Dec 14

Robert Christgau

ROBERT CHRISTGAU
 
 
Robert Christgau  (born April 18, 1942) is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed “Dean of American Rock Critics”.  One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published from 1969 to 2013 in his Consumer Guide columns.  He also spent 37 years as music editor for The Village Voice, during which time he created the annual Pazz & Jop poll.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
One of the best songs on the Thomas Anderson album Moon Going Down – it was selected as a “Choice Cut” by Village Voice rock scribe Robert Christgau – is “Jerry’s Kids”.   
 
(November 2012)
 
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There was a noticeable dip in the ratings given by rock critics of Bob Dylan’s Christian recordings.  That was not true so much for Slow Train Coming – Robert Christgau of the Village Voice gave the album a B+ and wrote:  “The lyrics are indifferently crafted.  Nevertheless, this is his best album since Blood on the Tracks.  The singing is passionate and detailed.”  Allmusic and Rolling Stone both rated the album ***.  

 

For Saved, the Rolling Stone rating stood, but Allmusic gave the album only **, and Christgau scored it as C+.  Entertainment Weekly showed a C–.  Shot of Love had ** from both Rolling Stone and Allmusic; Christgau and Entertainment Weekly showed B–.  

 

With Infidels though, all was forgiven:  Rolling Stone and Allmusic were both at ****.  

 

(August 2014)

 

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Kim Fowley’s own albums are an uneven lot to say the least, though this appears to be intentional to a considerable extent.  His third album, Outrageous (1968) is the only one of his albums to (barely) crack the Billboard Top 200 Albums charts.  Village Voice rockcrit Robert Christgau gave Outrageous his second-lowest rating (E) and said:  “I don’t understand how he continues to earn a living, but he does.” 

 

(January 2015/1)

 

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ZZ Top also had a lot of fun with videos in the 1980’s. Their name was created so that they would be the last band name in an alphabetical list. Bandleader Billy Gibbons (guitar, vocals) and Dusty Hill (bass, vocals) grew very long, more or less matching beards; their drummer’s name is Frank Beard, leading longtime Village Voice rockcrit Robert Christgau to describe ZZ Top once as “two beards and a Beard”.
 
(March 2016)
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By the time their second album, Fun House came along the following year (the first with the iconic Iggy Pop name), their anarchic excesses, particularly the drug use were beginning to catch up with the Stooges. The critics didn’t know what to make of it, often using rather lofty language to describe such a barebones barrage. Robert Christgau called the album “genuinely ‘avant-garde’ rock”; Greg Kot says it is “the Stooges’ punk jazz opus”; and the Rolling Stone review by Charles Burton says that the Stooges sounded “so exquisitely horrible and down and out that they are the ultimate psychedelic rock band in 1970”. The album was not a big seller, nor was the single “Down on the Street”.
 
(December 2016)
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I was a subscriber to The Village Voice long before I moved to the City in 1990, and that was one way that I stayed in touch with the musical scene. Lead rock critic Robert Christgau spearheaded an annual poll of hundreds of music critics, with the results published as Pazz & Jop (a rather corny takeoff on “jazz & pop”, though they never really talked much about jazz). I looked forward to it each year, but in 1993, so many of the albums on the list were completely unknown to me, starting with the #1 pick, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville. Next year, that will be 25 years ago – a long time of not being “with it”. 
(June 2017)
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Still, Kill City – and the other albums in The Iguana Chronicles for that matter – has comparatively low marks from some critics.  While the previous two albums by the Stooges, Fun House and Raw Power, as well as the first two solo albums by Iggy Pop, The Idiot and Lust for Life all have 5-star ratings by Allmusic, Kill City is at 3½ stars.  Robert Christgau of Village Voice gave the album a B. 
 
(December 2017)
 
Last edited: March 22, 2021