The Ramones [Sire, 1976]

The Ramones [Sire, 1976]

I love, love, love this record. It's clean the way the Dolls weren't, sprightly the way the Velvets weren't, and just plain listenable like Black Sabbath never were. The allusions to Nazism do make me a bit uneasy, but it's always been my theory that good rock and roll had damn well better make you uneasy, sort of like how Midnight Rambler flirts with rape. Not that these boys condone any nasties, mind you, they merely hint that their music has some fairly ominous sources they tap into. And I hear it cost $6800 to put on plastic. A

huh

>adhd kiddie with attention span too short to listen to something more complicated or challenging
Sounds like a Christgau review.

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>sub-3:00 songs with basic 3-chord arrangements
I guess Sabbath were too challenging for his tiny brain to process.

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Based

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I'd say Sabbath WERE too challenging for him, and it's not like they were that experimental. But a song like "Fairies Wear Boots" is far more than what he's usually willing to deal with.

made me laugh, but still what a fucking tard

Critics have to listen to 30 albums a day, they don't have the time to sit around contemplating 10 minute bass solos unlike a stoned teenager in the 70s who had all day to listen to ELP. That's why they like punk--it's short and they can get through the album faster to move onto the other records in their pile.

Actually my take is that they're very insecure people who can't stand the idea that an artist could be smarter than themselves so when that does happen, they write off their music as pretentious art rock or someshit.

>The new-wave band that was going to have the greatest impact worldwide was the most unlikely one: the Ramones, who simply played inept rock'n'roll at supersonic speed. Their frenzy was not exactly intellectual, and certainly had no artistic ambition, but was exactly what legions of frustrated kids had been waiting for. Iinspired by New York Dolls and Dictators, Ramones (1976), a rapid-fire collection of brief songs that were intentionally demented and clownish, invented the most significant genre of the last quarter century of the 20th century. Blitzkrieg Bop stands as the anthem that woke up a slumbering generation.

"I was 16 when I first heard the Ramones and I instantly knew what I wanted to do with my life."

-- Henry Rollins

"They were our generation's Beatles."

-- Eddie Vedder

...And Justice For All [Elektra, 1988]

Problem isn't that it's more self-aware than Puppets, which is inevitable when your stock in trade is compositions rather than songs. Problem is that it's also longer than Puppets, which is inevitable when your stock in trade is compositions rather than songs. Just ask Yes. C+

>compositions and songs aren't the same thing
He might be the most insipid and foolish writer who ever "graced" popular music writing.

To be fair, even the band themselves complained that the song lengths on Justice got a bit out of hand.

Which is sadder, that he has a career or that P4K writers try to be him?

>m-muh 3 chords
I swear this is the argument of every pseudo-contrarian hipster

So Far...So Good...So What [Capitol, 1988]

By the usual standards, this isn't terrible. Frontman Dave Mustaine shows remarkable restraint throughout. He doesn't pomp, he doesn't preen, he allows himself but a single "bitch" on a 34 minute album (she sounds like she deserved it). His rage at nuclear war and the PMRC and lying scumbags seems genuine. But where's the big voice? Where's the big guitar? Where's the big deal? Oh well, props to Mustaine for his small contribution to the world of heavy metal. B

>complains that metal is nothing but flash and wankery that has nothing to do with the songs
>complains that this album doesn't have enough flash or ebic solos

>kikegau is a sell-out
color me surprised

>The allusions to Nazism do make me a bit uneasy
i hope he's not referring to blitzkrieg bop here

The Ramones S/T reportedly sold about 1200 copies. I guarantee you that if they hadn't been in a major media market, nobody would have ever heard of that first album.

>american music criticism
Even melon is better than this dreck.

>be a lazy faggot who writes 1-3 line reviews for an entire album and denounces half of popular music
>somehow gets revered as one of the best critics of the 20th century
At least Scaruffi writes a full fucking review, as pretentious as he is. Jesus.

these one sentence reviews are not informative, funny or accurate.
why would anyone give a fuck about critics' opinion about music baffles me

I swear to God, this cunt is responsible for every p4k/rym "reviewer" thinking their stream of consciousness can be a valid, insightful or interesting commentary on an album.

Ram [Apple, 1971]

"Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" is a major annoyance. I tolerated Paul's crochets with the Beatles because his mates balanced them out. I enjoyed them on McCartney because their scale was so modest. I actively enjoy them on "Moonberry Monk Delight" because it rocks! But the rest of the songs are so lightweight they practically float away even as Paulie layers them down with caprices. For God's sake, if you're going to be eccentric, at least don't be pretentious about it. B-

he's a pop culture columnist, not a music critic

And yet the header of his sight says "the dean of american rock critics"
WHY

because "rock critics" in reality are pop culture columnists

Any actually good music criticism to recommend?

A Farewell To Kings [Mercury, 1977]

The most obnoxious band currently making a killing on the zonked teen circuit--not to be confused with Mahogany Rush who at least spare us the reactionary gentility. Imagine a power trio Kansas or Uriah Heep with the vocals cranked up an octave. Or two. D+

Post the erzats shit already. Truly the krogan cock of rock album review.

no
good criticism delves into philosophy
most magazine criticism is a kind of entertainment

Patrician

plebs who can't get the Ramones

I get that much, dude. Just wanted to know if you know any actually good essays. Thanks anyway.

>Sunny down snuff they're all right with the heroes and villains

What the fuck does this mean?

I think Rush were same issue as Sabbath--they were just too much for him and his limited notion of what rock can be.

It's a beach boys line. He "subtly" implies AnCo are imitators.

I think he's more like proto-mu — a hundred levels of irony and self-contradictions about what's cool and what's not cool to enjoy.

if you need fundamental pop culture criticism, read Marcuse, Badiou

Delved into them already. Thanks.

Critics claim to be patrician masters of taste but they really have the most plebian, normie taste in music imaginable which is why guys like Bruce Springsteen get their approval instead.

>they were just too much for him and his limited notion of what rock can be
Nah, they just sucked ass.

I get it, you don't like Rush because mmuh Randian libertarian fedorashit.

Henry Cow is not smarter than other prog rock. Stop. Unrest is more poppy and less experimental than fucking ITCOTCK — an album Christgau hated. He was a pseud and jumped the wagon hard.

there's not much to read, really
when you realize what a phony culture this is

Also exactly how does he get away with calling metal pretentious nihilism when he gave an A to six of the first eight Springsteen albums. Nebraska had to be one of the most dire, free-of-any-fun albums I've ever heard.

Autobahn [Vertigo, 1975]

The Iron Butterfly of überrock--Mike Oldfield for unmitigated simpletons, sort of, and yet in my mitigated way I don't entirely disapprove. A melody or two worth hearing twice emanates from a machine determined to rule all music with a steel hand and some mylar, and the title track is longer than "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" sans drum solo, with a lyric (trot provided) that could become the "What's Life? A magazine" of high school German classes all over America. B-

Reminds me of my writing prof who literally disregarded anything even remotely close to electronica as "low-effort machine-made music". What an old fart.

Atomizer [Homestead, 1986]
Though they don't want you to know it, these hateful little twerps are sensitive souls--they're moved to make this godawful racket by the godawful pain of the world, which they learn about reading everything from textbooks to bondage mags. This is the brutal guitar machine thousands of lonely adolescent cowards have heard in their heads. Its creators deserve credit for finding each other and making their obsession real. But not for anything else. B+

>lol I'll just analyze the band in the most cliche way, while saying nothing of the music at all, Then give it a 7/10 despite saying that it's basically worthless
Comedy Gold

Its not smarter but people think that because the sounds are more vivid than in other prog rock

Yeah, I agree. I guess what I want to say is that Christgau made giant mistakes in how prog was actually supposed to work — like he thought that it had to either be completely off the wall strange stuff or pseudo-intellectual shit about dwarfs and elves. I mean, for a critic the man completely lacks nuance. I guess that's why punk appeals to him so much.

>Any actually good music criticism to recommend?
Music reviews shouldn't be persuasive essays or a reaffirmation of reviewer's taste. Reviews should explain what you're listening to on as much levels as possible, and not by emotional descriptors.

Butthurt bleep babby is butthurt.

he himself said that neither his job nor pop culture should be taken seriously

Foxtrot [Charisma, 1972]

This band's defenders--fans of manual dexterity, aggregate IQ, "stagecraft," etc.--claim this as an improvement. And indeed, Tony Banks's organ crescendos are less totalistic, Steve Hackett's guitar is audible, and Peter Gabriel's lyrics take on medievalism, real-estate speculators, and the history of the world. This latter is the apparent subject of the 22:57-minute "Supper's Ready," which also suggests that Gabriel has a sense of humor and knows something about rock and roll. Don't expect me to get more specific, though--I never even cared what "Gates of Eden" "really meant." C

Me, I'm bored to tears by most punk. How many identical 90-second three chord rock songs can you listen to?

Typical post-modernist bullshit. We all get to do shit jobs, because nothing really matters, guise!. Wow. So insightful and meaningful. I understand injecting humor into your reviews, but to escape the subject completely for a cheap laugh is one of the few things I'd call truly intellectually dishonest.

At least he shit on Journey, so we know he's good for something.

>I mean, for a critic the man completely lacks nuance. I guess that's why punk appeals to him so much
And why he thinks Europeans don't really "get" how rock and roll works.

>Out of Squirrelbait by HunglikeAlbini. Trojan Horse.
Is Christgau okay? I don't understand what point he's trying to make with this sentence. I can't read.

Nobody with any taste likes Journey.

The Quietus

He's right.

>heavily into dadrock and punk in general
>hates anything that is psych or borderline experimental
>likes Nirvana and thinks Pavement is the best band of the 90s

what a guy. at least his reviews are fun to read.

Never understood this board's obsession with Christgau. Mark Prindle is the best rock critic hands down. After I read his reviews I could see right through the bullshit of Scaruffi and Christgau.

His reviews are easily accessible and good at causing Sup Forums to sperg out particularly when he shits on the board's sacred cows like NMH.

>hates anything that is psych or borderline experimental

It's funny because he loves Jimi Hendrix now but an early column he wrote about seeing him at the Monterrey Pop Festival in 1967 was anything but kind.

Whatever instinct told everybody born after 1995 that Bruce Springsteen is just another dadrock frontman is wrong. He's one of the best storytellers and lyricists in rock music.

"I just got laid off from my factory job in Hoboken and my brother is walking around with a missing leg from Vietnam and...me and my girl are both losers but hey, it works. I wish we could run from it all."

There, I just gave you the summation of every Springsteen song ever.

Superstar Car Wash [Metal Blade, 1993] :(

A Boy Named Goo [Metal Blade, 1995] :(

Dizzy Up The Girl [Warner Bros., 1998] *bomb*

Christgau is the definitive hack music critic

he's worse than Scaruffi even

I'm not a Goo Goo Dolls fan or anything, but would it kill him to actually explain what is it about them he doesn't like?

can someone explain his in utero review to me?
I literally have no idea what I'm reading, this looks like pure gibberish

Thick as a Brick [Reprise, 1972]
Ian Anderson is the type of guy who'll tell you on one album that a whole side is one theme and then tell you on the next that the whole album is one song. The usual shit--rock (getting heavier), folk (getting feyer), classical (getting schlockier), flute (getting better because it has no choice), words. C-
Literally not getting the joke. Sure is good criticism.

>I literally have no idea what I'm reading, this looks like pure gibberish
Do you know the saying about him? The man who has an eloquent way of saying absolutely nothing at all about music. There are people who don't know any better. That is exactly why it works.

I assume he didn't like them because they were a dime store Replacements clone and he loves the Replacements so these imitators probably caused him to go "O rly."

>the last sentence is "let her rip"
I don't know whether to CRAWL or to BRAAAAPPP

Reinventing The Steel [EastWest, 2000] *bomb*

or maybe rush are just fucking shit

wth does that mean

they dont lol every good european rock band is like an american rock band but shittier

The Concept [Cotillion, 1978]

Pioneering funk groups like P-Funk and the Commodores, manned by veteran musicians, largely stayed within the realm of traditional black music styles. The younger ones more closely resemble third-generation rock groups. Unless you prefer Kansas to the J.B.'s, this is not a compliment--lyrics such as "What is now will be forever" may as well grace the back of a Starcastle album. This is very much a Starcastle kind of band too, right down to the general derivativeness and pretensions to content. Still, if interesting sounds, shapes, and textures are your preference, then black is still beautiful. B-

so, UK is not Europe now?
creatura pls

*burger intensifies*

>This group is more vacuous wannabe prog rock but they're black which makes them slightly more acceptable

At least he said some words about music in this review. For Christgau not going off on a tangent about artist's image is a big achievement.

I never made it more than a third of the way through a Genesis album, so can't comment.

First sentence and he's already talking about the image of the band's fans. Not even the band image, the image of their fans, as percieved by him. Then he describes one actual quality of the music, one quality of the mix and counts the lyrical themes. Then he just says the name and the length of obe of the tracks, makes a weak compliment to Gabriel's songwriting ability and finishes with a "eh, don't care, this is dum". This guy is "reviews" on the level of an average Sup Forums shitposter looking to stir some shit.

Going For The One [Atlantic, 1977]

The title cut may be their best song ever, challenging a formula that even apologists are apologizing for by now with cutting hard rock guitar and lyrics in which Jon Anderson casts aspersions on his own "cosmic mind". But even there, you wish you could erase Rick Wakeman and elsewhere Steve Howe has almost as little to say. C

Black Panther: The Album (TDE/Aftermath/Interscope)
Shrewdly, Kendrick Lamar conceived this not-actually-a-soundtrack as a relief from the burden of remaking himself album to album to album. Credited on only four tracks, he's all over it vocally anyway, marking every one of the nine remaining songs with a verse or chorus or hook defined by the least regal of the great rap flows, unassumingly slurred while making every word count. Throughout Lamar delivers star-studded, hooky-to-jingly, sneakily experimental pop-rap product tinged with the flick's racialized broad-stroke humanitarianism; whatever sketchy plot references some exegete may imagine, "I Am" is a stand-alone love song, "Paramedic!" a street-ready gangsta metaphor. As in the film, the music's African tinge bears down on electronic decibelizations of the ensemble percussion to which Americans of all races still reduce the continent's many musics, but with the saving grace that the wealth of cameos doesn't stop with the multiple star turns. Room is made not just for the phlegmy young Vallejo spitters Slimmy B and DaBoii unfazed by Top Dawg godfather Jay Rock, for UK ingenue Jorja Smith standing tall next to Top Dawg seeker SZA, but for five South Africans, one of whom rams home the most arresting verse on the record: seasoned "Jo-Burg Femcee" Yugen Blakrok, who tops "Opps" off with a deep-voiced rhyme that only begins by assonating "millipede" and "Millie Jackson." Blakrok has her own album coming. What a blow for Wakanda it would be if Top Dawg picked it up. A

Christgau is a wigger in the most pathetic sense.

This is correct though.

Staring at the Sea: The Singles [Elektra, 1986]

Caught in his least lugubrious moments, Robert Smith stands revealed as a guy who gets a lot of skin because he believes he can live without it. He just won't play the "stupid game" that hooks the definitive "Let's Go to Bed," with its rotating I-don't-if-you-don't challenges--care, feel, want it, say it, and of course play it (and now let's go to bed, it's getting late). Guys who don't make passes because they wear glasses hate him for this, as do guys who don't get laid despite their muscular bods and heads. Above the fray, I think he's kind of amusing myself--a real cool type. B+

>yfw Robert Smith and his wife have been together since they were 14

The Ramones are fun, silly, but not exactly challenging music. They're the musical equivalent of an 11 year old saying the word "boobs" and thinking he's being all edgy and his mom will be so offended.

Yeah that's another favorite Christgau pastime--speculating about an artist's sex life.

Dr. Dre -- 2001 [Aftermath/Interscope, 2000]

It's a New Millennium, but he's Still S.L.I.M.E. How Eminem survived all the misogyny conditioning to grow into the sensitive spouse we know today I'll never understand. A "family man" when he's explaining why he fled the 'hood, on the very next track Dre drips contempt for the wife he's dogging and the other husbands' wives he's sodomizing--apparently because his real-life wife told him that would be commercial, rendering him a liar more ways than Eminem himself could comprehend. For an hour, with time out for some memorable Eminem tracks, Dre degrades women every way he can think of, all of which involve his dick ("the whole eight," as this master of poetic license puts it). Best friend S. Dogg, bad speller Kurupt, and Dat 'Ho Ms. Roq are among the hangers-on who'll take his (really Eminem's) money when (and if) he writes the check. And just when you thought it was safe to discard your vomit bag he goes out on a tearjerker about a dead homey. Wottan innovator. C