Best music critics? I need a resource that isn't you people
and the first person you post is scaruffi
>wants a resource that's not us
>asks us
Just admit you love me anon
>>66444062
that's clint eastwood you dip
![BkJrtu5IQAEZGgS[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ZBiPOe4.jpg "BkJrtu5IQAEZGgS[1].jpg")
le hair man
>>66444052
Scaruffi is the best desu. Just at his ratings, not his words. Unless you REALLY must know his reasoning for liking something.
>>66444110
who is le hair man
>>66444052
I dig Piero's taste but he has that stubborn philosopher's mindset. Fucking worst kind of people, over-reliance of using reason and are constantly on the offensive when criticized.
>>66444110
Entertaining madman, but poor musical taste overall.
>>66444143
Chris Ott aka Shallow Rewards. He's kind of a grumpy old man but he's entertaining
>>66444052
What do mean "you people"?
>>66444052
Why can't you just listen to music and make up your own mind?
These people could be professors at Harvard and their opinion would still mean jack.
>>66444841
some thing they say are said from objective point of view.most things in fact since they tend to make reviews not diaries.still overall, scores they give don't matter much and there I agree with you.You like your favorite music for a reason(a personal one) and that's something every critic should keep a in mind
>>66444052
>>66444407
do you listen to Jonwayne?
>>66444154
It's that whole European mentality. He thinks he's Descartes or something.
>>66444052
Xgau.
>>66447236
On Avery Island [Merge, 1996] :(
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea [Merge, 1998] :(
Lester Bangs.
>>66447304
Yeh but he died 34 years ago so only useful if you want criticism of stuff from the 70s.
>>66447236
>yfw Christgau rated three Taylor Swift albums with As
>yfw he rated Nick Cave - Henry's Dream a C-
Scaruffi has shit taste in film. yet he pretends to be the world's largest cinephile. jfc get him to shut up.
>>66444052
Rym if I I'm at a record store wondering if it's worth buying.
Scaruffi and Christgau if I want some more articulate but also extreme opinions.
Pitchfork if I'm wondering what the reception was.
Reminder that Christgau is right that metal is for literal children and Europeans fundamentally do not understand how rock music works.
>>66447523
>Europeans fundamentally do not understand how rock music works.
Are you saying that it's good or bad to fundamentally understand how rock music works? Because all the best rock music has come from Europeans. Americans are third rate when it comes to rock music among other things.
>>66447523
I read an interview with Kerry King from the early 2000s which went like (paraphrasing):
"Heavy metal is widely perceived as being a phase one grows out of and Slayer guitarist Kerry King doesn't necessarily disagree. 'I'd say a lot of people lose interest in metal after a while. For example, I don't really consider Metallica a metal band anymore, or Megadeth for that matter. Me though, I still get up there every night and play because I love doing it. Today the music world is so dominated by all this teenybopper music like N*Sync and whatnot, but I feel there's still a market out there for heavy music and Slayer will be there to deliver.' he says as the veteran thrash metal act prepares to release their ninth studio album, 'God Hates Us All', next month."
>>66444052
Christgau
>>66444052
>doesn't like /mu/ as a resource on music
>asks /mu/ for a resource on music
>>66447707
>>66447645
>>66447523
The thing is, Yuropoors didn't have the cultural connections to blues, R&B, country, and the other roots genres that rock evolved from. And Christgau even explained this in one of his columns, that they imperfectly digested rock music and so the end result is that they grafted it onto the European symphonic tradition and so you ended up with prog and other malarkey like that.
>>66447645
>Americans are third rate when it comes to rock music among other things.
>Elvis Presley
>the Stooges
>the Ramones
>the Velvet Underground
k then
Pitchfork?
>>66447750
I'd say English punk was very close to the spirit of original rock music.
But then post-punk happened and everyone was back where they started.
>>66447750
Or sometimes try to append their own indigenous folk music onto it. British prog bands were notorious for that.
OP I feel you. Let me share some resources with you.
1) Every microgenre has a forum of insane gurus dedicated to it. For example, the closed-registration philaflava forum for hip hop (but you can still lurk it). I know of a few depending on your inclinations.
2) The members of the bands you like are also in other bands. They are often on record labels with like minded artists. This is a great way of discovering music on your own without dealing with some critic or fan's predisposing you towards or against it. A great example is the Amphetamine Reptile record label, virtually everything they released is noteworthy
3) Rate Your Music and Allmusic are tried and true resources
4) Julian Cope is my personal favorite music critic but more for the writing itself than the guidance
happy discoveries friend!
Mark Prindle is pretty underrated on /mu/. He did a lot of punk and metal reviews, he retired a few years ago. He was pretty funny, and helpful if you want to get into heavy music.
>>66447750
There was another column where he talks about the Baroque or neoclassical strain of metal which had since given way to punk-influenced forms. The early British metal bands were all very much like that in that they'd play in Aeolian modes and have lots of wizards-and-Satan nonsense. It was very Gothic and very European. And then when the US finally got its own native metal movement with thrash, it was faster and more punk-oriented with less of the Baroque-ness of Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden. Judas Priest had to Americanize their sound to get popular here.
Even then, later generations of British metal like Cradle of Filth still had much the same European-ness to them not seen in American metal.
>>66447978
yeah COF does make you want to read Harry Potter books
>>66447761
Aerosmith, also one of Christgau's pet groups and they also understood rock-and-roll perfectly.
>>66448066
Aerosmith is horrible buttrock though.
>>66444143
race-traitor faggot who hasn't had a music job in over 10 years but still thinks he's an insider and has no idea that his writing was always shit and ppl are embarrassed for him.
"I liked the music of the '50s and consider it better than a lot of what's out today (1979). To me, one really good, heartfelt song about a guy breaking up with his girlfriend is worth more than twenty albums of English rock put together."
-- Frank Zappa
>>66448150
Funny because Zappa's classical-jazz-rock was one of the earliest progenitors of English prog
>>66448150
>nostalgic 40 year old fapping to his childhood music
kornheiserunimpressed.jpg
>>66447236
>>66447499
>>66447523
>>66447707
>>66447978
can you link to that article?
Christgau's pleb - the critic. I don't believe he ever had a real feeling for a work; only giving somewhat detached praise to things that fit his pretense of the self-important common man of true rock.
>>66444052
Alex Ross desu
![alex-ross-cap-cropped[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/eDPKOdB.jpg "alex-ross-cap-cropped[1].jpg")
>>66448429
his art is pretty kitchy
>>66448309
>that fit his pretense of the self-important common man of true rock
Yet he still admitted he couldn't identify with bands like Grand Funk Railroad because they're too blue collar for a guy with a college education to appreciate.
>>66448287
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bkrev/walser-cp.php
Here's where he mentions the neoclassical mode of first-generation metal and how later it gave way to more punk-inspired forms.
Xgau has an unnerving habit of lumping anything he doesn't like into the category of "metal" or "art rock". For example he called Van Halen "metal" a bunch of times which they certainly aren't, Eddie even said himself he didn't understand why people called them a metal band.
>>66448583
thanks
>>66448545
Which is strange because they really aren't all that more common and musically basic than the New York Dolls.
>>66448619
I think he's probably using "metal" as a general term for anything with overdriven riffs. The line between metal and hard rock is kind of vague anyway.
>>66448780
Also he loves Neil Young who's a very uneducated blue collar motorcycle greaser kind of guy.
>>66448131
>>66448066
>gives Get a Grip an A-
Cripes even most Aerosmith fans hate that album or anything they did after 1985 for that matter.
>>66448800
I always said you'll know hard rock and metal when you hear them.
>>66447474
he has somewhat shitty music taste too
>>66449095
Like, for example Motley Crue. Their debut album seems more like hard rock but SATD seems more metal.
You Light Up My Life [Warner Bros., 1976]
Who cares if the single sold 6 million? Singles aren't a good measure of anything. Smart people like you and me don't buy singles. But then I heard the _album_ has now gone platinum? D+
>>66449321
kek
Night in the Ruts [Columbia, 1979]
The album opens with a promising song about the band's career titled "No Surprize". Then they inch ever closer to the dull tempos, flash guitar, and stupid cover versions of heavy metal orthodoxy. No surprize. C+
>>66447911
Prindle, Starostin, Simon Reynolds are my go-to's
/mu/ cant into any critic that doesn't have a youtube page
American Idiot [Reprise, 2004]
For hints on what this concept album means, look no further than the cover art--a raised fist clenching a grenade shaped like a bleeding heart. This is a visual culture we live in and Billie Joe says, without saying it out loud, that the grenade will explode if he doesn't throw it, only it won't because he doesn't have the heart to pull the pin. The emotional travails of two clueless punks, one passive and one aggressive, both projection of the auteur, stand in 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 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 then, to give his maunderings rock grandeur, he ties them together with devices that sank under their own weight back when The Who invented them. Special rhetorical coup--makes being called a faggot something to aspire to, which in this terrible time it is. C+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi9XvwPDaMA
This guy is /mu/'s #1
Frampton Comes Alive [A&M, 1976]
All right Peter, you win. I'll review your stupid album-- it's only been in the top 20 all year. Now will you please go away? C+
Superstar Car Wash [Blade, 1993] :(
A Boy Named Goo [Blade, 1995] :(
Dizzy Up The Girl [Warner Bros., 1998] *bomb*
Grand Funk [Capitol, 1969]
This group is creating a stir apparently because they play faster than Iron Butterfly. That's at least a start. Me, I saw them in Detroit before I knew any of this. I found myself liking them for 5 minutes, tolerating them for 15, and hating them for 45. This LP, their second, isn't as good as that performance. C-
Led Zeppelin II [Atlantic, 1969]
The best of the wah-wah mannerist groups, so dirty they drool on demand. Sure, the songs are all the same, but nobody ever held that against Little Richard. Then again, Robert Plant isn't Little Richard. B
It's Only Rock and Roll [Rolling Stones, 1974]
When I listen closely, I hear enough interesting hooks, catchy riffs, and arresting bass lines for two albums. I also hear lazy rhymes, indolent phrasing, two sides that begin on a peak and wind down from there, and a song about Father Time that maybe means more than it intends. Or do I mean more than I intend? B-
Ten [Epic, 1991]
in life, misery begats company. in music, riffs work even better. ("Once", "Even Flow") **
The Wall [Columbia, 1979]
For a dumb tribulations-of-a-rock-star epic, this isn't bad--unlikely to arouse much pity or envy, anyway. The music is all right, too--kitschy minimal maximalism with sound effects and speech fragments. But the story is confused, "mother" and "modern life" make unconvincing villains, and if the recontextualization of "up against the wall" is intended ironically, I don't get it. B-
Hysteria [Mercury, 1987]
You know about the music and if you don't think you'll like it, you won't--impeccable pop metal of no discernible substance--in short, it's completely irrelevant to everyone but AOR radio programmers and the several million addicts of the genre. From a technocratic standpoint however, it's more interesting. Stuck with over two hours of material over the past four years (how long can 12 songs be?) they've eclectically conceived for hour-long music formats such as CDs instead of vinyl discs, which they outsell now, and audio cassettes, which they outdollar, and chosen to put it all on one album. I find the cassette sound a little dim, as commercial cassettes tend to be, and while I do prefer the depth of the vinyl once I've cranked my stereo up to 6 or 7, the clarity of the CD comes through decisively once the needle approaches the outgroove. I mean, I have trouble perceiving these guys as human beings under ordinary circumstances. Not docked a notch because at least they didn't pad it into a double. C+
Backless [Polydor, 1979]
Having already been sued by Sominex for unfair trade practices, here Eric contributes three new sleepytime classics. All are listed on the front sticker and none were written by Bob Dylan. One more and it would be perfect. B-
Behind The Sun [Warner Bros., 1985]
Eric Clapton and Phil Collins are both industry veterans who can count themselves as survivors (Collins, and how!). Problem is that his style only worked when laid-back was commercial. On this album however, Eric isn't retiring, he's looking for work. For several reasons, including marketplace fashion, Collins mixes the drums very high, and then for reasons of marketplace fashion, he induces Eric to, um, project. Painful. And bad. C+
>>66449321
>Singles aren't a good measure of anything
this is true though
Scruffy likes hippy music.
>>66450831
Be that as it may, Debby Boone wouldn't even have been a one hit wonder if her name were Debby Smith.
Midstream [Warner Bros., 1978]
Does the title mean she'd rather drown than get hit by a truck in the MOR? Or that she's changing horses midrecord from Joe Brooks (get the pun?) to Brooks (get it now?) Arthur? Arthur's side offers classy material (this year Allee Willis, maybe next Janis Ian!), while Joe's is junk almost as jingly as "You Light Up My Life." I prefer Joe's. I'd also prefer to get hit by a truck. D+
Man, /mu/ would have a shitfit if they saw his review of Ys.
>>66451322
Xgau's, I mean. Not Scruffy's.
>>66444113
he has a great way of describing music, I usually read what he has to say and ignore the rating
I'm pretty certain this is the first time in /mu/'s 11 or whatever years of existence that anyone has ever mentioned Debby Boone.
>>66451546
>>66451209
My mom hates that song btw.
Singin' With The Big Bands [Arista, 1994]
Tempting though it would be to tweak reformed Halo of Flies fans for going gaga over Tony Bennett, the wily codger's as prudent as ever about deploying his lovingly preserved pipes. Trevor Horn's Tom Jones joke travesties an artist who's always clocked dollars making fun of himself. But this guy's got a nerve. It's less ghoulish than some "Unforgettable"-style computer nightmare in which Barry magically replaces Martha Tilton or Tex Beneke on classic swing records, but it's also worse--swing as '50s television music, stupefying chestnuts (three each from Sinatra and the Andrews Sisters, what taste), backed by recreated or reconceived live big band arrangements (sometimes from the original bands, whatever that can mean after 50 years, more often from "the Big Band Orchestra"). Fronted, of course, by Manilow's uncompromisingly inoffensive voice--a voice that never hints at sex or history or even chops. Incomprehensible Press Quote: "'I've found a funkiness and intelligence in the music that will last forever. Hopefully, everyone can feel the honesty and grit on the album that will remind us of what a hip era this was.'" C
>>66444052
The best music critic is yourself.
>>66451702
Oh yeah, the 90s swing fag. Just a bunch of dumbarse baby boomers who found their parents' old 78s in the attic and thought hey this is pretty good stuff.
The Spaghetti Incident? [Geffen, 1994]
Talk about your anxiety of influence. As someone who never thought punk had much to do with musicianship or musicianship much to do with GNR, I remain impressed even with the excitement worn off. I mean, Axl Rose damn near stealing "Human Being" from David Johansen? Because his drummer is so fierce? Fear and UK Subs (!) and Nazareth (!!) tunes that belong on the same record? What would Harold Bloom say? Something about Axl being a shitty songwriter, I hope. Which wouldn't be altogether fair. But hey--criticism is unfair. A-
>>66451546
Homer: Boy, the guy she was singing that about must have been real happy.
Marge: Actually Homer, she was singing about God.
Homer: Oh well, he's always happy. No wait...he's always mad.
Hot Rats [Bizarre/Reprise, 1969]
Doo doo to you, Frank. If I wanted movie music, I'd listen to Wonderwall. C
Sheik Yerbouti [Zappa/CBS, 1979]
If this be social satire, then how come the only targets are those individuals whose particular eccentricities happen to diverge from those of the retentive gent at the control board? One must also wonder if Frank's primo guitar solo on Yo Mama is as spiritually arid as he is. As if there was any question after all these years. C
Distinctions Not Cost Effective [1980s]
Oh, shut up.
Lou Reed Live: Take No Prisoners [Arista, 1978]
Partly because your humble servant is attacked by name (along with John Rockwell) on what is essentially a comedy record, a few colleagues have rushed in with Don Rickles analogies, but that's not fair. Lenny Bruce is the obvious influence. Me, I don't play my greatest comedy albums, not even the real Lenny Bruce ones, as much as I do Rock n Roll Animal. I've heard Lou do two very different concerts during his Arista period that I'd love to check out again--Palladium November '76 and Bottom Line May '77. I'm sorry this isn't either. And I thank Lou for pronouncing my name right. C+
