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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 (July 2008) New Consumer
Guide for July 2008. Featured albums:
- Atmosphere: When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Sh*t Gold (Rhymesayers Entertainment) [B+]
- Be Your Own Pet: Get Damaged (Universal/Ecstatic Peace) [A-]
- Blitzen Trapper: Wild Mountain Nation (Lidkercow Ltd) [A-]
- Al Green: Lay It Down (Blue Note) [A-]
- Honeyhoney: Loose Boots (Ironworks Music) [A-]
- The Kills: Midnight Boom (Domino) [A-]
- Lil Wayne: Tha Carter III (Cash Money/Universal/Motown) [A-]
- Lil Wayne: The Drought Is Over 2: The Carter 3 Sessions (mixtape4u.com) [A-]
- Lil Wayne: We the Best (RBC) [C+]
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-07-01] Blender (July 2008) New reviews:
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-06-21] Consumer Guide (June 2008) New Consumer
Guide for June 2008. Featured albums:
- Hayes Carll: Trouble in Mind [A-]
- DJ Yoda: Fabriclive.39 [A-]
- The Magnetic Fields: Distortion [A]
- No Age: Nouns [A-]
- Old 97's: Blame It on Gravity [A-]
- Orchestra Baobab: Made in Dakar [A]
- Santogold: Santogold [A-]
- Steinski: What Does It All Mean?: 1983-2006 Retrospective [A]
- Tokyo Police Club: Elephant Shell [A-]
- Leona Lewis: Spirit [B]
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-06-01] Blender (June 2008) New reviews:
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-05-24] Consumer Guide (May 2008) New Consumer
Guide for May 2008. Featured albums:
- The B-52s: Funplex [A-]
- Drive-By Truckers: Brighter Than Creation's Dark [A]
- Robert Forster: The Evangelist [A-]
- Kid Creole: Going Places: The August Darnell Years 1974-1983 [A-]
- Gabi Lunca: Sounds From a Bygone Age: Vol. 5 [A-]
- Man Man: Rabbit Habits [B+]
- James McMurtry: Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod) [A-]
- The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride [B+]
- The Roots: Rising Down [A]
- DeVotchKa: A Mad and Faithful Telling [B-]
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-05-01] Blender (May 2008) New reviews:
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-04-24] 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-]
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-04-15] 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-]
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-04-01] Blender (April 2008) New reviews:
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-03-15] 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/.
[posted by Robert Christgau on 2008-03-10] 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]
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-03-01] Blender (March 2008) New reviews:
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-02-02] 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.
[posted by Robert Christgau on 2008-02-02] 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+]
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-02-01] 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:
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-01-28] Rolling Stone (February 7, 2008) New reviews in the February 7, 2008 Rolling Stone:
[posted by Webmaster on 2007-01-22] Rolling Stone (January 24, 2008) New reviews in the January 24, 2008 Rolling Stone:
[posted by Webmaster on 2007-01-07] 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+]
[posted by Webmaster on 2008-01-01] 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":
- Tabu Ley Rochereau: The Voice of Lightness
- Public Enemy: How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul???
- Fanfare Ciocarlia: Queens and Kings
- 3 Tenors of Soul: All the Way From Philadelphia
- Wussy: Left for Dead
[posted by Webmaster on 2007-12-17] Rolling Stone (December 13, 2007) New reviews in the December 13, 2007 Rolling Stone:
[posted by Webmaster on 2007-12-03] Most Recent -- More Recent -- More Ancient
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