Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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And It Don't Stop on Substack

Robert Christgau's newsletter And It Don't Stop appears three (or four) times a month on Substack. Subscribe here.

Robert Christgau's Big-Hearted Theory of Pop

Book Reports features reviews of not only the pop-music tomes you'd predict but also literary fiction, Marxist-adjacent cultural commentary, feminist debates over pornography, and even books about the past decade's financial crisis. It follows a collection that Christgau published last year, Is It Still Good to Ya? Fifty Years of Rock Criticism, 1967-2017, which includes Christgau's takes on, among many other things, classic rock, Kanye West, the music of Desert Storm, Lollapalooza, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and so-called guilty pleasures--a category that Christgau rejects, since, for rock critics, as he puts it, "pleasure is where meaning begins." Together, these collections make the sneaky case that Christgau is not just the Dean of American Rock Critics, his self-awarded and perhaps slightly off-putting nickname, but one of America's sharper public intellectuals of the past half century, and certainly one of its most influential--not to mention one of the better stylists in that cohort. Fun is a big part of why.

--David Cantwell, The New Yorker

News

Consumer Guide: World Music Edition

MSN Music published a special Consumer Guide: World Music Edition:

  • Les Amazones de Guinée: Wamato [A]
  • Youssou N'Dour: Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take) [A]
  • New York City Salsa [A-]
  • Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues [A-]
  • Tabu Ley Rochereau: The Voice of Lightness [A+]
  • The Rough Guide to Congo Gold [A]
  • Think Global: Women of Africa [B+]
  • Umalali: The Garifuna Women's d Project [A-]
  • Latin Reggae (Putumayo World Music) [C-]
Consumer Guide (April 2008)

New Consumer Guide for April 2008. Featured albums:

  • Buck 65: Situation [A-]
  • Dollar Store: Money Music [B+]
  • Mariem Hassan: Deseos [B+]
  • Jens Lekman: Night Falls Over Kortedala [A-]
  • Los Campesinos!: Hold on Now, Youngster . . . [A]
  • Kate Nash: Made of Bricks [A-]
  • Setona & African Crossroads: [Live] [A-]
  • Toumast: Ishumar [A-]
  • Snoop Dogg: Ego Trippin' [B-]
Blender (April 2008)

New reviews:

Blogging

Robert Christgau is now blogging at ARTicles, blogsite of the National Arts Journalism Program, where he's vice chairman. Other bloggers so far include the other board members and NAJP members Sasha Anawalt, Jeff Weinstein, Patti Hartigan, Glen Lovell, and Donald Munro. Pretty smart and informative stuff, recommended to anyone interested in arts coverage in general. One way or another, all five of Christgau's posts as of March 7 have been about music journalism, but often in a fairly broad way. They include his typo-ridden take on this year's Idolator and Pazz & Jop polls. The link: http://www.najp.org/articles/.

Consumer Guide (March 2008)

New Consumer Guide for March 2008. Featured albums:

  • Daft Punk: Alive 2007 [A-]
  • Lupe Fiasco: The Cool [A-]
  • Lil Wayne: Da Drought 3 [A]
  • Look Directly Into the Sun: China Pop 2007 [A-]
  • Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Ray Price: Last of the Greed Vol. 1 & 2 [A-]
  • Vampire Weekend [A-]
  • Wussy: Left for Dead [A]
  • Foo Fighters: Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace [B]
Blender (March 2008)

New reviews:

Moving On

On January 1, I left my Contributing Editor gig at Rolling Stone to become a Senior Critic at Blender. My friend and now-colleague Jon Dolan, who was a Senior Critic before I was, refers to me as the Junior Senior Critic. I am very happy about this change. One thing it means is that I no longer have to wait to Consumer Guide records I review for Blender--Stone mandated a four-month lag. Of course, sometimes I'll wait anyway, just to make sure I have something new to say.

Consumer Guide (February 2008)

New Consumer Guide for February 2008. Featured albums:

  • Babyshambles: Shotter's Nation [A-]
  • Ghostface Killah: The Big Doe Rehab [A-]
  • The Peeps of Soulfunk: Tribb to JB [B+]
  • Ponytail: Kamehameha [A-]
  • Rilo Kiley: Under the Blacklight [A]
  • Soulja Boy: Souljaboytellem.com [A-]
  • Wu-Tang Clan: 8 Diagrams [A-]
  • Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity [C+]
Website Update

New pieces include the 2007 Dean's List. We've continued to keep track of the top 40 results from the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll, but Robert Christgau is no longer associated with the poll, and there is no year-end essay.

New NPR links added:

Rolling Stone (February 7, 2008)

New reviews in the February 7, 2008 Rolling Stone:

Rolling Stone (January 24, 2008)

New reviews in the January 24, 2008 Rolling Stone:

Consumer Guide (January 2008)

New Consumer Guide for January 2008. Featured albums:

  • Babyshambles: Shotter's Nation [A-]
  • Ghostface Killah: The Big Doe Rehab [A-]
  • The Peeps of Soulfunk: Tribb to JB [B+]
  • Ponytail: Kamehameha [A-]
  • Rilo Kiley: Under the Blacklight [A]
  • Soulja Boy: Souljaboytellem.com [A-]
  • Wu-Tang Clan: 8 Diagrams [A-]
  • Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity [C+]
Rolling Stone (December 27, 2007-January 10, 2008)

Special double issue of Rolling Stone, dated December 27, 2007-January 10,2008, billed as "Yearbook 2007." No review section, although Robert Christgau contributed to "50 Top Albums of the Year" and wrote a sidebar listing "Personal Favorites":

  1. Tabu Ley Rochereau: The Voice of Lightness
  2. Public Enemy: How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul???
  3. Fanfare Ciocarlia: Queens and Kings
  4. 3 Tenors of Soul: All the Way From Philadelphia
  5. Wussy: Left for Dead
Rolling Stone (December 13, 2007)

New reviews in the December 13, 2007 Rolling Stone:

Consumer Guide (December 2007)

New Consumer Guide for December 2007. Featured albums:

  • Gogol Bordello: Super Taranta! [A+]
  • Imperial Teen: The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band [A-]
  • Toni Iordache: Songs From a Bygone Era: Vol. 4 [A-]
  • Amy LaVere: Anchors & Anvils [A-]
  • Les Savy Fav: Let's Stay Friends [A]
  • M.I.A.: Kala [A+]
  • Britney Spears: Blackout [B+]
  • Sunset Rubdown: Random Spirit Lover [C+]
Rolling Stone (November 29, 2007)

New reviews in the November 29, 2007 Rolling Stone:

Website Update

Carola Dibbell's 1998 novella has been added, presented in five PDF files in order to preserve the typographic formatting:

Some more Carola Dibbell articles have been added:

New NPR links added:

Rolling Stone (November 15, 2007)

New reviews in the November 15, 2007 Rolling Stone:

Consumer Guide (November 2007)

New Consumer Guide for November 2007.

Rolling Stone (November 1, 2007)

New reviews in the November 1, 2007 Rolling Stone:

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