The fact that he's the one who decided who gets exposed in New York was sort of getting on our nerves. Christgau started getting bugged by people like Tim Sommer, who really wanted to write about us. And Christgau says "Yeah, I don't see it." So finally he decided to do an article on us, and he gets this guy named Picarella, and it was a really nasty thing they wrote about us. I wrote him a letter that was a diatribe, and his letter back said that it didn't matter. After that I wanted to do a song about slicing up Christgau, and it turned out to be the advice-to-the-lovelorn "Kill Yr Idols". So we put that out and people started digging on it. And I was getting calls from people like Giorgio Gomelsku, who wanted to put on an anti-Christgau festival. My feeling was that we'd said our piece; there was no need to keep attacking the guy. One night he went to see the Replacements and some kid tried to light him on fire. He blamed it on us. "Bands like Sonic Youth are telling kids to kill me." he wrote. And he was getting really paranoid. He wrote me a letter saying "Don't ever expect to see your albums in 'Christgau's Consumer Guide', and I wrote back 'Boo fucking hoo.'"
The fact that he's the one who decided who gets exposed in New York was sort of getting on our nerves...
>One night he went to see the Replacements and some kid tried to light him on fire
Didn't Michael Gira mail Cuckgau a bag of cum for giving him a bad review?
Eh? The only Swans album he reviewed got a B+.
Bear in mind this is how he describes a B-, I wouldn't be surprised if it was still a very negative review
Filth? Yeah apparently that review was what provoked Gira to mail him a bag of jizz. He expected nothing less than an A.
I believe after that incident, Christgau blacklisted the Swans and so none of their other albums are mentioned.
Some other dude from a band punched out Christgau at a concert once.
That was James Chance, unless it happened more than once (wouldn't surprise me if it did). If I remember correctly Christgau actually came out on top of that one.
He made enemies all over the New York music scene in the 70s-80s. Thank God in the 2010s that we have the Internet and don't need the filtered smug opinions of professional music critics to know if an artist is good or not.
Trying to suss out Christgau logically is a fool's errand.
Like, he hates metal and cockrock but likes Motorhead and Aerosmith? Derp.
>"I've tried to review every rock album worth owning. If the album is not listed in Consumer Guide, my implicit advice is to forget about it. I've sometimes skipped over weak mid-career albums from a mediocre artist, and I haven't always reviewed late career albums, the rock-and-roller being the original romantic who starts off strong and has a long, slow decline. Artists I respect, but haven't had the time or motivation to fully explore their discographies go in the 'Subjects For Further Research' list, while artists I don't respect go in the 'Distinctions Not Cost Effective' list. 'Distinctions Not Cost Effective' denotes an artist whose few good albums wouldn't be worth digging through all their bad ones to find, while the 'Meltdown' list denotes an artist whose best albums wouldn't be worth your time."
Basically, "You need my wise guidance to know what music is good, you sheeple are too dumb to figure it out for yourself."
Sonic Youth vs Robert Christgau is like two turds fighting in a toilet seeing which can get flushed first
The same would apply to Swans vs Christgau.
Sonic Youth and Swans are great.
>while the 'Meltdown' list denotes an artist whose best albums wouldn't be worth your time
DESU, aside from Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, the vast majority of Christgau's Meltdown lists are artists I wouldn't listen to either.
>Bauhaus
>Japan
>The Stranglers
>Vangelis
There's some good stuff on his meltdown lists.
>Bauhaus
>good
>one of the definitive bands of post-punk/gothic rock
>bad
correct
>your opinions
>not shit
they're not that good but i agree with approaching his meltdown list w/ an open mind
He was not a fan of any of those 80s British synthpop/New Romantic groups like Bauhaus, Spandau Ballet, and Tears For Fears.
>but i agree with approaching his meltdown list w/ an open mind
Still, we can all agree that Sammy Hagar, Asia, Ronnie Milsap, and Chicago albums make great drink coasters and doggie chew toys.
Oh yeah, I think everyone in this thread can agree with that. Corporate rock like Asia is the worst.
Considering Asia was made of guys from respected bands who went and prostituted themselves for radio play and $$$.
Why the hell does Christgau hate Bauhaus so much? He gave both of Joy Division's albums A-s and has praised a other depressing post-punk albums so I don't get why Bauhaus rubbed him the wrong way.
Turn On the Bright Lights [Matador, 2002]
They bitch because everybody compares them to Joy Division, and they're right. It's way too kind, and I say that as someone who thanks Ian Curtis for making New Order possible. Joy Division struggled against depression rather than flaunting it, much less wearing it like a designer suit. What's truly depressing is that, just as the hairy behemoths of the grunge generation looked back to the AOR metal they immersed in as teens, these fops tweak the nostalgia of young adults who cherish indistinct memories of much worse bands than Joy Division, every one of them English--Bauhaus, Ultravox, Visage, Spandau Ballet, Tears for Fears. At a critical moment in consciousness they exemplify and counsel disengagement, self-seeking, a luxurious cynicism. Says certified British subject Peter Banks: "Emotions are standard and boring. I'd like to find another way to live." That's thinking either big or very small. C+
The only good thing thurston ever did was nearly get christgau fried. I'll give him that.
They were edgy and aimed for the alienation effect rather than to write in the confessional mode. This rubbed Christgau the ex-hippie country music and afropop fan the wrong way.
you have to realize
that everything critics do is self serving
they are not interested in music at all, they are interested in themselves and how reviews going one way of the other can serve the purpose of benefitting the critic
obviously the bauhaus hate is precisely because he "likes" Joy Division (as its on the correct side of cool to like Joy Division). Bauhaus is much less important but still exists in the critics realm, so he could gain some publicity on "hating" bauhaus to get people talking about him.
>tfw you will never get to gas christgau
>Bauhaus
>synthpop/New Romantic
They were post-punk. They had more in common with Public Image Ltd. than Spandau Ballet.
>They were edgy and aimed for the alienation effect rather than to write in the confessional mode
Yeh that's why Christgau didn't like Pearl Jam until album 3 which was pretty much Eddie Vedder's lament for Kurt Cobain. It didn't come off as self-serving alienation like the first two albums did.
"As for metal, well, that's generational and there's more coming. I suppose us graybeards should educate ourselves, but it's like Balkan girl groups--I'd be a fool to like everything. Myself, I just treat metal as a branch of hard rock, which wasn't always a metal-aligned category. To that end, I preferred the knee-jerk sexism of GNR I to the asshole existentialism of GNR II. I put James Hetfield out of his misery inside of five plays. Life is short and I found it getting shorter with every song."
These posts make me wonder how Christgau behaves irl.
"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 ‘n’ 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—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+ 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."
Christgau may be a douchebag, but Thurston Moore is objectively a terrible human being.
Other than cheating on his missus, which is something a loooooot of blokes do, and that one Nardwuar interview what's he ever done wrong?