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| Robert Christgau's Thoughts On Some Of My Favorite Albums
Robert Christgau, the self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics". Roger Ebert of rock & roll (I guess). You may love him or hate him, this is what he has to say about a couple of my favorite records. | | 1 |  | Nirvana
Nevermind
After years of hair-flailing sludge that achieved occasional songform on singles no normal person ever heard, Seattle finally produces some proper postpunk, aptly described by resident genius Kurt Cobain: "Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, bad solo." This is hard rock as the term was understood before metal moved in--the kind of loud, slovenly, tuneful music you think no one will ever work a change on again until the next time it happens, whereupon you wonder why there isn't loads more. It seems so simple. A | | 2 |  | Nirvana
MTV Unplugged in New York
Not only did Kurt Cobain transcend alt-rock by rocking so hard, he transcended alt-rock by feeling so deep. On this accidental testament, intended merely to altify the MTV mindset by showcasing the Meat Puppets and covering the Vaselines, Cobain outsensitives Lou Barlow and Eddie Vedder in passing. His secret is sincerity, boring though that may be--he cares less than Barlow without boasting a bit about it, tries harder than Vedder without busting a gut about it. The vocal performance he evokes is John Lennon's on Plastic Ono Band. And he did it in one take. A | | 3 |  | XTC
Skylarking
Imagine Sgt. Pepper if McCartney hadn't needed Lennon--if he hadn't been such a wet--and you'll get an inkling of what these insular popsters have damn near pulled off. Granted, there's barely a hint of overarching significance, but after all, this isn't 1967. With Todd Rundgren sequencing and twiddling those knobs, they continue strong for the first nine or ten (out of fourteen) songs. Only when the topics become darker and more cosmic do they clutter things with sound and whimsy; as long as they content themselves with leisurely, Shelleyan evocations of summer love and the four seasons, they'll draw you into their world if you give them the chance--most enticingly on a song called "Grass," about something good to do there. A- | | 4 |  | Husker Du
Flip Your Wig
They've never sounded so good. Spot's gone, as are most of the cobwebs that obscured their clamor, so without kow-towing to Michael Wagener we really get to hear Bob Mould's guitar. Thing is, what's made them major isn't Mould's guitar, their mainstay from the first--it's songcraft. And now Grant Hart has gotten so crafty (or happy) that he's turned conventional--"Green Eyes," about beauty never jealousy, and "Flexible Flyer," which advises that we keep our hearts "burning brightly," are attractive in their way, but they betray a pop simplemindedness unworthy of the hard-driving oddball love songs that make New Day Rising such an up. As for mainstay Mould, he's still honestly confused and mad as hell. May his heart burn this bright forever. A- | | 5 |  | Flamin' Groovies
Shake Some Action
So authentic that producer Dave Edmunds has reverted to the muddy mix--kinda like the Beatles or the Byrds or the Flamin Groovies. Actually, what it sounds like is mono electrically rechanneled for stereo. The Flamin Groovies were Haight-Ashbury enough to exploit aural distance in the service of a sly, spaced-out obliqueness, but these guys, deprived of singer-composer Roy A. Loney and making their way as an English pop-revival band, get their kicks by playing dumb. This compiles their best recent work and includes some good songs. But only cultists will ever hear them. B | | 6 |  | The Jam
In The City
Here we find an English hard-rock trio who wear short hair and dark suits, say "fuck" a lot, and sound rather like The Who Sing My Generation, even mentioning James Brown in one song. They also claim a positive social attitude--no police state in the U.K., but no anarchy either. Is this some kind of put-up job, pseudo-punk with respect for the verities? Could be, but it doesn't matter. When they complain that Uncle Jimmy the "red balloon" (or is it "reveloo"?) never walks home at night, they've got his number, but when they accuse him of sleeping between silk sheets they're just blowing someone else's hot air. In the end, they could go either way--or both. In the meantime, though, they blow me out. These boys can put a song together; they're both powerful enough to subsume their sources and fresh enough to keep me coming back for more. A- | | 7 |  | Big Star
#1 Record
Alex Chilton's voice is changing. When he was a teenage Box Top, his deep, soulful, bullfrog whopper was the biggest freak of nature since Stevie Winwood sang "I'm a Man," but now that he's formed his own group he gets to be an adolescent, complete with adenoidal quaver. Appropriately, the music tends toward the teen as well, but that provides brand new thrills. Special attraction: a fantasy about India with gin-and-tonic in it. B+ | | 8 |  | The Replacements
Let It Be
Those still looking for the perfect garage may misconstrue this band's belated access to melody as proof they've surrendered their principles. Me, I'm delighted they've matured beyond their strange discovery of country music. Bands like this don't have roots, or principles either, they just have stuff they like. Which in this case includes androgyny (no antitrendie reaction here) and Kiss (forgotten protopunks). Things they don't like include tonsillectomies and answering machines, both of which they make something of. A+ | | 9 |  | Squeeze
East Side Story
They're finally beginning to show the consistency that's the only excuse for obsessive popcraft. The songs are imaginative, compassionate, and of course hooky--the warped organ on "Heaven" bespeaks divine intervention. And with Elvis Costello coproducing, the music is quite punchy, though I wouldn't go so far as to say it rocks. B+ | | 10 |  | Marshall Crenshaw
Marshall Crenshaw
This album seems simple because it is simple, yet it continues to unfold long after you believe its byways played out--not by exploiting the snazzy bridges and key changes of the traditional pop arsenal, but with lines repeated at odd junctures, choruses reentering when you anticipate another verse. Brushing by the everyday phrases that are the stuff of pop songwriting--cynical girl, she can't dance, the usual thing--to add a twist or make an oblique point, Crenshaw captures a magic ur-adolescent innocence without acting the simp. It's as sly and well-meaning as his love of girls. A | | 11 |  | The Byrds
Younger Than Yesterday
The Byrds' Greatest Hits, a profit-taking retrospective from later in the year, sounds like a triumph of produced and programmed rock and roll, while The Notorious Byrd Brothers and Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which followed it in '68, are two of the most convincing arguments for artistic freedom ever to come out of American rock. But this April '67 failure suffers from two related '67 maladies: pretentiousness and self-expression. David Crosby's "Mind Garden" is a completely unlistenable acid meander, while four (three too many) innocuous folk-rock cum countryrock tunes by Chris Hillman are a familiar-sounding example of how an uninteresting self does its number. Never before did concept-master Roger (né Jim) McGuinn efface himself so disastrously on a Byrds album--and never after, either. B- | | 12 |  | David Bowie
Hunky Dory
After two overwrought excursions for Mercury this ambitious, brainy, imaginative singer-composer has created an album that rewards the concentration it demands instead of making you wish you'd gone on with the vacuuming. Not that he combines the passion and compassion of Dylan (subject of one song) with the full-witted vision of Warhol (subject of a better one) just yet. But he has a nice feeling for weirdos, himself included. A- | | 13 |  | Slint
Spiderland
Out of Squirrel Bait by Hunglikealbini, a Trojan horse. Extolled for their multipartite songforms and, da-da, dynamic shifts from soft to loud, as well as their intimate knowledge of mental illness, these guys look like unassuming alternative types and in real life may be same. Their sad-sack affect fits right in. But musically--structurally, as one might say--they're art-rockers without the courage of their pretensions. And if you promise not to mention their lyrics they promise to keep the volume down. C+ | | 14 |  | Bob Mould
Workbook
Mould-Maimone-Fier are some kind of supersession, but they're no band, and between the cello and the acoustic guitar and the moderato and the lyric sheet that ought to have a little typeface note like at the end of a Borzoi book, I find myself disliking their record intensely. Until the raving finale, it's so respectable, so cautious, as if honest thought were a suitable substitute for wisdom, sarcasm, a good joke, or a suicide run for the next intro. C+ | | 15 |  | The Replacements
Tim
No songwriter in memory matches Paul Westerberg's artful artlessness, the impression he creates of plumbing his heart as he goes along. Statements like "Hold My Life" and "Bastards of Young" are pretty grand when you think about it, but you don't notice in the offhand context of the tastelessly amorous "Kiss Me on the Bus" or the tastelessly resentful "Waitress in the Sky." So far Westerberg hasn't been touched by the pretension and mere craft that seem to be inevitable side effects of such a gift, and I see no reason to anticipate that he will be. With a band this there, presence is all. A- | |
NeroCorleone80
03.07.14 | Worst critic ever | Gwyn.
03.07.14 | Nirvana
Nevermind
Seattle finally produces some proper postpunk | mryrtmrnfoxxxy
03.07.14 | Seattle finally produces some proper postpunk [2] | TheGreatQ
03.07.14 | Worst critic ever [2] | elcrawfodor
03.07.14 | I've read through some of his reviews before. The man gave Court of the Crimson King a D+ I believe. Couldn't take him seriously after that. | rockandmetaljunkie
03.07.14 | no need to waste my time with him | DikkoZinner
03.07.14 | A holier than thou chump | neurisis17
03.07.14 | He definitely IS the worst critic ever. | NeroCorleone80
03.07.14 | Grading Black Sabbath's debut with an E and calling it "bullshit necromancy" proves it | JS19
03.07.14 | One of my most hated people in the entirety of popular culture. guy still think she's relevant too which is kinda sad but also kinda hilarious | porch
03.07.14 | used to read his punk reviews and he isn't trustworthy at all but it's pretty funny how mad people get cos he trashed some shitty record they like | Hurricanslash
03.07.14 | Meh, I mean I credit him for being one of the first real modern record-critics, but his taste is definitely weird. However, when he is right about something, he usually is REALLY right about something (See his review of Brian Wilsons "Smile") | RogueNine
03.07.14 | Christgau is a hack. | jefflebowski
03.07.14 | 'pretty funny how mad people get cos he trashed some shitty record they like' [2]
people who do this are just pathetic | JS19
03.07.14 | I don't care what he writes, it's the way he does it | Athom
03.07.14 | Christgau hates Adam Downer. That completely redeems him. | robertsona
03.07.14 | i've come to love this guy honestly--although he still pisses me off on occasion. stick to his longform pieces though if the consumer guide seems absurd. those are pretty consistently great. |
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