Q: One thing I find interesting is how you arrive at conclusions about certain genres of music. For example...

Q: One thing I find interesting is how you arrive at conclusions about certain genres of music. For example, you openly dislike heavy metal. Why is that?
A: Because it's symphonic bombast without the technical complexity of classical music, although there is a lot of virtuosity. I can say this--I'm 72. This isn't the time for me to start liking loud guitar solos. That music is so masculine in a retrograde way. I don't like it. It's a very 19th century idea of power.

Other urls found in this thread:

scaruffi.com/vol7/avenged.html
robertchristgau.com/xg/music/stones-86.php
ibtimes.com/bruce-springsteen-boss-mediocrity-amended-213871
phillymag.com/news/2012/03/28/hate-bruce-springsteen/
letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5887536
rateyourmusic.com/list/mtopper/the_20_most_overrated_rock_albums_of_all_time/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

He's right, but I wouldnt call it symphonic bombast. Symphonies have quiet parts that you have to turn the volume up to hear, so the loud parts can be house shaking, volume wise.

E R S A T Z
S H I T

christgau is basically a word critic. he laid the ground for hordes of musically illiterate lit majors to sell themselves as rock critics.
that said, metal is fucking trash

Right. He wanted to be a novelist but didn't have the talent to create anything good so he instead devoted his life to shitting on actually talented people.

is it possible to filter an image? because i want to keep this asshole's stupid smarmy mug out of my Sup Forums experience

Then again, anyone who listens to metal past the age of 14 is...yeah.

>punk
>the epitome of sophisticated adult values
About that...

Where did he or anyone else in this thread for that matter even mention punk? Wrong thread?

Fantano: Basically just shills meme rap and P4k-approved indie hipster bands

Scaruffi: Has a perverse hatred of certain artists (Beatles, Bowie, etc). Is a little too fond of buttmetal. Will never rate anything a 10/10 because he wants you to believe there's nothing out there too weird for him.

Christgau: Always words all of his reviews as densely and impenetrably as possible because it's very important that the reader knows he's smart/literate, but at the end of the day he just likes basic, stripped-down punk rock and Afropop that contains a message he agrees with.

>Basically just shills meme rap and P4k-approved indie hipster bands
he shills meme rap as much as he shills shitty metal, I dont know where you'r getting p4k from

All of their reviews are inherently worthless. No one bothers with anything more than emotional descriptors and explanations of personal preference. I'm not aware of Scaruffi praising metal. Could it be hair metal bands? I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Nu metal like A7X, he loves that stuff.

>Nu metal like A7X
scaruffi.com/vol7/avenged.html
Not exceptionally high schores though.

unironically the most consistently correct music critic prove me wrong

Done.

Not with Black Sabbath. Or White Zombie--Soul-Crusher which he gave a D+ when it's been praised by many different people including Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain and is generally considered a noise rock classic.

You think that's bad? How about Rolling Stone Magazine shitting on albums and then 25 years later putting them in their top 50 albums of all time list? You wanna guess what they said about Led Zeppelin in 1970? Hint: It wasn't praise.

>White Zombie--Soul-Crusher
wtf this is really good. i thought these guys were just a buttmetal band

Tyranny and Mutation [Columbia, 1973]

Says S. Pearlman: "We want to be disgusting, not trans-repulsive." Says R. Meltzer: "This is really hard rock comedy." Musically, Long Island's only underground band impales the entire heavy ethos on a finely-honed guitar neck, often at high speed, which is the punch line. And the lyrics aren't inaudible, just unbelievable--a parody-surreal refraction of the abysmal "poetry" of heavy, with its evil women and gods of hellfire. Which is not to suggest that it doesn't become what it takes off from. But is that bad or good? B+

Does this retard not know that the evil women and Satan schtick in metal came from the blues?

I certainly wouldnt mind sucking springsteen's nuts

All critics back in the day worshiped him because they're all a hivemind who like the same bands and artists. In the 70s, this meant Springsteen, punk bands, New York Dolls, etc.

Christgau, ok, he shit on buttrock like Robin Trower and Styx...but I mean, that's not exactly hard to do or requires a lot of thought.

Music journalism in the 70s was mostly done by this small group of Greenwich village hipsters, they liked whatever artists represented urban hipster culture, this meant a lot of Lou Reed and Patti Smith. If you were out in flyover country, that's not what the kids were listening to, they were into REO Speedwagon, ZZ Top, and things like that.

Thankfully in the Internet age, music journalism is much more diversified and not in the control of a couple of faggots in NYC who can't appreciate any artist they couldn't have imagined themselves listening to as a 20 year old beatnik.

Christgau is the guy who gave As and Bs to garbage mid-80s Dylan, Neil Young, and Rolling Stones albums.

robertchristgau.com/xg/music/stones-86.php

>writing an entire essay on an album that even most diehard Stones fans have disowned

He also gave As to Yoko Ono/POB albums when every last one of them deserved a D or a bomb rating.

He thinks The Who were traitors by doing prog/rock opera and they should have kept remaking The Who Sell Out forever.

Christgau was just ahead of his time, even today. In 10 years, Dirty Works will be "re-discovered" by p4k and fantano and crew and become Sup Forumscore

Well it's been 30 years and I don't see anyone claiming that was a great album and actually not a total embarrassment to the Stones' legacy.

In 10 years (as in 10 years from now, 40 years from release)
>I don't see anyone claiming that was a great album and actually not a total embarrassment to the Stones' legacy
they said the same exact thing about Weezer's Pinkerton, just look at the acclaim now

>Empire Burlesque
B+
>Knocked Out Loaded
B
>Old Ways
B

By the way, I checked and Landing on Water got a C+. That was still too generous imo.

Critics didn't like Black Sabbath because they were upper middle class hipsters and they wanted songs with messages of optimism rather than doom.

EB was completely embarrassing and it's aged like dirt, that deserved a C minus.

>lost, directionless mid-80s Dylan

Born in the USA [Columbia, 1984]

Imperceptible though the movement has been to many sensitive young people, Springsteen has evolved. In fact, this apparent retrenchment is his most rhythmically propulsive, vocally incisive, lyrically balanced, and commercially undeniable album. Even his compulsive studio habits work for him: the aural vibrancy of the thing reminds me like nothing in years that what teenagers loved about rock and roll wasn't that it was catchy or even vibrant but that it just plain sounded good. And while Nebraska's one-note vision may be more left-correct, my instincts (not to mention my leftism) tell me that this uptempo worldview is truer. Hardly ride-off-into-the-sunset stuff, at the same time it's low on nostalgia and beautiful losers. Not counting the title powerhouse, the best songs slip by at first because their tone is so lifelike: the fast-stepping "Working on the Highway," which turns out to be about a country road gang: "Darlington County," which pins down the futility of a macho spree without undercutting its exuberance; and "Glory Days," which finally acknowledges that among other things, getting old is a good joke. A+

Yea BS were real working class, i.e. working in a fuckig factory, and didn't validate the worldview of art school dropouts with their music.

BITUSA deserves at best a B minus, a C plus is probably accurate.

Then again, 1984 wasn't a very good year for mainstream releases anyway. What else was there? Ratt? Hanoi Rocks? Twisted Sister?

Two Steps From The Move [CBS, 1984]

These Finnish boys have laid down a set of songs whose English must impress their fellow Finns more than it does a native speaker like myself. Cutesy, energetic music follows, but it seems that they spent more time contemplating their Dolls photos than their Dolls records. But then great costumes over great hooks seems to be the rule now, at least in London. And apparently also Finland. C+

Oh you mean the album where Bruce completely whored himself out to become terribly mainstream lighter-waving stadium rock?

And this guy thinks _Sabbath_ were nihilistic?

At least Ozzy's vocals were actually tolerable.

>hurrr let me rip off dylan
>now let me rip off funk rock, oh and i have a new york accent now
>now let me rip off heartland rock, oh i have a midwestern accent now
>now let me rip off hard rock, oh i have a mid atlantic accent now
>now let me rip off a variety of different pop rock styles and varispeed my voice up to make it sound younger and more accessible
>now let me rip off folk and country and the band Suicide and write songs about rural people living hard lives just like me even though i have millions in the bank
>now let me rip off tom petty and synthpop, oh i have a southern accent now
>now let me write shitty adult contemporary synthpop and soft rock ballads
>now let me do the same thing again, oh i have a california accent now
>mix and match all of the above for the rest of his career
>oh i have an irish accent on this song for some reason
>let me write an album about 9/11 so i be relevant again and make $$$$$
>let me write an album about the 2008 financial crisis so i be relevant again and make $$$$$
Springsteen's discography in a nutshell. What a hack.

where does he sing in an irish accent

>rip off heartland rock

American Graffiti and Born To Run--both the work of baby boomers (George Lucas and Bruce Springsteen) lamenting their lost childhood and blaming the Vietnam War for the fact that they were cynical adults now and couldn't be carefree teenagers forever.

I'm on Fire is literally about being a pedophile.

ibtimes.com/bruce-springsteen-boss-mediocrity-amended-213871

phillymag.com/news/2012/03/28/hate-bruce-springsteen/

letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5887536

rateyourmusic.com/list/mtopper/the_20_most_overrated_rock_albums_of_all_time/

BITUSA is a boring album and after listening to it, I can't remember any of the songs except the title track.

He's a massive pleb trying to sound smart.

>Critic
>Never made anything of worth himself

Is there any more useless profession?

Beautiful song, though...

... and the video suggests a married woman

lyl

reminder that xgau thinks a generic MIA album is the best of the 21st century