"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."
He was bullied by metalheads when he was teenager. Of course he hates metal.
Adrian Gray
Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you
Andrew Mitchell
>metal >existing in the 1950s Come on, dude.
Daniel Lewis
Mealfags btfo
Colton Flores
God he is so based.
Nolan Gomez
This guy looks a lot like my English teacher.
Adam Butler
meanwhile scaruffi, the true intellectual's critic, loves metal. really makes you think.
Isaac Brown
Scaruffi is European, he probably likes those classical affinities that Christgau snubs.
Owen Fisher
he was bullied by Link Wray fans
Anthony Lewis
based yuros, proving americans once and for all to be uncultured plebeians
I feel at a generational disadvantage with this music not because my weary bones can't take its power and speed but because I was born too soon to have my dendrites rerouted by progressive radio. This band's momentum can be pretty impressive, and as with a lot of fast metal (as well as some sludge) they seem to have acceptable political motivations--antiwar, anticonformity, even anticoke, fine. But the revolutionary heroes I envisage aren't male chauvinists too inexperienced to know better; they don't have hair like Samson and pecs like Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's the image Metallica calls up, and I'm no more likely to invoke their strength of my own free will than I am The 1812 Overture's. B-
Asher Carter
Why does this guy get to live while Brain Wilson approaches death?
Blake Young
>ywn wear a leather jacket and beat up a 14 year old xgau while rumble plays
Julian Powell
>I hate metal because its fans remind of my old enemies from high school
John Moore
Christgau is a fucking HACK.
Daniel Anderson
Stay mad, metalbabby.
Josiah Allen
i don't even like metal, and i still fucking hate christgau.
Asher Russell
>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 this is actually very interesting for me. damn. hope there's more on this out there
Logan Anderson
I played alternative over the loudspeaker at the grocery store I worked at, and a coworker of mine, told another coworker of mine, that I was playing "heavy metal." "It was awful," she said.
The coworker she told it to, couldn't believe it when she heard what I was actually playing. The hardest thing on that channel was Blur's Song #2, or the "woohoo" song, for those who don't love Blur.
Which is played in commercials and a thousand sporting events. Not to mention on commercial radio.
Ryan Thompson
...
Ethan Sullivan
-
Austin Wright
have you listened to and reviewed over 16,000 albums for almost 5 decades?
David Young
does doing that somehow not make you a hack?
Nolan Collins
i totally feel him. Led Zeppelin is my favorite band, i like lots of hard rock or heavy blues rock, but i can't stand metal at all.
Eli Thompson
well, you can have the opinion you wish. but his prose, his laborious 24/7 job of listening to music since 1967 and thinking critically about it, makes him deeply knowledgeable. he's the least hack music critic i can come up with. go read his long form essays, spend time researching his website.
Brody Gray
Get Your Wings [Columbia, 1974]
These prognathous New Englanders are musicianly (all things are relative) inheritors of the Grand Funk principle: if a band is going to be dumb, it might as well be American dumb. Here they're loud and cunning enough to provide a real treat for the hearing-impaired, at least on side one. Have a sense of humor about themselves, too, assuming "Lord of the Thighs" is intended as a joke. With dumb bands it's always hard to tell. B-
Andrew Turner
The line between hard rock and metal is fuzzy anyway.
Luis Williams
>fuzzy literally
Hudson Scott
Christgau is a sworn pop faggot who thinks Rock music is ONLY good for pop tracks like the fucking Beatles did and has no appreciation for experimentation and artistic merit.
His writing is entertaining though. I consider him an entertainer and baiter first, music critic second.
