Robert Christgau
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Robert Christgau

Robert Christgau
Christgau at the 2010 Pop Conference in Seattle
Christgau at the 2010 Pop Conference in Seattle
Born Robert Thomas Christgau
(1942-04-18) April 18, 1942 (age 76)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation
  • Music critic
  • essayist
  • journalist
Alma mater Dartmouth College (BA)
Period 1967-present
Spouse
Carola Dibbell (m. 1974)
Children 1
Website
robertchristgau.com

Robert Thomas Christgau (; born April 18, 1942) is an American essayist and music journalist. One of the earliest professional rock critics, he spent 37 years as the chief music critic and senior editor for The Village Voice, during which time he created and oversaw the annual Pazz & Jop poll. He has also covered popular music for Esquire, Creem, Newsday, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Billboard, NPR, Blender, and MSN Music, and is a visiting arts teacher at New York University.[1]

Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, first published in his "Consumer Guide" columns during his tenure at The Village Voice from 1969 to 2006. He has authored three books based on those columns, including Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) and Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), along with two collections of essays.[1] He continued writing capsule reviews in MSN Music, Cuepoint, and Noisey--Vices music section--where they are currently published in his "Expert Witness" column.[2]

Early life

Christgau was born in Greenwich Village[3] and grew up in Queens,[4] the son of a fireman.[5] He has said he became a rock and roll fan when disc jockey Alan Freed moved to the city in 1954.[6] After attending a public school in New York City,[5] he left New York for four years to attend Dartmouth College, graduating in 1962 with a B.A. in English. While at college his musical interests turned to jazz, but he quickly returned to rock after moving back to New York.[7] Christgau has said that Miles Davis' 1960 album Sketches of Spain initiated in him "one phase of the disillusionment with jazz that resulted in my return to rock and roll".[8] He was deeply influenced by New Journalism writers such as Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe. "My ambitions when I went into journalism were always, to an extent, literary", Christgau later said.[9]

Career

"I am interested in those places where popular culture and avant-garde culture intersect. As a critic, I want to achieve a new understanding of culture in both its aesthetic and political aspects; as a journalist, I want to suggest whatever I figure out to an audience in an entertaining and provocative way."

--Christgau, 1977[10]

Christgau initially wrote short stories, before giving up fiction in 1964 to become a sportswriter, and later, a police reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger.[11] He became a freelance writer after a story he wrote about the death of a woman in New Jersey was published by New York magazine. He was asked to take over the dormant music column at Esquire, which he began writing in early 1967. After Esquire discontinued the column, Christgau moved to The Village Voice in 1969, and he also worked as a college professor.

In early 1972, he accepted a full-time job as music critic for Newsday. Christgau returned to the Village Voice in 1974 as music editor. He remained there until August 2006, when he was fired shortly after the paper's acquisition by New Times Media.[12] Two months later, Christgau became a contributing editor at Rolling Stone (which first published his review of Moby Grape's Wow in 1968).[13] Late in 2007, Christgau was fired by Rolling Stone,[14] although he continued to work for the magazine for another three months. Starting with the March 2008 issue, he joined Blender, where he was listed as "senior critic" for three issues and then "contributing editor".[15] Christgau had been a regular contributor to Blender before he joined Rolling Stone. He continued to write for Blender until the magazine ceased publication in March 2009.

In 1987, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in the field of "Folklore and Popular Culture" to study the history of popular music.[16][17]

Christgau has also written frequently for Playboy, Spin, and Creem. He appears in the 2011 rockumentary Color Me Obsessed, about the Replacements.[18]

He previously taught during the formative years of the California Institute of the Arts. As of 2007, he was also an adjunct professor in the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at New York University.[19]

In August 2013, Christgau revealed in an article written for Barnes & Noble's website that he is writing a memoir.[20] On July 15, 2014, Christgau debuted a monthly column on Billboards website.[21]

"Consumer Guide" and "Expert Witness" columns

Christgau is perhaps best known for his "Consumer Guide" columns, which have been published more-or-less monthly since July 10, 1969, in the Village Voice,[22] as well as a brief period in Creem.[23] In its original format, the "Consumer Guide" consisted of 18 to 20 single-paragraph album reviews, each of which was given a letter grade ranging from A+ to E-.[] These reviews were later collected, expanded, and extensively revised in a three-volume book series, the first of which was published in 1981 as Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the '70s; it was followed by Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990) and Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s (2000).[22]

In 2001, robertchristgau.com--an online archive of Christgau's "Consumer Guide" reviews and other writings from his career--was set up as a co-operative project between Christgau and longtime friend Tom Hull; the two had met in 1975 shortly after Hull queried Christgau as The Village Voices regional editor for St. Louis. The website was created after the September 11, 2001 attacks when Hull was stuck in New York while visiting from his native Wichita. While Christgau spent many nights preparing past Village Voice writings for the website, by 2002 much of the older "Consumer Guide" columns had been inputted by Hull and a small coterie of fans. According to Christgau, Hull is "a computer genius as well as an excellent and very knowledgeable music critic, but he'd never done much web site work. The design of the web site, especially its high searchability and small interest in graphics, are his idea of what a useful music site should be".[24]

In December 2006, Christgau began writing his "Consumer Guide" columns for MSN Music, initially appearing every other month, before switching to a monthly schedule in June 2007. On July 1, 2010, he announced in the introduction to his "Consumer Guide" column that the July 2010 installment would be his last on MSN.[25]

On November 22, 2010, Christgau launched a blog on MSN, called "Expert Witness", which featured reviews only of albums that he had graded B+ or higher, since those albums "are the gut and backbone of my musical pleasure"; the writing of reviews for which are "so rewarding psychologically that I'm happy to do it at blogger's rates".[26] On September 20, 2013, Christgau announced in the comments section that Expert Witness would cease to be published by October 1, 2013, writing, "As I understand it, Microsoft is shutting down the entire MSN freelance arts operation at that time ..."[27] On September 10, 2014, he debuted a new version of Expert Witness on Cuepoint, an online music magazine published on the blogging platform Medium.[28] In August 2015, the Expert Witness column was relocated to Noisey.[2]

Grading system

In the original system beginning in 1969 through 1980s, albums were given a grade of A+ to E-. Under this system, Christgau generally considered a B+ or higher to be a personal recommendation.[29] He noted that in practice, grades below a C- were rare.[30] In 1990, Christgau changed the format of the "Consumer Guide" to focus more on the albums he liked.[22] Grades below B+ were replaced for regular use by the following categories:

  • "Honorable mentions": These denote records which Christgau believes may be of interest to their own target audience:
    • 3 asterisks: interested listeners "may well treasure" it.
    • 2 asterisks: interested listeners "may well enjoy" it.
    • 1 asterisk: interested listeners "may well like" it.[31]
  • Neither: Denoted by an impassive face, this denotes an album that may impress at first with "coherent craft or an arresting track or two", before failing to make an impression again.[31]
  • Choice cut: Denoted by scissors, this denotes an otherwise disappointing album that has at least one good track. These tracks are listed without further comment.[22][31] Wolk said this category was "more about tracking his taste than arguing for it."[22]
  • Dud: Denoted by a cartoon-style bomb, this denotes a negative opinion. These are listed without further comment. Christgau does give full reviews and traditional grades to records he pans in an annual "Turkey Shoot" column in The Village Voice.[22]

Pazz & Jop

In 1971, Christgau inaugurated the annual Pazz & Jop music poll. The results are published in the Village Voice every February, and compile "top ten" lists submitted by music critics across the nation. Throughout Christgau's career at the Voice, every poll was accompanied by a lengthy Christgau essay analyzing the results, and pondering the year's overall musical output. The Voice has continued the feature, despite Christgau's dismissal, and although he no longer oversees the poll, Christgau continues to vote in it and since the 2015 poll has contributed essays to the results. [32][33]

Style and impact

No one in this time and place has the time to sit and listen uninterrupted for sixty minutes to anybody's music. I think Robert Christgau is the last record reviewer on earth who listens to eight records a day twice before giving his opinion on it ... Christgau is the last true-blue record critic on earth. He gave us an A-plus. That's pretty much who I make my records for. He's like the last of that whole Lester Bangs generation of record reviewers, and I still heed his words. He gets my vision, and I'm cool with that. But half these people, they read Pitchfork, and they base half their opinion and quotes on that.[34]

--Questlove, 2008

"Christgau's blurbs", writes Slate music critic Jody Rosen, "are like no one else's--dense with ideas and allusions, first-person confessions and invective, highbrow references and slang".[12] Rosen describes Christgau's writing as "often maddening, always thought-provoking ... With Pauline Kael, Christgau is arguably one of the two most important American mass-culture critics of the second half of the 20th century. ... All rock critics working today, at least the ones who want to do more than rewrite PR copy, are in some sense Christgauians."[12]Spin magazine wrote in 2015, "You probably wouldn't be reading this publication if Robert Christgau didn't largely invent rock criticism as we know it."[35]

Douglas Wolk said the earliest "Consumer Guide" columns were generally brief and detailed, but "within a few years, though, he developed his particular gift for 'power, wit and economy,' a phrase he used to describe the Ramones in a dead-on 37-word review of Leave Home." In his opinion, the "Consumer Guide" reviews were "an enormous pleasure to read slowly, as writing, even if you have no particular interest in pop music. And if you do happen to have more than a little interest in pop music, they're a treasure." Fans of Christgau's "Consumer Guide" like to share lines from their favorite reviews, Wolk writes, citing "Sting wears his sexual resentment on his chord changes like a closet 'American Woman' fan" (from Christgau's review of the 1983 Police album Synchronicity); "Calling Neil Tennant a bored wimp is like accusing Jackson Pollock of making a mess" (reviewing the 1987 Pet Shop Boys album Actually); and "Mick Jagger should fold up his penis and go home" (in a review of Prince's 1980 album Dirty Mind).[22]

In 1978, Lou Reed recorded a tirade against Christgau and his column on the 1978 live album, Take No Prisoners: "Critics. What does Robert Christgau do in bed? I mean, is he a toe fucker? Man, anal retentive, A Consumer's Guide to Rock, what a moron: 'A Study' by, y'know, Robert Christgau. Nice little boxes: B-PLUS. Can you imagine working for a fucking year, and you get a B+ from some asshole in The Village Voice?"[36] Christgau rated the album C+ and wrote in his review, "I thank Lou for pronouncing my name right."[37] In December 1980, Christgau provoked angry responses from Voice readers when his column approvingly quoted his wife Carola Dibbell's reaction to the murder of John Lennon: "Why is it always Bobby Kennedy or John Lennon? Why isn't it Richard Nixon or Paul McCartney?"[38] Similar criticism came from Sonic Youth in their song "Kill Yr Idols". Christgau responded by saying "Idolization is for rock stars, even rock stars manqué like these impotent bohos--critics just want a little respect. So if it's not too hypersensitive of me, I wasn't flattered to hear my name pronounced right, not on this particular title track."[39]

Tastes and prejudices

Christgau has named Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, and the New York Dolls as his top five artists of all time.[40] In a 1998 obituary, he called Frank Sinatra "the greatest singer of the 20th century".[41] He considers Billie Holiday "probably my favorite singer".[42] In his 2000 Consumer Guide book, Christgau said his favorite rock album was either The Clash (1977) or New York Dolls (1973), while his favorite record in general was Monk's 1958 Misterioso.[43] In July 2013, during an interview with Esquire magazine's Peter Gerstenzang, Christgau criticized the voters at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, saying "they're pretty stupid" for not voting in the New York Dolls.[44] When asked about Beatles albums, he said he most often listens to The Beatles' Second Album--which he purchased in 1965--and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[45]

Christgau readily admits to having prejudices and generally disliking genres such as heavy metal, salsa, dance,[40]art rock, progressive rock, bluegrass, gospel, Irish folk, jazz fusion, and classical music.[24] "I admire metal's integrity, brutality, and obsessiveness", Christgau wrote in 1986, "but I can't stand its delusions of grandeur, the way it apes and misapprehends reactionary notions of nobility".[46] Christgau said in 2018 that he rarely writes about jazz as it is "hard" to write about in an "impressionistic way", that he is "not at all well-schooled in the jazz albums of the '50s and '60s", and that has the neither the "language nor the frame of reference to write readily about them"; even while critiquing jazz artists like Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins, he said "finding the words involves either considerable effort or a stroke of luck."[42] Christgau has also admitted to disliking the records of Jeff Buckley and Nina Simone, noting that the latter's classical background, "default gravity and depressive tendencies are qualities I'm seldom attracted to in any kind of art."[42]

Christgau has said he is not "encyclopedic" about popular music; Wolk wrote that "there are not a lot of white guys in their 60s waving the flag for Lil Wayne's Da Drought 3, especially not in the same column as they wave the flag for a Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Ray Price trio album, an anthology of new Chinese pop, Vampire Weekend, and Wussy (who? Well, if Christgau gave 'em an A, maybe you'd best find out)."[22]

Personal life

Christgau married fellow critic and writer Carola Dibbell in 1974;[40] they have an adopted daughter, Nina, born in Honduras in 1986.[47] He has said he was raised in a "born-again Church" in Queens, but has since become an atheist.[48]

Christgau has been long, albeit argumentative, friends with critics such as Dave Marsh, Greil Marcus, and Ellen Willis, whom he dated from 1966 to 1969. He has also mentored younger critics such as Ann Powers and Chuck Eddy.[40]

In an interview with The Wires Zach Schonfeld, who described Christgau as "notoriously grumpy" and "characteristically cranky", Christgau said he enjoyed pornography, stating that it "performs its arousal function quite well with no outside help".[49]

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ a b "Robert Christgau". Harper Collins. Retrieved 2015.
  2. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (August 13, 2015). "Welcome to Expert Witness". Vice. Retrieved 2015.
  3. ^ Christgau, Robert (2015). Going into the City. Dey Street. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-06-223880-1.
  4. ^ Christgau, Robert (December 30, 1971). "Consumer Guide (22)". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2013.
  5. ^ a b Christgau, Robert. "Robert Christgau Biography". Robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 2014.
  6. ^ Christgau, Robert (2004), "A Counter in Search of a Culture". Any Old Way You Choose It, Cooper Square Press, p.2.
  7. ^ O'Dair, Barbara (May 9, 2001). "A conversation with Robert Christgau". Salon.com. Retrieved 2013.
  8. ^ Christgau, Robert (May 21, 1970). "Jazz Annual". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2013. ... Sketches of Spain, which in 1960 catapulted Davis into the favor of the kind of man who reads Playboy and initiated in me one phase of the disillusionment ...
  9. ^ Eliscu, Jenny (October 26, 2016). "Prolific Music Critic Robert Christgau Knows What He Likes (and Hates)". Vice. Retrieved 2016.
  10. ^ Locher, Frances C.; Evory, Ann, eds. (1977). Contemporary Authors. Gale. p. 118. ISBN 081030029X.
  11. ^ Christgau, Robert (2004), "A Counter in Search of a Culture". Any Old Way You Choose It, Cooper Square Press, p.4.
  12. ^ a b c Rosen, Judy (September 5, 2006), "X-ed Out: The Village Voice fires a famous music critic". Slate.com. Retrieved August 15, 2009.
  13. ^ Bob Christgau (June 22, 1968), Correspondence, Love Letters & Advice, Rolling Stone
  14. ^ Christgau, Robert (March 27, 2009), "Poptastic bye-bye". ARTicles. Retrieved March 4, 2010
  15. ^ Blender, June 2008, p. 16
  16. ^ "Robert Christgau". Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 2016.
  17. ^ Cohen, David (January 16, 2007). "Robert Christgau: School of rock". The Guardian.
  18. ^ Beaudoin, Jedd (December 2, 2012). "'Color Me Obsessed: A Film About the Replacements' Paints 'Minor Band' with Major Strokes". PopMatters. Retrieved 2014.
  19. ^ Cohen, David (January 16, 2007). "Robert Christgau: School of rock". The Guardian. Retrieved 2016.
  20. ^ Christgau, Robert (August 27, 2013). "Tell All". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2014.
  21. ^ Gonzalez, Ed (July 16, 2014). "Links for the Day: Nathan Rabin Is Sorry for the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Robert Christgau Premieres Billboard Column, Hillary Clinton on The Daily Show, & More". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 2014.
  22. ^ a b c d e f g h Wolk, Douglas (July 9, 2010). "Music's Time Capsules: 41 Years of Christgau's 'Consumer Guide'". Vulture. Retrieved 2017.
  23. ^ Applegate, Edd (1996). Literary Journalism: A Biographical Dictionary of Writers and Editors. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 49. ISBN 0313299498.
  24. ^ a b Rubio, Steven (July 2002). "Online exchange with Robert Christgau". Rockcritics Archives. rockcritics.com. As for my limitations, they're public and they're legion. Metal, art-rock, bluegrass, gospel, Irish folk, fusion jazz (arghh)--all prejudices I'm prepared to defend and in most cases already have, but prejudices nevertheless. I pretty much lost reggae with dancehall; my acquaintance with most techno is a nodding one (zzzz); I've never really liked salsa ...
  25. ^ Christgau, Robert. "Inside Music". MSN. Retrieved 2010.
  26. ^ Christgau, Robert (November 22, 2010). "This Blog--The Whats, Whys, and Wherefores". Expert Witness. MSN. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved 2011.
  27. ^ Christgau, Robert (September 20, 2013). "Odds and Ends 036". MSN Music. Archived from the original on September 29, 2013. Retrieved 2013.
  28. ^ Christgau, Robert (September 10, 2014). "Expert Witness: The Story Till Now". Cuepoint. Retrieved 2014.
  29. ^ "CG 70s: The Criteria". RobertChristgau.com.
  30. ^ "CG 90s: Introduction". RobertChristgau.com.
  31. ^ a b c "Key to Icons". RobertChristgau.com.
  32. ^ Christgau, Robert (January 12, 2016). "Pazz & Jop 2015, Robert Christgau, Joe Levy, Ann Powers and Greg Tate on the Year that Was". Villagevoice.com.
  33. ^ "Music | Latest News". Village Voice. July 6, 2017. Retrieved 2017.
  34. ^ Roberts, Michael (May 28, 2008). "Q&A with Ahmir ?uestlove Thompson of the Roots". Westword. Retrieved 2015.
  35. ^ "Read an Excerpt From Robert Christgau's Memoir Going Into the City". Spin. February 23, 2015. Retrieved 2015.
  36. ^ Wolfsen, Jared (May 4, 2002). "Walk On The Wild Side". Archived from the original on July 20, 2002. - fan transcription of the Take No Prisoners album
  37. ^ Christgau, Robert. "Lou Reed". RobertChristgau.com.
  38. ^ Christgau, Robert (December 22, 1980). "John Lennon, 1940-1980". Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics. Retrieved 2008.
  39. ^ Christgau, Robert. "Sonic Youth". RobertChristgau.com.
  40. ^ a b c d O'Dair, Barbara (May 9, 2001). "A conversation with Robert Christgau". Salon. Retrieved 2008. ... there are things I don't like or get. Metal--I don't think metal's as bad as I hear it as being.
  41. ^ Christgau, Robert (1998). "Frank Sinatra 1915-1998". Details. Retrieved 2015.
  42. ^ a b c "Xgau Sez". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 2018.
  43. ^ Christgau, Robert (2000). "How to Use These Appendices". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s. Macmillan Publishers. p. 352. ISBN 0312245602. Retrieved 2015.
  44. ^ Gerstenzang, Peter (July 24, 2013). "Why Aren't the New York Dolls in the Rock Hall of Fame?". Esquire. Retrieved 2014.
  45. ^ Christgau, Robert (September 18, 2018). "Xgau Sez". robertchristgau.com. Archived from the original on September 18, 2018. Retrieved 2018.
  46. ^ Christgau, Robert (December 30, 1986). "Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. New York. Retrieved 2016.
  47. ^ Dickey, Jack (February 24, 2015). "How To Survive 13,000 Album Reviews". Time. Retrieved 2015.
  48. ^ Christgau, Robert (August 27, 1991). "With God on Their Side". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2017.
  49. ^ Schonfeld, Zach (August 27, 2013). "Robert Christgau Is Writing a Memoir, Enjoys Porn". The Wire. Retrieved 2014.

Further reading

External links


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