What does Sup Forums think of Robert Christgau?

What does Sup Forums think of Robert Christgau?

Horrible critic, but great writing style and wit. Sometimes can say something no other reviewer knows how to.

It's hilarious just how sexually insecure this guy is.

looks EXACTLY like my aunt

It’s actually hilarious just how insecure metal fans are that when he makes fun of it they fidget and claim he’s sexually insecure (even though metal is a genre built on sexual insecurity).

>be scrawny beta nerd in high school
>get smacked around, called names, and shoved into lockers by football jocks
>spend the rest of your life being eternally butthurt about masculine music and its jock fanbase

U mad kid?
>In theory, metal is today's real rock and roll--the music of the people. It's basic, it's rude, kids love it, parents hate it. But the closer you look, the stupider and more delusory it seems. Metal isn't basic--it cultivates a pseudo-virtuosity that negates content. The dreams it promulgates are usually foolish and often destructive. Eighty per cent of the "people" who like it are male, and 98 per cent of them are white.

I guess his review of Master of Puppets is the best example.

Good writing style, is cunt
So he's OK

I DON'T KNOW WHY

Neck yourself samefag

>Eighty per cent of the "people" who like it are male, and 98 per cent of them are white.

>Eighty per cent of the "people" who like it are male, and 98 per cent of them are white

So metal is most cerebral music as an artform

We'll-read idiot.

:^)

Look at those perfectly sane faces.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club [Capitol, 1967]

Eight or nine good songs, maybe a little too precisely performed for my taste, but I ain't gonna complain. A-

Why doesn't Sup Forums ever talk Lester Bangs?

Street-Hassle [Arista, 1978]

I know Lou worked his ass off on this one, but he worked his ass off on Berlin too. Like so many of his contemporaries, maybe he should stop trying to create masterpieces. After being annoyed for a long time, I eventually warmed to "I Wanna Be Black", which treats racism as a stupid joke and gets away with it. But the production is muddled and the self-consciousness self-serving. B-

>Like so many of his contemporaries, maybe he should stop trying to create masterpieces
And do what instead? Make some shitty 90 second punk rock songs?

Why are critics so fixated on shitting on any artist who actually has compositional/playing/songwriting talent?

I'm actually a Dire Straits fan. They made him pretty butthurt.

>Robert Christgau--what does he do in bed? Is he a toe sucker?

Frampton Comes Alive! [A&M, 1976]

Alright Peter, you win. I'll review your stupid album--it's only been in the top 20 all year. Now will you please go away? C-

Ok I laughed at this one.

I-is this a review?

I love robert like robert loves Kanye

What are some good meme-able things he said/did?

Just another guy with an opinion. For whatever reason, people take his opinion seriously.

Most people here can't comprehend reviews without a number attached to them.


(and there's just not enough material)

Boston [Epic, 1976]

When I heard that someone had achieved an American synthesis of Yes and Led Zeppelin, all I could do was hold my ears and say "Gosh!" C

Could just as easily be my uncle or friend. Why should I give a shit what this guy thinks?

Scaruffi > Christgau

Better hip-hop reviewer than rock reviewer

The River [Columbia, 1980]

All the standard objections apply. His beat is still clunky, his singing overwrought, his sense of significance shot through with Mazola Oil. He's too white and too male, though he's decent enough to wish he weren't; too unanalytic and fatalistic, though his eye is sharp as can be. Yet by continuing to root his writing in the small victories and large compromises of ordinary joes and janies whose need to understand as well as celebrate is as restless as his own, he's grown into a bitter empathy. These are the wages of young romantic love among those who get paid by the hour, and even if he's only giving forth with so many short fast ones because the circles of frustration and escape seem tighter now, the condensed songcraft makes this double album a model of condensation--upbeat enough for a revery there, he elaborates a myth about the fate of the guys he grew up with that hits a lot of people where they live. A-

Yeah, because they were too gay for him.

See also the last line in this Costello review from the same period of time Dire Straits unleashed their garbage onto the world:

This Year's Model [Columbia, 1978]

This is not punk rock. But anyone who thinks it's uninfluenced should compare the bite and drive of the backup here to the well-played studio pub-rock of his debut and ask themselves how come he now sounds as angry as he says he feels. I find his snarl more attractive musically and verbally than all his melodic and lyrical tricks, and while I still wish he liked girls more, at least I'm ready to believe he's had some bad luck. A

Clever and witty, but incredibly inconsistent as a critic, which is probably the most important thing for one to be. Sometimes his reviews are an absolute waste of time to read and he'll say something that my brother may as well have said. Sometimes he'll say something actually profound.

Five full sentences? WHOA THERE. No need to get all master thesis on us now, Bobby C.

He seems a bit anti-white...

His long essays are often far better than his capsule reviews.

Fear of Music [Sire, 1979]

David Byrne's celebration of paranoia is a little obsessive, but like they say, that doesn't mean somebody isn't trying to get him. I just wish material as relatively expansive as "Found a Job" or "The Big Country" were available to open up the context a little; that way, a plausible prophecy like "Life During Wartime" might come off as cautionary realism instead of ending up in the nutball corner with self-referential fantasies like "Paper" and "Memories Can't Wait." And although I'm impressed with the gritty weirdness of the music, it is narrow--a little sweetening might help. A-

Post [Elektra, 1995]

This well-regarded little item rekindles my primeval suspicion of Europeans who presume to "improve" on rock and roll (or for that matter Betty Hutton, originator of the best song here). I don't miss the Sugarcubes' guitars per se so much as their commitment to the groove, which--sporadic though it would remain, Iceland not being one of your blues hotbeds--might shore up the limited but real intrinsic interest of her eccentric instrumentation, electronic timbres, etc. Then there's her, how shall I say it, self-involved vocal devices. Which brings us to, right, her lyrics, which might hit home harder if she'd grown up speaking the English she'll die singing, but probably wouldn't. Anybody out there remember Dagmar Krause? German, Henry Cow, into artsong and proud of it? Well, take my word for it. She was no great shakes either. But at least she had politics. C+

Yeah good point. Non-native English speakers never can emote for shit.

Pornography [A&M, 1982]

"In books/And films/And in life/And in heaven/The sound of slaughter/As your body turns . . ."--no, I can't go on. I mean, why so glum, chum? Cheer up; look on the bright side. You got your contract, right? And your synthesizers, bet you'll have fun with them. Believe me, kid, it will pass. C

this is a unique capability of his; the ability to backhandedly shit all over an album while still giving it high marks and praise

lal

Fantastic Fedora [Capricorn, 1974]

Sub-average white band. C-