Why does he hate nick cave so much?

why does he hate nick cave so much?

Because Nick Cave sucks. Next question.

If only he had a website where, you know, he explained why he didn't like Nick Cave.

>I admit it, I have a problem with death freaks. And since I also have a problem with Americans who obsess on America's "dark side," I have more of a problem with non-Americans who follow suit. Death fans compare the Birthday Party to P.I.L. even though Cave's band was palpably cornier, which took some doing. They compare the Bad Seeds to, well, the Gun Club--only better, you know? Damn straight. There are strong songs on Tender Prey, and occasionally I think I might appreciate the covers album Kicking Against the Pricks when face to face with terminal illness. But somehow I suspect I'll have other priorities.
How can one man be so based?

>How can one man be so based?

Love him, and I rarely agree with him.

Critics should be subjective as shit per their taste, attitude, mood, whatever. Good critics don't speak out of both sides of their mouth as they try to be "open minded" and "objective." Makes for boring, limp dick, and phony criticism.

>I admit it, I have a problem with death freaks
Poptimism is a cancer upon popular music.

>I support anti-intellectualism as it makes feel better for doing nothing about my ignorance and stupidty
Americans.

>Love him, and I rarely agree with him.
Exactly the same. I would never trust him to recommend a good album, but his reviews--even the ones were he doesn't say anything, just has choice cuts--are so damn erudite. It changes the way I see a whole record. And beyond anything else, he's consistent. I can calibrate my taste relative to him and work something out in between the A+'s and the C-'s.

People trying to scientify music criticism is a much more American conceit than you may realize.

>Critics should be subjective as shit per their taste, attitude, mood, whatever.
what you're asking for, considering the inconsistency you're going to get from this, is basically incendiary blogging

Except people have been doing it before Columbus had left Iberia, so your conceit is entirely baseless.

This man gave a Backstreet Boys album an A while Spiderland got a C minus. Never forget.

I like Nick Cave I will leave an angry comment on this man's webpage.

I think part of it was just hearing him wrong, I mean Papa Won't Leave You Henry isn't Cave's most amazing song, and honestly most of what the Bad Seeds did before then is somewhat spotty. But judging from his thoughts on other things he's done, I don't think he hates him, he'd probably enjoy a very particular compilation of his stuff.

Plus, you know, Christgau can be kind of a dummy, he called There She Goes, My Beautiful World and We Call Upon the Author "choice cuts" just because they namecheck Literary Things.

Music critics get perspective through learning music theory, sure, but the reasons we "like" music make more sense when you approach them through the humanities.

The liberal arts have been an established part of academia since the Renaissance. People have systematically trying to figure out why we like music since far before. Plato even talked about the kinds of music people of different ages and gender liked way before tonal theory had even been developed.

Namechecking New York City is a good way to get his attention as well.

even though I kinda like him, it kinda sucked that once upon a time people like him were a major factor in determining whether you had any credibility as an artist or not

Yeah...just ask Thurston Moore.

If you read his review of Henry's Dream, it seems the main issue he has is that the album comes off as a "dumb guy trying to act smart and literary" exercise, which always seems to get his goat.

What the fuck are you even talking about? He isn't a pseudo-academic at some small college trying to pass off an unscientific idea supported by zero evidence as "fact." That's what anti-intellectualism means, i.e. believing the world is flat because you fuckin' feel like it, evidence be damned.

Art critics of any stripe evaluate phenomenon that isn't anchored to any objective nor empirical reality, so it's impossible to take an objective "view from nowhere" position when evaluating something (art) so subjectively fluid. Gravity affects us all the same way, Bach doesn't, and if a critic doesn't care for Bach and prefers BrokenCyde to him, he should fuckin' write about it with conviction and not toe the line with milquetoast compromises like, "Well, I respect Bach's genius, but..."

You can never prove Bach's a genius like you can prove hydrogen + oxygen results in H20. It's a matter of personal opinion, while the latter is hard fact we're all bound to acknowledging.

>Plato even talked about the kinds of music people of different ages and gender liked way before tonal theory had even been developed.

Music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. This what you Music Theory 101 students continue to fail to understand as you try to find some objective foundation to base music quality on. It's a fruitless quest. There is no such thing, even if you anchor it in biology (i.e. what sounds, tones, rhythms are pleasing to the brain), because the brain is plastic and constantly changes per environmental stimuli.

I just can't take anyone who gives a Sleater-Kinney album an A seriously.

>because the brain is plastic and constantly changes per environmental stimuli.

Sometimes a particular piece of music will sound good or bad to us on different days depending on our mood.

You can follow rules without being aware of them. The same way you can speak proper english without being aware of the rules you're following. This is mostly due to the fact that artists who dont know theory learned to make music by ear and imitate music they like, like Sonic Youth. By doing so they're following the rules those they imitate were following. But you'll use theory no matter what you play in some way, so why not learn how to name stuff?
Do you wake up and have taste this bad, or does it take practice?

No one talked about music theory. Did you not read the sentence you quoted. Try reading it again and tell me why your reponse is non sequitur.

You're wrong though. Definition of anti-intellectualism: "Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy". Which ironically is what your post displayed.

>You can never prove Bach's a genius like you can prove hydrogen + oxygen results in H20.
But you can prove that Bach invented techniques and arrangments that inlfluenced musical traditions to come. Its completely reasonable to say that the guy responsible for first codifying music is an important and relevant person in music, more so than Brokencyde or whatever. Its also fair to study and speculate through studies and the available data why Bach's music may be more pleasure to some than others or otherwise and what are the psychological and sociohistorical reasons as to why modern people prefer somethig like Future to Bach. Anyi-intellectualism is to dismiss all of this jus because "music is subjective". And earnest and rigorous approach to understanding why music does what it does should be embraced and engaged, not dismissed.

>Do you wake up and have taste this bad, or does it take practice?
I'm not sure who equates good taste with S-K which is basically some bitch screaming about nothing over power chords for 40 or whatever minutes. No music, no singing, no melodies, nothing.

So is like James Hetfield remembering that he was forced to read Hemingway in the 10th grade and then thinking he could make a song out of it.

>And earnest and rigorous approach to understanding why music does what it does should be embraced and engaged, not dismissed
It's already been understood. Why do you think all the top 10 pop hits of today sound the same and are written by the same team of producers? Music is mass produced now and sold as if it was a car, (((they))) understand how music affects us.

>Music is mass produced now and sold as if it was a car
Now? The art of assembly-line music was perfected in the 70s-80s.

Shameless Drunk Girls In Awkward Position

Happened to different genres at different points in time. Usually takes about 10 years for them to completely catch on and perfect whatever it is.

But thats only one stream though. Production companies are very aware of how most people are exposed to music and therefore know what to make and so on. However, for the rest of the population that is exposed to music differently there are different streams. Many of which arent as easily understood. These streams are the ones that are mainly studied and focused in academia and the such. Thats not say they dismiss why the mainstream. However, its much easier to understand why people enjoy Future as oppose to why other people enjoy Bitches Brew. The latter would be focused on in academi

For example, rock was neutered and made into corporatized slop starting with Bread whose first album came out before the 60s had finished, and in short order there followed bands like the Doobie Brothers.

"The record industry has always worked the same way. If one's good, a hundred's better. So you had the W bands. The Wingers, the Warrants, the White Lions, the Whitesnakes. And it became so processed and so refined that it became pablum. Then it got even better because now all the metal bands start doing acoustic sets. Thanks, Tesla. Yeah, that's real extreme. I'd like to see Tracy Chapman or Paul Simon plug into two stacks of Marshall amps and...ride the lightning."

Because they didn't sound like Birthday Party. Next stupid bait.

Dee Snider is the stopped clock that's right twice a day.

>No one talked about music theory.

What Plato was attempting to do was music theory and you seem to be inferring that this is the way music consumption should be approached (from a scientistic approach rather than a subjective "fuck you, I like it, approach.")

>But you can prove that Bach invented techniques and arrangments that inlfluenced musical traditions to come. Its completely reasonable to say that the guy responsible for first codifying music is an important and relevant person in music, more so than Brokencyde or whatever. Its also fair to study and speculate through studies and the available data why Bach's music may be more pleasure to some than others or otherwise and what are the psychological and sociohistorical reasons as to why modern people prefer somethig like Future to Bach. Anyi-intellectualism is to dismiss all of this jus because "music is subjective". And earnest and rigorous approach to understanding why music does what it does should be embraced and engaged, not dismissed.

How do you "prove" quality (over any other artist) from that? You can't, which is why your position is untenable.

> Anti-intellectualism is to dismiss all of this jus because "music is subjective"

Prove music isn't subjective. Where does this objective foundation of music quality exist that you can ground your theory in (i.e. scientific theories are grounded in objective physical fact, for the most part)?

You can also acknowledge the influence of something without liking it. How influential something is isn't a determinant of quality on a personal level.

I'm surprised that Christgau didn't like TS at all considering they were old veterans of the New York punk scene since the 70s.

It may have something to do with them being terrible.

>TS at all considering they were old veterans of the New York punk scene since the 70s.

There's a great doc on them, too. I think they unfairly get lumped into the 80's hair metal scene and people kneejerk dislike them.

TS was anything but, often blending punk and straight up metal. Underrated band.

Christgau or Scaruffi, Sup Forums?

Scaruffi

He thinks Amnesiac is better than Kid A, which is the final redpill.

That's because nobody knows any of their albums except Still Hungry which jumped on the MTV pop metal bandwagon, but their earlier albums were more NWOBM and they were one of the fastest heavy rock bands prior to Metallica.

Why Plato was doing isnt music theory. Its music criticism.
"young people like X music because of Y" doesnt explain or try to understand where Y comes from or even why it makes young people like X.

>How do you "prove" quality (over any other artist) from that? You can't, which is why your position is untenable.
I never try to. Influencing a tradition has no effect in quality. However, it is anobjective observation.

>Prove music isn't subjective.
I dont believe that and I never claimed to.
>Where does this objective foundation of music quality exist that you can ground your theory in (i.e. scientific theories are grounded in objective physical fact, for the most part)?
Well, music is sound which is an objective physical force that can be studied. Hearing is a biological trait that can be objectively observed and studied. Musical traditions are a historical phenomenon that can be studied and interpreted using facts and data. Idk where you saw anyone claim music is objective anywhere here. Just because not every element of music can be quantified and observed doesnt mean we cant make studied approximations and models. Most things actually operate this way including many aspects in science.

He wasn't all that big a fan of the Dictators who were Twisted Sister contemporaries and fellow New Yorkers, but are much more obscure because they never had a hit single.

They had guitar solos. That was a no-no to him--it's what dirty, evil metal proles do.

So did the Beatles, Rolling stones, ACDC and a bunch of other bands he liked

He was ambivalent on AC/DC and the Beatles and Stones had many songs with no solos in them.

Nicki Minaj has MULTIPLE A albums user

Ever see his testimony before congress? You're 100% spot on

To be fair, he's become a bit softer as he's gotten older. He might not have rated those things so highly if it were the 70s.

>Well, music is sound which is an objective physical force that can be studied. Hearing is a biological trait that can be objectively observed and studied. Musical traditions are a historical phenomenon that can be studied and interpreted using facts and data. Idk where you saw anyone claim music is objective anywhere here. Just because not every element of music can be quantified and observed doesnt mean we cant make studied approximations and models. Most things actually operate this way including many aspects in science.

All descriptive phenomena, and that's fine to study within that context. But again, you can't tease out objective "quality" from that phenomena.

You seemed to infer you take the musical quality is objective position when you called my defense of Christgau's critical style anti-intellectualism.

Christgau isn't a musicologist. Traditions, historical trends, and the creation of studied models based on that data shouldn't inform his criticism of something if he has no interest in that regard (some critics indeed take all of that into consideration, like blues critic Robert Palmer). Criticism is a subjective enterprise and any good critic should try to be honest with himself as much as possible and not force himself into middle-ground compromise because he fears looking foolish or "anti-intellectual."

Why do you care so much?

Opposite actually. He does that as a form of rebellion. The only people that pay attention to Christgau are people in the music industry who would be outraged by his opinion.

Those first generation rock critics started at a time when rock was barely more than a decade old and they themselves were hardly more than kids. If you read rock journalism from the 60s-70s, they have a persistent, insecure "Am I cool yet?" vibe about them.

They had a hard time reconciling the simple, dumb, loud rock and roll of the 50s, their childhood music, with the more sophisticated AOR approach that was developing. They wanted to escape the ostentatious nature of classical music and traditional pop, but at the same time were desperate to prove that rock could be serious music and not just dumb, loud dance jams for teenagers.

So the result was that rock critics came to favor music that was simple and loud, but made by arts majors or other college educated hipsters. They reckoned that this was the best balance between raw and smart.

Nah, he would have still given Nicki Minaj As in the 70s because she's black and he has a neurotic fascination with black music, no matter how terrible.

> But again, you can't tease out objective "quality" from that phenomena.
But you can make a reasoned assessment by establishing and explaining a criterion by which you justify all of the elements and then evaluate a piece of music similary to how literaty critics make a cause for a literary work even though they make concessions to the subjectivity of the project. If you dont care about knowledge of reason and just want to throw around opinions that mean nothing to anyone then go ahead. However, the whole point of criticism is to make a compelling argument for your opinion which effectively means you have to justify your subjective criteria using reason and the knowledge at your disposal. That takes understanding of all of the "objective" elements of music and some concession to the subjective elements.
It is anti-intellectual because your trying to defend a thoughtless and purposely inflammatory soundbites as valid criticism just because its all subjective. Theres no analysis or assesment of the work and if there is it displays no understanding of any of the objective elements of music (or the totality of the medium from a systematic or historical perspective) only the very subjective ones with no concessions. Its not criticism and if you insist to call it so its at least not proper criticism according to a higher academic and historical standard.

Hipsters like Christgau have this weird tendency to treat black people like some kind of toad that you lick to gain wisdom.

Christgau doesn't bother with metal because it has a message he doesn't like. Hip-hop also has a message he doesn't like, but he considers the messengers important.

Christgau also dislikes pretty much any post-bop Jazz. He hated Sketches of Spain.

His aesthetic position seems to be a dislike of pretension in pop music, when artists stray too far outside of their abilities and genre constraints and try to be "better" than the genre itself. To him (and critics like Bangs) it comes off taking oneself too seriously for the music you actually play (Bangs and Christgau would see the incorporation of classic and jazz music motifs into rock as a defilement off all the styles involved rather than interesting experimentation. It's why he also dislikes 3rd stream Jazz).

>Almost no one hated progressive rock as much, or as memorably, as Lester Bangs, the dyspeptic critic who saw himself as a rock-and-roll warrior, doing battle against the forces of fussiness and phoniness.

>Bangs reported that the members of E.L.P. were soulless sellouts, participating in “the insidious befoulment of all that was gutter pure in rock.” Robert Christgau, the self-proclaimed “dean of American rock critics,” was, if anything, more dismissive: “These guys are as stupid as their most pretentious fans.”

I don't agree, but it's his position. Some people simply don't like "wankery." I've seen it here. "Got any Jazz without self-important wanky solos?" "Metal is wanky for me." etc, etc.

My question is how can people lole Bangs or Christgau seriously consider themselves as people who like music when its so clear that they hate it and only treat it as a commodity. Do you think they ever actually listen to music with the intention of enjoying it?

He kind of liked Pink Floyd (from 1973 onward) but they were higher up on the IQ scale than the likes of ELP and Kansas. Those bands are dumb as a post.

but christgau clearly adores music. he has been constantly listening to music for like 60 years. just because he doesn't like what you like doesn't mean he doesn't like music. read his essays on chuck berry, the rolling stones, louis armstrong, etc. and you'll see he's quite passionate about what he likes.

>fussiness and phoniness

Kinda weird, because that sums up rock criticism

Someone passionate about music would be able to appreciate a wide variety of music and musicla intentions. People like Christgau wear music as a fashion or political statement.

>but christgau clearly adores music. he has been constantly listening to music for like 60 years
The guy's stubborn dedication is impressive to say the least, he admitted that many of his peers were getting disillusioned and giving up on new music by their mid-30s.

Popular music is unfortunately strongly tied into fashion, cult, or politics as opposed to jazz and classical, which are conversational forms of music.

Even Lester Bangs by the time of his death confessed he was disillusioned with current music trends.

Isnt it incredible convenient then that the more conversational rock is the kind of rock Christgau hates?

You have to consider that a music critic has to listen to so much shit before they find something to recommend. I pity them.

"When you get down to it, almost nobody listens to music for its own sake, it's the background noise to their particular lifestyle. For example, if you're the laid-back romantic type, you'd listen to the Eagles or Linda Ronstadt. If you're a young urban professional, you'll listen to jazz fusion. As for my audience, I believe there's a lot of cynics out there and they feel reassured knowing there's someone else who shares their skepticism."

he does appreciate a wide variety, he just has a unique and interesting stance on what popular music's relationship to art is. and he doesn't wear anything as a fashion statement, he's a 75 year old man who started doing rock criticism when it wasn't taken seriously at all, that's just a laughable statement.

i like christgau because he's one of the few rock critics who doesn't pretend that popular music genres (rock, metal, electronic, folk, pop, etc) is the same sort of artistic endeavor as the "high arts," but at the same time loves popular music genres (like i do). like christgau, i get annoyed by acts like ELP or your average prog metal band who have pretensions far beyond their abilities.

I agree about prog, but I never could understand his idea that metal was pretentious. I mean Pantera (to cite one example) are the least pretentious band you find anywhere, just dumb, loud, aggressive meathead music.

>their particular lifestyle. For example, if you're the laid-back romantic type, you'd listen to the Eagles or Linda Ronstadt. If you're a young urban professional, you'll listen to jazz fusion.

Except thats almost never true. Personality almost never has any reflection of the kind of art people consume. Most people, regardless of personality, listen to what they have been exposed to. If youre a laid back romantic or a urban professional doesnt matter; in most cases than not you probably listen to whatever is on the radio or whatever your family or friends exposed you to during your development. People who listen to music for its own sake are people who actively seek it out.

well i said prog metal. the kind of metal that lacks pretension is fine by me. i don't love it for other reasons but i don't hate it. I don't think christgau does either.

>i get annoyed by acts like ELP or your average prog metal band who have pretensions far beyond their abilities.

Which are? As far as I understand, ELP is a band composed of highly talented ad educated musicians who wanted to make rock that reflected this. Whay pretentions do they have that their abilities dont reach?

Again, there is no objective foundation here from which to objectively evaluate from.

>However, the whole point of criticism is to make a compelling argument for your opinion which effectively means you have to justify your subjective criteria using reason and the knowledge at your disposal. That takes understanding of all of the "objective" elements of music and some concession to the subjective elements.

The only function those objective elements can ever hope to have in a critical piece are descriptive. A complex time signature isn't "good" because it's complex. It's simply complex. It's up to the critic to determine if that complex time signature adds value (for him) to the work.

A critic who says something like, "Well, it didn't really move me personally, but I sure as hell respect the experimental compositional techniques and exploration of unconventional time signatures and melodies" is trying to have the proverbial cake and eat it too, and is talking out of both sides of his mouth because he fears backlash from people who might say something, "You just didn't get it!"

What you want from critics is musicological analysis. That's not what they set out to do. Criticism is more of a literary art form than anything else. Good writing is what makes a good critic, not necessarily "good taste" or "rationality." People seem to approach criticism all wrong. You don't read it to make your taste, clue you in on if you should buy an album or not, or to be taken on a musicological academic journey of descriptive analysis (which is what you want), you read to be entertained and see how someone else responded to the work in question. So yes, I rather Christgau make funny puns at the artist expense than mechanically write about how King Crimson's time signatures that recall Stravinsky just didn't mesh well enough with Fripp's unconventional tuning to work for him, but he can "respect" the effort.

Yeh but real trve cvlt metalheads hate Pantera anyway. Go in the general thread and see how they're accused of ruining metal by turning it into biker/muscle-head shit.

they attempt to play art music while completely lacking in sensitivity, culture, taste, or feeling. they juxtapose their acrid tunes next to classical compositions as if to pretend there's a comparison

I've listened to ELP but they just come off as tryhard and cheesy attempts at being cute and humorous.

>A critic who says something like, "Well, it didn't really move me personally, but I sure as hell respect the experimental compositional techniques and exploration of unconventional time signatures and melodies" is trying to have the proverbial cake and eat it too, and is talking out of both sides of his mouth because he fears backlash from people who might say something, "You just didn't get it!"
No, he's not. He's trying to show the reader that his lack of appreciation doesnt derive from ignorance. He expresses his criterion and then evaluates the piece according to it so the reader understands his position. This is a basic tenant of persuasive writing and criticism as a whole. If you dont display and understanding of the intention and approach of the music then why would your opinion on the subject matter, how do you establish credibility? You dont. Do purposely dismiss such concessions is nothing else but incendiary. Critics like Christgau want the backlash. They're purposefully short-sighted and unreasonable because thats how they make a name. Just like political pundits.

>Someone passionate about music would be able to appreciate a wide variety of music and musicla intentions.

No matter how open minded we think we are, there's always going to be elements in music (or anything for that matter) that annoy us.

Take hip-hop. For me, I'm instantly turned off when a rapper uncreatively uses words and phrases like, "suck my dick, bitch, hoe, motherfucker, nigga this, nigga that," excessively throughout a song. Not because I'm offended, but because, shit, you couldn't come up with some alternative words to use to break up the monotony of the 45th nigga and bitch?

Someone might say, "Well, just listen to the production. It's great." Nope. "Well, those are the words he grew up saying on the streets, so he's being real." Nope.

Similarly, wankery turns off Christgau, and it overpowers all the other positive elements there might be in a song for him to enjoy it on any level.

Sup Forumstard detected

I agree that there's a reason why Pink Floyd's artistic reputation has remained far higher than the likes of Kansas. I've never heard anyone like Kansas unless it was out of nostalgia.

>they attempt to play art music while completely lacking in sensitivity, culture, taste, or feeling
Or maybe they have different sensitivities and taste and their music reflects this and is enjoyed by those who share those. The same way something like the Beatles is. What you have is a problem with the aesthetic of the music and how it "looks".

What? Where is Sup Forums in any of this?

>Similarly, wankery turns off Christgau, and it overpowers all the other positive elements there might be in a song for him to enjoy it on any level

Kind of but when you talk about 70s AOR (notorious for long solos), you have to understand the purpose and point of the music, which was for stoned teenagers who had infinite free time on their hands to listen to a 20 minute Yes drum solo.

In order to critique music properly, you must be able to appreciate what it's trying to accomplish and how well it accomplishes its goals within its framework.

everything is an opinion, but opinions reflect values and reflect who you are as a person. if you think ELP can be taken seriously as high art, your opinion no longer matters to me, just as if you thought that a stephen king novel is worth placing next to hamlet. yes, it's your opinion, and it's my opinion that you're stupid for having it and that you should know better.

also you keep talking about "purpose" and "point" but those values are entirely removed from actual music. you can't derive them from music. me playing something to intentionally play something that sounds like shit is impossible to differentiate from me just playing something that sounds like shit due to me not knowing what i'm doing. the only person who can evaluate how well art accomplishes a goal is the artist themselves.

>No matter how open minded we think we are, there's always going to be elements in music (or anything for that matter) that annoy us.
This is 100% true. However, thats why we make an effort to express and understand our biases and not just turn a blind eye to.

>Take hip-hop. For me, I'm instantly turned off when a rapper uncreatively uses words and phrases like, "suck my dick, bitch, hoe, motherfucker, nigga this, nigga that," excessively throughout a song. Not because I'm offended, but because, shit, you couldn't come up with some alternative words to use to break up the monotony of the 45th nigga and bitch?
Well,would you say that the monotony of the word selection is a reasoned observation. The lack of variety makes it not engaging to you. This is something a reader can understand and if you back it up, they can even agree.

>Someone might say, "Well, just listen to the production. It's great." Nope. "Well, those are the words he grew up saying on the streets, so he's being real." Nope.
Well, you can. You can listen to the production and appreciate it by your criterion but then say that it doesnt justify listening to it and regardless how seamless the production maybe it is lowered by the rapping and if the rapper would have better word choice, you'd enjoy it more. You can make that into a proper position and readers, even fervent fans of rap, would understand.

>Similarly, wankery turns off Christgau, and it overpowers all the other positive elements there might be in a song for him to enjoy it on any level.
Yes, but he doesnt make a proper point of it. He doesnt evaluate it properly he just doenst like, so everything with it sucks. What even qualifies as wankerh for him? How is straightahead jazz not wank, but prog rock is? When does it become wank? He never says.

I think Christgau understood what that music was trying to do, he didn't like it because of that very reason--it was just mindless escapism while he likes music that has empowering social consciousness messages and shit like that. He probably thought that a band like Yes were the teenager equivalent of giving a baby a pacifier. It's just there to keep an inquisitive young mind quiet and dumbed down instead of encouraging him to take on the world.

Christgau liked Kansas. The first couple of albums were fucking tight. Lead singer was on dumptrucks full of coke. Live shows were ridiculous. Albums were good.

>This is a basic tenant of persuasive writing and criticism as a whole.

I don't think art criticism is pure rhetoric. I see it more as literary art form above all else, as I said. If I want academic analysis of a piece, there's plenty of work out there that can oblige. What I want from art critics is a subjective personal style, not some wimply middle-ground bullshit that strives for some kind of impossible- to-define "objectivity."

If said critic first heard X song while shooting up heroin in a dingy 1976 New York apartment and that experience somehow connects to his evaluation of the work, he should write about it (and they do).

Criticism, above all, is simply a stylistic articulation of how you personally responded to something. And readers should approach it as a fun and relatively informative journey of another person's experience with a work. No critic on Earth would say his opinion is in anyway objective.

>As critics, all we have are our beliefs, ideals, prejudices, blind spots, our reservoirs of historical and personal knowledge, and the strength of our arguments. There are empirical truths that we can say about a movie: it was shot in black and white or color, on film or digital, in widescreen or not, directed by this or that filmmaker. But beyond these absolutes there is only our thinking, opinions, ideologies, methodological approaches and moments in time. That isn’t to say that criticism is a postmodern anything goes; it is to admit that critics are historical actors and that our relationships with movies, as with everything in life, are contingent on those moments

But what ELP is trying to do is not the same thing Stravinsky is trying to do. What Stephen King is trying to do may not the same as Shakespeare (although, in this case it is. Theres actually wuite a bit that can be said about this comparison and i wouldnt be the first to do it). ELP is trying to be art mysic. Have they ever described themselves as art music composers? ELP's primary influences are not art music composers like Cage, but fellow rock musicians. ELP falls under rock tradition within a certain denomination or rock music (known as prog). They emulate their influences and play clearly within the boundaries of the style.

He did? Sure doesn't seem like it to me.

How can you say that when he thinks so highly of literal pop music thats nothing but mindless escapsim for the mases. Should I mention how he gabe Nicki Minja several As? Tell me what political and social commentary does he discern from her music?

there are so many examples of ELP arranging classical pieces, taking vague influence from classical music, etc. it's probably one of the things they are most known for. it seems ridiculous to believe that they are not aiming towards art music.

>Criticism, above all, is simply a stylistic articulation of how you personally responded to something. And readers should approach it as a fun and relatively informative journey of another person's experience with a work. No critic on Earth would say his opinion is in anyway objective.
Except, critics have a responsibility. Think of all the acts that have been unreasonably shut down because of scathing and incendiary criticism. Christgau talks about many occasions he had run ins by people trying to harm him because of the effects of his reviews on certain bands livelihood. The average uncritical perosn will go in to a review and be influenced by it. Critics should be held bu higher standard. If you make a highly personal work of music and then a critic like Christgau does what he does and reviews it giving no thought or concession and just writes three of four lines complete derogatorily of it, you wouldnt find it "fun". Especially if it affected your opportunity to further your career.

This is true but he overlooks that metal is basically about self-empowerment and kicking ass.