"Metal is a world of its own, and even listeners who grew up hearing Led Zeppelin or Quiet Riot on AOR radio rarely combine an appetite for difficult ideas with a continuing passion for such music. Rock intellectuals prefer "alternative," even rap, and their disdain rankles the metal faithful."
"As one of those rock intellectuals, however, I remain unconverted. The intensity of its phallic narcissism has few parallels outside X-rated movies, toilet art, and (oh yes) rap. For many of us, metal's classical affinities are the very thing that renders it unlistenable--that as far as we're concerned, the instrumentally dexterous, rhetoric-drenched, and often melodramatic approach to meaning the two musics share is what rock and roll was put on earth to save us from. "
Jose Smith
>rock intellectuals
Adam Wilson
To be fair, meal isn't very food.
Ethan Howard
I agree with this smug anime girl
David Lewis
I just went and listened to Judas Priest as a great big fuck you to this guy.
Ethan Kelly
>Saying "rock intellectual"
Thomas Perez
How the fuck does he get away with calling himself a rock intellectual when he thinks all music should be loud, fast, and mindless?
Ryder Gutierrez
>toilet art
Henry Lopez
Christgau apparently thinks that metal is bad because it encourages you to retreat into a fantasy world instead of confronting the world's problems.
Luis King
>loud, fast, and mindless
he's talking about metal, bud
Xavier Thomas
You know, funny you should mention JP because their early albums were poorly received by Americans, and they had to Americanize their sound and make shorter, dumber, simpler songs to get popular here. Like, you could listen to Beyond The Realms of Death and observe all the overwrought neoclassical stuff Christgau is complaining about. But then they dropped that style on Hell Bent onward.
Maybe he was right all along about how rock-and-roll is supposed to work and how Yuropoors never really "got" it.
Lincoln Jackson
Metal isn't mindless. Metal explores deep truths about the human condition. Mindless is Taylor Swift.
Aaron Robinson
Of what use was Christgau to the history of music? What records was Christgau particularly prescient about in regards to influence or importance? Could he be the most worthless music critic on the planet? He is possibly the shittiest writer ever.
Thank goodness that the internet allows different people to 1) access their own music so they don't have to listen to critics in the first place and 2) allows them to pick and choose which critics they listen to according to whether the critics recommendations actually suit their tastes, freeing them from the bad old days in which Christgau's proto-shitposting blogs were the foremost "music criticism".
Thank goodness that baby boomers will be suffering and dying at high rates due to age in the next two decades!
William James
>What records was Christgau particularly prescient about in regards to influence or importance?
Uh...he was the only critic in 1976 who praised the Ramones and thought they were the start of something big. Most of them barely even knew the band existed. He also didn't jump on the disco sucks bandwagon like most rockfags and was in fact pretty cool with disco.
And of course there were a lot of times when he made the same mistakes as the other critics of his time like crapping on Black Sabbath and the Runaways.
Carter Cooper
>THIS type of rock is better than THAT type of rock It's all the same. Jazz and classical is where it's at.
Xavier Roberts
>Metal explores deep truths about the human condition. wew lad
Gavin Nelson
>what is Duchamp
Camden Nguyen
>listening to Ramones will make you confront the world's problems
Aaron Cook
"Rock and roll may not solve the world's problems, but it can sure help you dance around them."
-- Pete Townshend
Colton Harris
>Intellect
Sebastian King
>smug rock """"""""""""""""""""""""intellectuals""""""""""""""""""""""""
Kevin Miller
The Runaways were a manufactured band made by Kim Fowley, dude.
David Williams
>Metal explores deep truths about the human condition. >this was a post that was made in a music discussion thread
You just can't make this stuff up!
Julian Nguyen
a modernist genius your point?
Bentley Lewis
His "critique" has flawed logic.
>the instrumentally dexterous, rhetoric-drenched, and often melodramatic approach
These qualities are found across many genres of rock and not mutually exclusive to metal.
It seems more like he is resentful because metal IS a world of its own and he doesnt get it...questioning his own merit as a critic.
Isaiah Turner
>The Runaways' success paved the way for many successful female artists and female bands over the past 30 years, including the Go-Go's, Sahara Hotnights, L7, the Donnas, and Vixen to enter the male-dominated arena of rock music.[33] They are named as influences by several male and female artists, including Running Thoughts, the Germs, Courtney Love, the Adolescents, Taylor Momsen, White Flag, and Rhino Bucket who acknowledged the Runaways' influence on their music during their performance at the December 2006 tribute concert honoring Sandy West.
Also Joan Jett and Lita Ford had successful solo careers throughout the 80s, so...
Jacob Anderson
eh pop music is now pretty much exactly the way he always wanted it to be.
While other critics kept praising musicians who tried to make "art" he always praised the artists who made simple danceable party music. And look where we are now. He won.
Landon Evans
>implying any of those artists are good
Blake White
He won not only because of that, but because hairspray/buttrock is dead now. There's no Motley Crue or Van Halen kinds of bands anymore and rock from the 90s onward became predominately punk-influenced.
So in that sense, Christgau and Kurt Cobain both won in the end. They got their dream of a world of indie/punk bands who didn't wear giant wigs and sing overproduced stadium rock.
Hunter Rivera
>all metal is Manowar
Cute.
Sebastian Morris
He loves Husker Du, The Replacements, New York Dolls, Television, and Archers of Loaf.
I totally see what he's going for. Fast, youthful, raw energy. "Authenticity" is huge with the Christ. He deems metal too overwrought to be authentic. I mostly agree, but it's too much of a blanket statement.
Dominic Cooper
It started already in the 80s. Thrash metal bands were punk-influenced, although they still had elaborate, technical playing. Eventually metal turned into shitty -core bands like Hatebreed that are very hard to distinguish from punk anyway and they just play basic chords turned down to C or something with no solos.
Brayden Allen
he was the first critic to champion hip hop and predict its commercial/critical success
Cameron Walker
And yeat he gave 8.0 to some Neurosis records.
Joseph Johnson
80s stadium rock isn't economically viable nowadays anyway when you can't manage multiplatinum selling albums. Back in those days, the record industry was swimming in more cash than they possibly knew what to do with.
Jason Brown
whoops, meant to reply to
Ryan Foster
He was among the earliest to review and describe hip-hop
Jose Fisher
1. classical and jazz 2. Tech metal 3. other forms of extreme metal 4. other good stuff like electronic 5. everthing else
Aaron Bennett
This is a troll post, it has to be.
Hudson Cook
Partly by dumb luck since hip-hop got its start in his backyard of NYC. There wasn't any Internet in the 80s, so you generally only listened to major label artists unless they were local guys. That's how Christgau caught onto the Ramones before anyone else; they were New Yorkers.
Logan Martin
Picasso is a modernist genius.
Duchamp's a hack.
Your point?
Brandon Jackson
Then again, hard rock and metal were never big album movers even in the 70s. The bands who did sell albums were guys like REO Speedwagon who were basically singles artists rather than AOR.
Isaac Hill
See his review for Master of Puppets. He basically says "Yeah...they have speed and youthful raw energy which is good...but too much Baroque neoclassical stuff for my taste."
Colton Powell
Exactly. Does that not make sense to you though? I mean, is there not an audible sense of "authenticity" to The Replacements that just isn't there with Metallica?
"OBEY YOUR MASTER"
v.s.
"I'M SO UNSATISFIED"
Jason Jackson
Metal can be bad and metal can be good, its like saying 'lol i like everyythinf except jazz and county'
Elijah Moore
As I said, the 80s was a transitional period and by the 90s the punkification of metal (at least American metal anyway) was completed. I guess the Baroque kind of metal has survived in Europe.
Anthony Turner
I was listening to Carcass as I read this, got a good laugh out of it.
Jordan Stewart
You mean like Cradle of Filth? They're British and feel very...Baroque/Gothic while an American metal group of the time like Disturbed doesn't.
Lucas Brooks
There's not really a huge market for "traditional" metal anymore. Even more mainstream shit like melodeath or prog metal barely has any fans nowadays.
Carson Turner
That's also why he doesn't like prog, he thinks it's escapist fantasy.
Jace White
>hurt durr I don't understand the readymades therefore he is a hack
Blake Gray
There is in Europe which is where most progressive metal bands are found, but then again Europeans love their symphonic epics.
Asher Ortiz
Led Zeppelin sold more than anyone else. Aerosmith, Sabbath, Kiss, Deep Purple, Nazareth, Ted Nugent, Queen, AC/DC, Van Halen, Alice Cooper... all had (multi)-platinum albums. Hard Rock was huge.
Cameron Campbell
Now you can see clearly how Americans always failed at prog; our prog bands were cringeworthy cheese like Kansas and Styx while all the good prog was from Europe.
Brayden Brooks
But when Springsteen sang about wanting to flee from a hopelessly corrupt society in BTR, that was cool and that album got an A from the hack.
Brayden Scott
>I don't like it therefore it sucks
Ayden Gutierrez
Americans simultaneously invented prog and avant-prog in Frank Zappa. I'd say that makes up for it
Jace Bailey
Stained Class is the most operatic/neoclassical album they did, so the shift to the sweaty biker rock on HBFL is pretty jarring, but they were trying to retool their sound for American tastes.
Ryder Cook
Christgau shit on Styx and Journey, so he's not all bad. :^)
Oliver Anderson
Yeah there's a lot of mythology about the punk movement in the 70s that doesn't correspond to the reality, especially in the popularity of those bands at the time. The average American teenager in 1978 was sure as fuck not listening to the Clash and the Ramones. No. They were listening mostly to AOR buttrock like Kiss and REO Speedwagon. Fuck, the Ramones' first album sold like 1000 copies.
Robert Ramirez
The truly sad thing are aging buttrockers like Gene Simmons whining how unfair it is that nobody listens to his kind of music anymore and it must be the fault of those evil music downloaders. No, it can't possibly be because he's living in 1985.