the lesson will all be forgotten again in a few years. A
Is he the original nu-male?
The Best Damn Thing [Arista, 2007]
I don't even care if she's actually punk or not (as if), I just wish she'd act like it. ("Girlfriend", "Innocence") **
>>65759967
Yes. Just look at him.
Henry's Dream [Mute/Elektra, 1992]
Cave's admirers crow about his literary virtues--a rock musician who's actually published a novel! and scripted a film! about John Henry Abbott, how highbrow! Then they proffer dismal examples like "I am the captain of my pain," or the bordello containing--what an eye the man has--a whalebone corset! (Whalebone is very literary--it hasn't been used in underwear since well before Nick was born.) If this is your idea of great writing, you may be ripe for his cult. Otherwise, forget it--the voice alone definitely won't do the trick. C
Pieces of You [Atlantic, 1995]
Worth ignoring while she was merely precious, she demands our brief attention now that she's becoming overvalued as well. With the possible exception of Saint Joan, who at least had some stature, this is the bad folkie joke to end all bad folkie jokes. With her self-righteousness, her self-dramatization, her abiding love for her own voice, her breathy little-girl innocence and breathless baby-doll sexuality, her useless ideas about prejudice and injustice and let us not forget abuse, she may well prove as insufferable as any hollow-bodied guitarist ever to get away with craving the world's adoration. End of story--I hope. C-
War [Island, 1983]
The deadly European virus that's always tainted this band turns out to be their characteristic melodic device, a medieval-sounding unresolved fifth frequently utilized by monks in Hollywood movies. In other respects, however, their hot album is rock and roll indeed. The Edge becomes a tuneful guitarist by the simple expedient of not soloing, and if Bono has too many Gregorian moments his conviction still carries the music. Anyway, I'll take his militant if pacifist Christianity ("The real battle has begun/To claim the victory Jesus won") over most of the secular humanism and Jah love rockers are going in for these days. B+
Whitesnake [Geffen, 1987]
The attraction of this veteran pop-metal has got to be total predictability. The glistening solos, the surging crescendos, the familiar macho love rhymes, the tunes you can hum before the verse is over--not one heard before, yet every one somehow known. Who cares if they're an obscure nine-year-old vehicle for the guy who took over Deep Purple's vocal chores five years before that? Rock and roll's ninth or tenth "generation" of terrified high-school boys can call them their own. And may they pass from the ether before the eleven-year-olds who are just now sprouting pubic hair claim their MTV. D+
Slip of the Tongue [Geffen, 1989]
They got lucky, and they don't intend to let go. With fast-gun-for-hire Steve Vai operating all guitars and who knows what other geegaws, they've consolidated their sound into essence of arena: all pomp, flash, male posturing, and sentimentality, this is now the Worst Band in the World. So you just move over, Journey. (Hey--where is Journey?) D
Stephen Stills 2 [Atlantic, 1971]
Stephen Stills has always come on as the ultimate rich hippie--arrogant, sexist, condescending, and self-pitying. I'll admit, the lead single (Marianne) isn't half bad especially if you don't focus too hard on the lyrics. Keep it up, Steve. It'll be a pleasure watching you fail. C
Wild Tales [Atlantic, 1974]
The title's as phony as the rest of the album despite the bought-and-paid-for goodies--a chorus, a hook, even a song now and then. Especially enervating--"Camille", in which Graham lets us know he's morally superior to a doubt-ridden Vietnam vet. C-
CSN [Atlantic, 1977]
Wait a second, wasn't this a quartet? D+
American Dream [Atlantic, 1988]
Forget the careerist compromise, dazed ennui, and soggy despair, and take this hustle for what it pretends to be and at some level is: four diehard hippies expressing themselves. Poor old guys can't leave politics alone--there's more ecology and militarism here than when they were figureheads of pop revolution, and though the rhetoric is predictable, the impulse has a woozy nobility. Not that that's ever been reason to pay Graham's ditties any mind, or that Stephen's steady-state egotism is redeemed by stray references to judges and changing the world. But while David's cocaine confessional makes "Almost Cut My Hair" seem self-abnegating, his "Nighttime for the Generals" sure beats Sting. And Neil lends musical muscle and gets commercial muscle back. So, not as horrible as you expected--nor good enough to give a third thought. C+
Looking Forward [Reprise, 1999]
Right, like you didn't already know. Although I pray Y will render the title tune hopeful instead of smug, I know deep down that I'll hear N harmonizing insipidly behind him. And when S explains how when he was young, old people were wrong and now that he's old, young people are wrong while dissing overfed talking heads as he ignores overfed exhead C next to him, part of me wishes some computer nerd with more knowledge than brains joins the arms race just to get even. C
Dirt [Columbia, 1992]
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Riff, riff, riff. Way harder, louder, and more metallic than Soundgarden will ever be. The price of it is that it's also stupider, the sound of hopeless craving. This is a heroin album, take it or leave it. I don't believe "Junkhead" is ironic and I certainly don't believe it's fictional either. As I sit here with my books and degrees (well, degree) I somehow doubt that if I, err, "opened" my mind as resident sickman Layne Staley suggests, I'd be doing as "well" as him. I'll wait for my own man, thank you. C
Stand Up [Island, 1969]
Fans of the group think it's a great album. I don't like the group. I think it is an adequate album. B-
>>65760957
Does he ever actually explain why he doesn't like an album or does he just post a two-sentence insult and call it a day.
>>65754408
Never reviewed an album I listen to on the regular.
Why is everyone so booty-blasted?
>>65762477
>Why is everyone so booty-blasted?
Because he himself and many other people seem to think that he is somehow knowledgeable on music.
>>65762636
Why?
Because he wrote a metric ton of reviews?
You can hit a few correct keys by hitting a piano with a baseball bat. People should just settle down and like what they like and forget what some guy on the internet says about your band's album.
Christgau and Scaruffi are just the equivalent of /mu/ shitposters with their own website.
>>65760670
>>65760500
Ugghh, Stephen Stills performed at my dad's college once and he told some guy in the audience who was talking to shut the hell up.
Douche.
>>65762741
This is actually solid advice.
>>65755649
Why do you post this in every thread?
>Christgau states that he does not like metal, prog, folk, bluegrass, or gospel
>his favorite artists are Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, and the New York Dolls
>>65763812
None of that is contradictory.
The problem with Xgau is that he's an old fucker who grew up in the 50s and thinks all rock songs should sound like Rock Around The Clock. He has a very very very limited idea of what rock music can be.
>>65759598
no shit
>his favorite rock album is either The Clash (1977) or New York Dolls (1973), while his favorite record in general is Monk's 1958 Misterioso
pretty based desu
>mfw someone implies that prog is music
>>65765072
He kind of liked Pink Floyd but that's not saying much anyway since PF is babby's first prog band and even non-progfags can get into them.
>>65765099
I thought he only really liked Wish You Were Here.
It makes sense seeing as that's their best album but still.
>>65765130
He rated four of their albums a B, WYWH got an A, the rest C or lower. Which is considerably kinder than he was to Yes, Genesis, Tull, or ELP.
>>65754694
He gave it an A- actually
>>65765407
he can write really well when he wants to
pity he wasted most of his life writing navel gazing blurbs, acting like he was so far above the music he was "reviewing"
