"Heavy metal is a world of its own, and even critics in their 30s who grew up listening to AOR like Led Zeppelin and Quiet Riot seldom maintain a serious affection for the stuff. Rock intellectuals invariably prefer punk, alternative, even rap, and their disdain rankles the metal faithful. The phallic narcissism of metal has few parallels outside of toilet art, X-rated movies, and (oh yes) hip-hop."
"As one of those rock intellectuals, I remain unconverted. It never seems to occur to metal enthusiasts that for many of us, metal's melodramatic, reverb-drenched strain is precisely what rock and roll was put on Earth to save us from."
>phallic narcissism of metal i'm starting to think there's some ulterior motive behind his anti-metal writing. what even does that mean
Justin Perez
Self-aggrandizing machismo.
Christian Thompson
Christgau dislikes metal because it's too white. Look up his best albums of all time: token black music here and there.
Austin Gutierrez
Last I checked punk is also quite distinctly white.
Dominic Martinez
>rock intellectuals
Dominic Roberts
Is Xgau the OG soyboy?
Colton Garcia
Gets me every time.
Brody Smith
>soyboy ???
Angel Lopez
Didn't he like Metallica, though?
Carson Martin
>rock intellectuals
Samuel Robinson
Not really. His review of MOP was basically like "Eh, I kind of admire their speed/aggression/politics but I don't like their muscled image."
Brayden Green
More accurately suburban white boy. Critics like him just like punk and hip-hop because they're urban genres and being city boys, they relate to it better. That's about it.
Jayden Butler
holy fuck this is cringey. a grown man wrote this? seems like something a kid in high school would write
Levi Myers
What a mincing poof.
Aaron Parker
>holy fuck this is cringey. a grown man wrote this? seems like something a kid in high school would write
This was written in 1997, so you figure he was in his mid-50s when he wrote it. Un-fucking-believable.
Eli Sanders
Then again, I've seen old fucks on Steve Hoffman Forum who are no more mature than this. Dudes in their 50s and 60s shitting on Justin Bieber like they were some 14 year old on Youtube.
Jose Diaz
Anyone older than 25 shouldn't write stuff like this.
Henry Watson
To be fair, I was more of a Georgiy Stratosin and Piero Scaruffi fan than Christgau. I have a large amount of respect for Christgau, but his "rock puritanism" irritates me. At least Scaruffi comes from a jazz and classical background so he's more open to more experimental forms of rock music, but with that comes a brand of contrarianism specific to Scaruffi. Also, Stratosin got me into some of my favorite groups through some of his scathing negative reviews, so I give him props.
Gavin Turner
Hell be fine.
Easton White
>I have a large amount of respect for Christgau, but his "rock puritanism" irritates me
You mean his "fast, funky, optimistic rock is the only true form of music" ideology?
Ayden Lee
The latest forced meme on Sup Forums. Someone got bored of "nu male" so they invented a new term for white liberal geldings and figured it will become a meme if they use it enough times.
Josiah Russell
He’s been cultivating that voice since the ‘60s and his opinions are alternatingly brilliant and fucking retarded, but they’re rarely less than dazzling. Read more of his oeuvre for proper context instead of judging an excerpt posted on a chinese cartoon image board. Anything could seem pompous or cringey—any art in any media—if you encounter it in an inappropriate context. Read his capsule reviews. Just go to his website and read his Prince reviews.
Xavier Williams
>on Sup Forums dyel
John Gomez
>He’s been cultivating that voice since the ‘60s and his opinions are alternatingly brilliant and fucking retarded, but they’re rarely less than dazzling. Read more of his oeuvre for proper context instead I have. Most rock critics, especially the first generation ones like him were all of a pretty uniform mentality and all of them dickrode punk bands and thought metal and prog were bad and evil and false rock and roll.
Aiden Hernandez
That’s generally how criticism goes. Any art—music, painting, theater, whatever. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad or wrong, though it can be infuriating to read.
Aaron Johnson
Surf's Up [Brother/Reprise, 1971]
Their worst since Friends, which just goes to show that making like a great group is as bad for your music as making like a buncha mystics. Except for the sophomoric "Student Demonstration Time," the songs on the first side are all right--"Take a Load Off Your Feet" is worthy of Wild Honey and "Disney Girls (1957)" is worthy of Jack Jones's Greatest Hits--but the pop impressionism of side two drags hither and yon. The dying words of a tree are delivered in an apt, gentle croak, but the legendary title opus is an utter failure even on its own woozy terms and there are several disasters from the guest lyricists--Van Dyke Parks's wacked-out meandering is no better than Jack Rieley's. I'll trade you my copy for Surfin' Safari even up, and you'll be sorry. B- View SameGoogleImgOpsiqdbSauceNAO christgau4.jpg, 24KiB, 300x225
Caleb Kelly
It boils down to most of those first generation rock critics being urban beatnik hipsters from NYC so they promoted whatever artists happened to resonate with their particular demographic. Didn't mean that Patti Smith or the Dolls were any better or more artistically valid than Yes or Black Sabbath, just that those critics related to them better.
Grayson Ward
Take Grand Funk Railroad. These guys were an early critical punching bag since before Sabbath were a thing. Why? Mostly because they were Midwestern and the Rust Belt wasn't a cool, happening place like NYC or San Francisco where the main centers of rock journalism were. The critics didn't understand them or their fans at all.
Ian Sanchez
This is why I don’t judge any art to be good/bad or better/worse. I just say it either “speaks to me” or it doesn’t. I.e., it’s resonant with the sum of my subjective experiences so I like it, or it’s dissonant so I don’t like it. “Taste,” in other words.
Evan Collins
>He’s been cultivating that voice since the ‘60s and his opinions are alternatingly brilliant
It doesn't take a lot of effort to shit on Journey or Celine Dion, you know.
Jordan Nguyen
Hardcore punk is as suburban as it gets.
Connor Torres
That’s probably partly correctly, but an easy, recent counterexample is stuff like neoprimitivism. Jack White shit. There’s nothing urban or coastal elite about that shit.
Jordan Brooks
Who said anything about effort? Effort =/= quality. Low effort =/= low quality.
Asher Williams
Subjective taste is fine and all, the problem was that back in the pre-Internet age, guys like Christgau wrote the history books on what artists were cool and acceptable to listen to and who weren't. Thus a lot of talented and innovative guys like the Moody Blues got turned into the butt of jokes and their image has suffered from it since.
I'm saying, rock critics used to have a level of power and control over making and breaking artistic reputations that isn't possible anymore in the 21st century.
Carter Gonzalez
The real problem is that rock music isn't art, yet he treats it like it is.
Logan Taylor
One of that retard's arguments against Metal is literally, "YOU'RE A FUCKING WHITE MALE!"
He's an unironic version of pretentious progressive douchebag.
Justin Adams
While of course ignoring the fact that punk is also mostly white and male.
Sebastian Torres
White leftists don't count. They're honorary people of color until the same people of color they champion turn against them. youtube.com/watch?v=5w-Pp3eg_M4
Brody Cox
>Leftists are all the same because of some crazy uggo in a video ebin
Gavin Powell
One other thing. There's a lot of Christgau's writings in which he says well maybe I was just born too early and in the wrong generation to "get" metal. But I don't see what makes punk (or hip-hop, which he also likes) more or less of a "generational" thing than metal, there are fairly credible reasons to think they're both a distinctly Gen Xer phenomenon.
Angel Rogers
>Jack White Lol no, that's not true at all, Jack White's audience is urban hipster kids and hipster moms. VERY much the opposite of what you said, despite the difference of his influences
Isaiah Morales
Yes lol
Lincoln Kelly
He's just trying to rationalize why he doesn't like metal. Given what he said about disliking macho music ever since Elvis, I don't think he would have liked it any more if he'd grown up in the 80s instead of the 50s (if he'd been a teenager in the 80s he would have been one of those wiseguy alternafags who listened to Depeche Mode while AC/DC fans shoved him into a locker).
Caleb Gonzalez
>who listened to Depeche Mode while AC/DC fans shoved him into a locker What would happen if I liked both?
Nolan Nelson
Is this b8? The White Stripes have broad appeal. I’ve lived in rural and urban Midwest and big cities on both coasts. The White Stripes were and remain popular everywhere, and their sales are proof of that. See also shit like the Black Keys. “Real” rock and roll with blues progressions. Shit that boomer dads can listen to with their dumb kids.
Henry Hall
Hip-hop has been gladly taken up by Millenials so I wouldn't call it a one generation thing at all.
Nathaniel Ortiz
Be more specific. You probably don’t “like Depeche Mode.” You probably like certain of their albums or, more likely, songs. The quality of their songs varied so greatly even within a single album that it doesn’t seem possible to like enough of the band’s body of work to say that you like the band itself. Same with AC/DC.
Talk songs or albums. Not bands. Talking bands requires too many qualifiers.
Wyatt Hughes
This is true but Millenial rappers are still a lot different from the rappers in the 80s-90s-00s. The attitude and mentality are different particularly in that thug rap really isn't a thing anymore and it's more about weird artsy hipster shit now. But then Gen Xers' brand of rock was distinct from boomers' brand of rock, so...
Charles Hill
>Given what he said about disliking macho music How can he say that and praise Black Flag and Public Enemy? I get Tha they're more intellectual than most metal bands, but they're still pretty macho. Hell even the Ramones are a macho band.
Benjamin Hill
>Black Flag >intellectual Yeah, Rise Against and Spray Paint are such deep, thought-provoking songs.
Jason Cooper
They're more thoughtful than nearly every metal song even if they are still stupid.
Gavin Hughes
Isn't Henry Rollins a massive soyboy cuck though?
Logan Evans
basically hes saying metal musicians are all like "raaa look at me I got a big dick watch me shred bro we're the top shit raaa"
Jacob Lopez
You do know that Motley Crue is not the entirety of metal.
Jaxon Clark
>Rise Against Come on son
Elijah Lee
Rollins is an angsty roid case, and hardcore punk was explicitly macho. The difference is that some youthful rebellion could be discerned from it.
Ethan Cooper
Not him, but he’s referring to the “phallic narcissism” xgau attributed to metal. A band needn’t actually refer to their penises to be phallo-narcissistic. Shredding is pretty readily identifiable as phallo-narcissism if you’re inclined to see things that way (I’m not, for the record), given the phallic guitar neck, the onanistic motions of both the fretting hand and the picking hand, and the macho imagery of metal. It doesn’t take much intellectual effort to see this stuff and you sound perceptive when you point it out, so people do it. I’m not saying it’s ressonable.
Oliver Diaz
lmao what a soyboy. metal isn't for pussies pre much
Kayden Price
>the difference is that some youthful rebellion could be discerned from it No more or less than metal though, I would think.
Carson James
This is legit a good thread
Joseph Lee
nigga what. thug rap is still massive. trap and shit, pretty much all mainstream rap is about shooting niggas and fucking bitches and doing drugs mane. artsy shit is creeping in to the mainstream here and there, but its far from being the bulk of it.
Samuel Stewart
The general attitude of critics/punks is that metal isn't edgy or rebellious, it's just lunkhead music that only managed to scare 50 year old church secretaries.
Adam Robinson
I think the difference between 80s-90s rap and now is more that nowadays rappers are trying to write something that will etch itself into people's heads, while old rappers were trying to show off their rhymes and their flows.
Logan Brooks
>these hairy sweaty people are very loud and that makes me uncomfortable so i'll just pretend i'm superior and leave them alone a very professional music critic as always
Grayson Edwards
He still praised Hendrix, and he was the first one to do it.
Christgau is an inconsistent hack with weird essentialist attitudes towards rock music.
Luke Cook
Holy god, how beta can you get?
Ryan Thompson
Hendrix's songs were fun and humorous, not all like "I hate my mom and I want to slit my wrists and my girlfriend dumped me."
Caleb Perry
He wasn’t the first. Hendrix was big in the U.K. before he came back to the US. Otherwise I agree with you.
Christopher Hernandez
He still displayed the same sense of phallic narcissism (I'd bet the metal bands inherited it from him). It was way more explicit in his stage performances.
Chase Fisher
Who gave him the degree of a rock intellectual?
Carter Price
Sorry, meant that Hendrix was one of the first to make rock music that exhibited intense "phallic narcissism".
Lucas Roberts
Was about to say the same thing. I’d never posted on Sup Forums, but I’ve posted in this thread like 10 now. I’m struck by how much more intelligent and relatively reasonable the conversation is here than most other boards. Maybe it’s just because xgau generally attracts curious/intelligent readers and repels people with less patience.
Bentley Allen
>mfw a mealfag thought that screaming about Satan and Vikings over distorted E minor riffs was intellectual near me
Jason Richardson
Oh yeah. Point taken. Few guitarists were more overtly phallic about it.
Jaxon Watson
>Maybe it’s just because xgau generally attracts curious/intelligent readers
Yeah, those two-sentence insults followed by a random letter grade are intelligent writing.
Benjamin Perez
I agree that dismissing metal because it's white and male (as if punk/alternative isn't) is pretty cheap.
Ayden Powell
To be fair, punk and alternative always had a fairly large female following while metal doesn't (hairspray metal created by MTV to sell to girls doesn't count).
Nicholas Thompson
I don’t agree that it’s always unintelligent writing, but you don’t need to convey intelligence in your writing to attract intelligent or curious readers. There’s plenty of deliberately or incidentally dumb stuff that enjoys an intelligent audience.
Ryder Sanchez
For once I agree with him.
Angel Thompson
FWIW Christgau's writing style was mainly influenced by gonzo journalism and postmodernism which were popular with young college grads at the time when he started.
Robert Perry
This is left-wing music criticism.
His disdain for metal is a disdain for the right.
That's what's going on here.
Metal is right-wing music (see, e.g., varg) and that's what bothers effeminate liberal critics like Christfag about it.
Logan Ortiz
Nice
spacing
Redditfag
Colton Watson
Still better than Rolling Stone Magazine anyway. Now _that's_ a joke of a publication.
>Jan Wenner literally retracting negative reviews of Bob Dylan and other artists he worships and apologizing for them in the next issue >giving "Goddess in the Doorway" five stars when even Keith Richards said it was garbage
Zachary Cox
Nice Christgau, Christgay./
Carson Hughes
RSM is just an industry mouthpiece, they haven't been a real music publication since 1969.
Connor Thomas
Reminder: music critics hate metal and prog, and celebrate garbage two chord punk because they are failed musicians who never put in the effort to get good and virtuosity makes them feel inadequate, while shitty low effort punk makes them feel like "yeah.... I could make that... If I tried...heh".
What he's saying is "I have a little penis and feel threatened by masculinity". As
Simple. Public Enemy: he's a numale, hence, white guilt. Black Flag: the kind of "masculinity" represented by punks is just a reactionary LARP of masculinity adopted as a coping mechanism after being beat up in high school. Christgau identifies with that very easily.
Leo Brooks
Your psychoanalysis is worse than xgau’s.
Landon White
Not an argument.
Jonathan Cruz
>implying I was even purporting to argue
Jayden Lopez
If you disagree with my analysis, say why it's wrong. I think it's right and pretty obviously so.
Noah Butler
One big difference between the "attitude" of punk and metal is that punk more or less tends to be serious about it whereas metal isn't.
Aside from few outliers like Shining and Dissection, most metal bands don't seriously relate to the occultism/gore/horror themes in their music whereas punks are pretty sincere in their songs about hating cops and the government. The theatricality of metal could be turnoff for him.
Jordan Brooks
>liking elvis shiggidy
Justin Bailey
>Black Flag: the kind of "masculinity" represented by punks is just a reactionary LARP of masculinity adopted as a coping mechanism after being beat up in high school. Correct. Punk "masculinity" is kind of like Revenge of the Nerds.
Nicholas Allen
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+
Angel Stewart
Shining? Kvarforth being serious? Really? I don't for one second believe that whole self-destruction gimmick to be nothing more than a gimmick. If he was serious, he would have offed himself years ago already.
Now Jon Nödtveidt, he didn't fuck around.
Dylan Rogers
Yeah I think this review pretty much sums up his entire thinking.
>betamax nerds should stand up and overcome their football jock tormentors instead of wallowing in depression about what betas they are
Oliver Morgan
That may be true but I do believe Kvarforth when he says he find joy in knowing people harm themselves to his music.
He wasn't a good example though, I should have said Watain or something. This only furthers my assertion many may find metal to be silly because the musicians more or less tend to act that way.