Metal is a world of its own...

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 metal's 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.

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agree entirely

>rock intellectuals

his writing is so distinctive that i can't hate it. It actually has character in it. hate it or not but a lotta reviewers nowadays are so dry.

It is distinct. It does have character. The character is a distinctly pretentious cunt. Fuck you dude. Christgau is a hack.

I'm an idiot can someone explain to me what he means by Phallic Narcissism? And which two musics share the melodramatic approach? How does Rock and Roll save us from it?

All critics are the same because it takes a certain kind of personality to become a music/film critic.

This, holy shit. I've never seen a more pretentious oxymoron in my life.

>is what rock and roll was put on earth to save us from.
the contrary is also true, metal was put on earth to save us from rock'n'roll intellectuals

>Springsteen is all right, by the way. He gets my seal of approval—I think he’s groovy. You notice the way the critics turned on him, like, after they were on him, right? When he needed them, they weren’t there. Critics. What does Robert Christgau do in bed? You know, is he a toe-fucker? Man, anal-retentive—The Consumer’s Guide to Rock? What a moron! A Consumer’s Guide to Rock, man! I object to the fucking liner notes. Start studying rock-and-roll? I can’t believe it. “Baroque Rock: A Study by Robert Christgau.” John Rockwell, man. Wow! You know how heavy it is to get reviewed by Rockwell, and he says you’re intelligent? Fuck you! I don’t need you to tell me that I’m good. “Mr. Reed.” You know, you say, “Oh, man, I’m in The New York Times, it said ‘Mr. Reed.’” Fuck you! Your doorman wouldn’t kiss my ass, man, I don’t give a jackal. He, right, he studies at Harvard, right—monologue—but dig this, man, opera! A fucking opera guy, man! And that’s the critic for The New York Times that makes and breaks the best rock bands that are very heavy and intelligent. Notice there are no colored rock groups? Certainly not in The New York Times with John Roberts [sic]—he wouldn’t go there, man, he comes to CBGB’s with an armed guard: “Don’t touch me, man.” And he’s a big dude. Somebody should say, “John, don’t be afraid.” And Christgau is like an anal-retentive. Nice little boxes. “B-plus.” Can you imagine working for a fucking year and you got a B-plus from an asshole in The Village Voice? And you don’t gotta take this shit. You don’t have to talk to the fucking journalists, man. And they get in for free, and the best seats, in case you’re interested—and there’s no way we can do anything about it.

I love all the bad 70s slang in this rant of his.

Lou Reed Live: Take No Prisoners [Arista, 1978]

Because your humble servant is attacked by name on what is essentially a comedy record, some of my colleagues have rushed in with Don Rickles analogies, but that's not fair. Lenny Bruce is the real comparison. Thing is, I don't even play my comedy records, including my real Lenny Bruce ones, as much as I play Rock'N'Roll Animal. There's several Lou Reed concerts I'd love to check out again, including Palace Theater 11/5/76 and Bottom Line 5/11/77, but this isn't it, I'm sorry. Also I'd like to thank Lou for pronouncing my name right. C+

Name ONE critic that isn't a bit pretentious or a cunt

He's right. Time to grow up, mealfags.

metal should have stopped at black sabbath.

Grow up metalcucks.

I don't give a jackal what you love, brother. Catch you on the flip-side when you've gotten the lowdown, my man.

>that callback to the ''I thank Lou for pronouncing my name right'' line in one of the Sonic Youth reviews

poetry, deepest lore

hey daddy-o don't be so square, put those negative vibes to bed

trying to be an adult is an immature thing

Well it has only hung on for a couple weeks now since Black Sabbath stopped so maybe it'll die soon

>attacked on vinyl by two major rock figures
a living god, no getting around it

Is he a new meme?

no one here can answer you, because no one here knows

we are all out of our depth but this is fun isn't it?

>explain to me what he means by Phallic Narcissism
male sexual narcissism
>which two musics share the melodramatic approach
classical and metal
>How does Rock and Roll save us from it?
it's impulsive, loose, fun and spits at "deep meaning", proper form, instrumental competence, et al. in theory

The most snobbish, self-righteous, narcissistic faggots in this universe are metalheads. I should know, having been one. I still enjoy some metal, but I'm extremely glad I grew out of that phase. If you are above 15 years old and identify as a metalhead, end yourself.

I get what he's trying to say about the first 2 parts. But fuck he words it so bad. Reads like a Facebook argument.

Also Michael Gira mailed him a bag full of jizz.

Far out, I can dig it. hit a doobie and listen to some radical jams, can't take being in lamesville any longer, brother, not with Tricky Dick in charge man

Nix is trying to lay this heavy trip on our heads, dig? i'm moving to afghanistan

Thank you

The Mojave is the place to be man, the Man ain't gonna get you there. No burger joints nearby, that's a bummer; and the grass is bunk... but you're free man, one with Mother Earth, dig?

>the instrumentally dexterous, rhetoric-drenched, and often melodramatic approach to meaning
>TACKA-TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA--TACKA

The only thing that's metal that I listen to is Metallica, I don't feel like getting into any other metal

Christgau is a big believer in postmodernism, he thinks metal and prog are retrograde, lunkheaded forms of music that promote Wagnerian drama that rock-and-roll was supposed to supersede. That's why he jumped on the punk, New Wave, and hip-hop bandwagons--he considered those to be futuristic, forward-thinking music formats. He said that he explored techno for a bit, but realized it's impossible to get into unless you're in da club and have taken a couple doses of E.

>Christgau is a big believer in postmodernism
fag

So he's pretty much the grandfather of nu-males

i want christgau to review a viper album

>INTENSE
>PHALLIC
>NARCISSISM

Fuck yes.

does anyone have the thing he wrote about being bullied by jocks who liked elvis? that shit was funny

robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-aow/presley.php

It feels so good knowing he got his ass kicked in high school.

>dude metal music is totally modern classical

Viper's classical affinities are the very thing that render him unlistenable.

>new

Really. I mean, he was rocking the stereotypical nu male look like 30 years before the term was coined.

viper is uh fuckin....masculinity, album oriented rock hurr durr i'm gay

Christgau is an odd dude. If he had something that wasn't chorus oriented in his best of list I'd give him more attention.

Gira is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

robertchristgau.com/get_gl.php?g=A+

I'm sure you can find something like that here famm

>Rock intellectuals

To add insult to injury, some of his favorite bands are The New York Dolls and Steely Dan.

>Hip-hop; manufactured musicians who don't even need instruments to perform on their records
>Punk; a genre that returned music back to its infancy, with musicians playing out of tune instruments, bands and record company executives cashing in on a growing trend
>Futuristic, forward-thinking music formats
This man is a complete and utter joke. Not to mention the A's he gave to Soulja Boy and Nicki Minaj.

I've read through it. Perhaps my mind has been warped by Scaruffi but I find a lot of these choices fall flat. None of them are bad records but there are a ton of releases in his A-/B- range that are more intriguing.

Soft Machine's Third is a good example of an album I don't understand why it was given a B. It's far more intricate and deep than Wild Honey but the poppier album gets the A.

Frank Zappa's Hot Rats got a terrible score despite it's wonderful usage of improvisation and successful fusion of jazz and rock.

He's no better than your average RYM user to me, yet he has all of this prestige and acclaim.

Critics are professional opinion-holders.

If they're good critics, you can get a sense of general quality of the products that they review. But other than that, they're not really important at all.

>He's no better than your average RYM user to me, yet he has all of this prestige and acclaim.
It helps being one of the first rock critics in the business and being stubborn enough to have stuck with the job longer than any of his contemporaries.

I always thought the point of criticism was content curation and musical historian. The idea is to document musical movements as they occur while providing a discerning list between material worth invest time in and material not worth your effort.

The content curation is the subjective part yet I've seen people with competent lists with minimal bias against any particular genre so there's clearly some sort of trade secret.

New York Dolls are ok in of themselves, unfortunately the innovations they added to rock were not good. Sure, the idea of dudes dressed in lipstick and eyeshadow seemed edgy in 1972, but by the late 80s, everyone and their mother had come to sorely regret the Pandora's Box they opened.

>Sure, the idea of dudes dressed in lipstick and eyeshadow seemed edgy in 1972
Was their music actually good? Is that all there is to this band? I'm aware that they played blues rock, which is hardly an innovative genre.

it's not about their clothing, it's about the quality of their songwriting

Are you next going to blame Nirvana for Staind and Nickelback?

yes

how come he's not a meme?

fantano

Do people genuinely like/care about christgau outside of Sup Forums?

>All right, soon you'll be familiar with my prejudices. I grew up in the 50s and I like hard rock. I listen to much more black music than most white people. I like folk music and carry out periodic vendettas against insipid singer-songwriters. In general, I like music that jars me a little, intellectually if not physically. Downers are for other people. "A" rated records are records I would buy for myself if I didn't have this hustle. I would probably buy the "B plusses," too, but you may find "B" records boring even if you like the artist and unless you really like the artist I wouldn't recommend purchasing anything below a "B minus." All those lower grades are there as a lamentation for the varying degrees of artistic indifference that persist in the music biz. Maybe someday they will disappear forever, but I doubt it.