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

New York Times Book Review

Robert Christgau reviewed a book in the June 3 New York Times Book Review:

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-06-03]
Consumer Guide (June 2007)

New Consumer Guide for June 2007. The first three Consumer Guides on MSN were bimonthly, but now the Consumer Guide has gone back to monthly -- "shorter, but not half as short."

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-06-02]
Website Update

We've fallen quite a bit behind in updating the website, and today's update only goes part of the way to bringing it up to date. Among other omissions, the three MSN Consumer Guides are still not in the database.

The following old pieces have been added to the website:

Thanks to Tim Dabareiner for these pieces.

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-05-22]
Rolling Stone (May 31, 2007)

New reviews in the May 31, 2007 Rolling Stone:

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-05-19]
Blender

Robert Christgau wrote "The Guide: Back Catalogue" feature on Al Green in the May, 2007 issue of Blender.

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-05-01]
Rolling Stone (May 3-17, 2007)

New reviews in the May 3-17, 2007 40th Anniversary issue of Rolling Stone:

  • Patti Smith: Twelve
  • Sly and the Family Stone: A Whole New Thing, Dance to the Music, Life, Stand!, There's a Riot Goin' On, Fresh, Small Talk
[posted by Webmaster on 2007-04-25]
Rolling Stone (April 19, 2007)

New reviews in the April 19, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone:

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-04-19]
Rolling Stone (April 5, 2007)

New reviews in the April 5, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone:

  • Macy Gray: Big
  • Leonard Cohen: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs From a Room, Songs of Love and Hate
[posted by Webmaster on 2007-04-05]
Consumer Guide (Apr.-May 2007)

New Consumer Guide for April-May 2007.

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-04-02]
Rolling Stone (March 22, 2007)

New reviews in the March 22, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone:

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-03-22]
Rolling Stone (March 8, 2007)

New reviews in the March 8, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone:

  • Nils Petter Molvaer: ER
[posted by Webmaster on 2007-03-08]
Website Update

The website has been updated. The main change is this News section, which pushed the old introductory material to the About page. News is incomplete back to Sept. 2006, and not as dynamic as desired, but will be improved before too long.

Other changes include new navigation menu links for the new Rolling Stone articles/reviews and NPR reviews.

Most new material here is subject to publisher exclusives (Rolling Stone insists on four months), so What's New mostly turns up stubs -- hence the News links are most useful for steering you to new pieces now.

One notable new piece is the 2006 Dean's List.

We've also opened up a section for Carola Dibbell's writings, including:

Other changes forthcoming -- e.g., the CG database has not yet been updated.

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-02-17]
Rolling Stone (Feb. 22, 2007)

New pieces/reviews in the Feb. 22, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone:

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-02-15]
Consumer Guide (Feb.-Mar. 2007)

New Consumer Guide for February-March 2007.

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-02-08]
Rolling Stone (Feb. 8, 2007)

New pieces/reviews in the Feb. 8, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone:

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-02-08]
Rolling Stone (Jan. 25, 2007)

New pieces/reviews in the Jan. 25, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone:

[posted by Webmaster on 2006-01-25]
Talking About James Brown

Rolling Stone Rock & Roll Daily has an exclusive video of Robert Christgau talking about James Brown.

[posted by Webmaster on 2007-01-09]
James Brown

The Los Angeles Times (Ann Powers and Geoff Boucher) compiled a set of In Memoriam on James Brown, including one by Robert Christgau.

[posted by Webmaster on 2006-12-30]
Rolling Stone (Dec. 28-Jan. 11, 2006)

New pieces/reviews in the Dec. 28-Jan. 11, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone:

[posted by Webmaster on 2006-12-28]
Rolling Stone (Dec. 14, 2006)

New pieces/reviews in the Dec. 14, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone:

[posted by Webmaster on 2006-12-14]

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