Can anyone help point me to some albums that Christgau has shat on using the pic related rating system?
Worst I've found is a D+ for Marilyn Manson's smells like children.
I enjoy reading negative reviews as literature.
Stuff Christgau has Shat on
Daniel Evans
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Blake Lee
Eve by The Alan Parsons Project
Musically, this is a step toward schlock that knows its name--a few smarmy melodies mixed in with the production values and synthesizer furbelows. Thematically, it's both sophomoric and disgusting--programmatic misogyny rooted in sexual rejections that were clearly deserved. Visually, it's sadistic--the three women on the Hipgnosis cover wear black veils that only partly conceal their scars, warts and blotches. What is it they stencil on street corners? Castrate art rockers? D
Bentley Price
I take it he doesn't like prog rock :^)
Rush-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. More like Angel. Or Kansas. Or a power-trio Uriah Heep, with vocals revved up an octave. Or two. D
Thomas Hall
>this is ersatz shit. D+
lol
Christian Wilson
History/America's Greatest Hits [Warner Bros., 1975]
Randy Newman once described "A Horse With No Name" as "this song about a kid who thinks he's taken acid," and at least back then they were domesticating CSNY instead of CSN. More tuneful than Seals & Crofts but with less to say, which they've managed to conceal by establishing meaningless highschool verse as a pop staple, they might be remembered as the '70s answer to the Association if they could come up with one song half as lively as "Windy" or "Along Comes Mary." C-
Camden Evans
Luke Perry
If I Could Only Remember My Name [Atlantic, 1971]
This disgraceful performance inspires the first Consumer Guide Competition. The test: Rename David Crosby (he won't know the difference). The prize: One Byrds LP of your choice (he ought to know the difference). The catch: You have to beat my entries. Which are: Rocky Muzak, Roger Crosby, Vaughan Monroe. D-
his dislike for everyone in CSNY but Young is absolutely delightful
Bentley Ortiz
Just found out how to search by grade :^)
G N' R Lies [Geffen, 1988]
Axl's voice is a power tool with attachments, Slash's guitar a hype, the groove potent "hard rock," and the songwriting not without its virtues. So figure musical quality at around C plus and take the grade as a call to boycott, a reminder to clean livers who yearn for the wild side that the necessary link between sex-and-drugs and rock-and-roll is a Hollywood fantasy. Anyway, this band isn't even sex and drugs--it's dicking her ass before you smack up with her hatpin. (No wonder they want to do an AIDS benefit.) "One in a Million"--"Immigrants and faggots/They make no sense to me/They come to our country/And think they'll do as they please/Like start some mini-Iran/Or spread some fucking disease/They talk so many goddamn ways/It's all Greek to me"--is disgusting because it's heartfelt and disgusting again because it's a grandstand play. It gives away the "joke" (to quote the chickenshit "apologies" on the cover) about the offed girlfriend the way "Turn around bitch I've got a use for you" gives away "Sweet Child o' Mine." Back when they hit the racks, these posers talked a lot of guff about suicide. I'm still betting they don't have it in them to jump. E
Andrew Kelly
>it's dicking her ass before you smack up with her hatpin. (No wonder they want to do an AIDS benefit.)
holy shit
Anthony Hernandez
Aorta: Aorta [Columbia, 1969]
Rescued from my second-apartment second-listen pile by a reader's tentative C rating, this one is a caricature of the new releases that glut the stores, not to mention my workroom. Badly sung (ranging from pseudo-soul to imitation Happenings), full of pretentious production effects (another disaster from Dunwich Productions), its silly lyrics reproduced proudly within the double-fold--yet someone bought it and listened to it and I can almost understand. What a gap there is between people who pay for their records and those who hear everything free. As a final insult, group members are listed "upper right," "upper left," etc. E-
Jackson Johnson
>I enjoy reading negative reviews as literature.
Why? Providing criticism is far easier than evaluating as to how something is great. Not that it matters with Christgau or Scaruffi. They're completely incapable of doing either in any constructive, analytical manner.
Alexander Baker
It's entertaining, jeeze mr.highhorse
Asher Davis
Lateralus Review by Brent DiCrescenzo is a good read.
pitchfork.com
Joseph Williams
Teens of Denial [Matador, 2016]
The tell on Teens of Style, wherein wundertwentysomething Will Toledo rerecorded 11 of his hundredsomething Bandcamp songs for physical purchase, revises his 2012 "Times to Die" to include the line "Got to believe that Lombardi loves me"--Lombardi being not Vince but Matador prexy Chris, who financed and marketed Teens of Style, unleashing the rock dreams that freed Toledo up to buckle down and make a great album like the major artist he always wanted to be. True, existential depression is Toledo's sole subject, without much in the way of romantic travail to universalize it. But on Teens of Denial, Toledo renders that indie-rock ur-theme, um, relatable--grand, rousing, philosophical, ecological, funny, riffy, confused, out front, and of course tuneful. Where once his leads blurred into generalized multitracking, here you can make out his congested, drolly personable, Jonathan Richman-channeling voice. And while to shape his associative structures would betray unseemly firmness of purpose, he milks incantatory repetition like he minored in soukous, extending seven songs past five minutes and three past 7:48: "Drugs are better with friends are better with drugs are better . . . .," say, or the three 12-second "I give up"s that climax the 11:46 "Ballad of the Costa Concordia." As Lombardi surely knows, these are feints. It's too late to give up now. Kid doesn't even like drugs. A
Parker Morris
this
>looking for actual evaluations in fucking christgau reviews
you are in the wrong thread, mate
Liam Morales
Isis [Buddah, 1974]
In which a band of women prove they can play as schlocky as the Brooklyn Bridge, only worse (no Johnny Maestro). Sad pretensions, off-key vibrato that offends even a proud tin-ear like myself, and Shadow Morton at his heavy worst. I used to be sad that the Shangri-Las broke up, but now I'm not, because this is probably what they would have become. D
Evan Campbell
The problem is, Tool defines "opus" as taking their "defining element" (wanking sludge) and stretching it out to the maximum digital capacity of a compact disc.
kek
Samuel Anderson
he started the tradition of music writing focused less on substance it's why this board get's trolled we should've listened to film critics
Xavier Hall
I cannot roll my eyes any further back into my bead.
Jeremiah Flores
What's Happening to Our World? [United Artists, 1970]
This is either a hilarious takeoff on circa-1964 folk music, complete with sensitive vibrato, hard little guitar parts, and very moderate good intentions, or--more likely, unlikely as it may seem--one of the most atrocious records ever made. Perfectly awful, right down to liner notes and cover portrait--Huntington, a dyed-looking Minnesotan blonde who appears very reluctant to celebrate birthdays, is wearing a red minidress. Noted primarily as a Remarkable Occurrence, which I trust someone at United Artists is already investigating. Pick: the apparently unsarcastic "Right to Poverty." E
Joseph Sanchez
>Christgay is the reason Sup Forums is going down the toilet
>Implying he made Fantano
lol
Charles Johnson
>both true statements
Ryder Gray
Pictures from an Exhibition [Cotillion, 1972]
This cover version of Moussorgsky's mouldy oldie does have a big new beat, but you can't dance to it, and the instrumentation seems a bit spare. Anyway, the truth is that I don't even listen to the original much. D+
Seriously fuck this faggot
David Ross
Just gave it a listen, it's trash, Christgay is right.
Henry Cook
The pomposities of Tarkus and the monstrosities of the Moussorgsky homage clinch it--these guys are as stupid as their most pretentious fans. Really, anybody who buys a record that divides a . . . composition called "The Endless Enigma" into two discrete parts deserves it. C-
Emerson Lake and Palmer fans on suicide watch
Jaxson Allen
>Just gave it a listen
No you didn't.