Originally Posted by rcarlberg
Actually, Martin Mull.
Actually, Martin Mull.
I spent too many hours of my misspent youth paging through old issues of Rolling Stone, so this discussion is thrilling indeed. TFTO was slammed by a writer named Gordon Fletcher, who also wrote a mixed review of BSS. Fletcher was an interesting critic, to say the least; he slammed Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and was an early champion of Black Sabbath. I think that Relayer was dissed by Ken Tucker, who (last time I checked) writes music criticism for USA Today (how very appropriate). If you can believe it, Works Volume 1 received a good review from a guy named Charley Walters. Good memories.
Of all the reviews that created the impression the critics hated prog, Fletcher probably wrote at least half! Interestingly though, he wrote an absolute rave of "One Live Badger"-- basically his take was that this was where Yes should have gone after TYA-- and I bought the album because of it.
I had two editions of "Rolling Stone Record Guides" in my earlier years - one was red, then the other was blue (hope I got that right). Prog rock was reappraised completely between the editions, most albums that once garnered a few stars were relegated to boxes.
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11...g-about-music/
Should probably get its own thread...
Yes! All too true. For example, in the original "red" edition, the Yes catalog was glowingly appraised by the aforementioned Charley Walters. In the later "blue" edition, editor Dave Marsh rectified that "error"; he assigned the Yes catalog to Wayne King, who slammed them as "cold-hearted" purveyors of flaccid classical rock. Isn't revisionism wonderful?
It's not just prog.
Dave Marsh on Queen:
"Queen isn't here just to entertain. This group has come to make it clear exactly who is superior and who is inferior. Its anthem, 'We Will Rock You', is a marching order: you will not rock us, we will rock you. Indeed, Queen may be the first truly fascist rock band...[I] wonder why anyone would indulge these creeps and their polluting ideas."[1] Previously, he had described lead singer Freddie Mercury as possessing a merely "passable pop voice."
Dave Marsh on the Grateful Dead: ""the worst band in creation."
People like him are truly monsters. Tin-eared imbeciles. of the most grotesque magnitude.
I just checked his Best albums of 197x lists on http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/dmarsha.html#70 and that is all what you have to know about the guy
I'm no fan of Marsh, who is pompous and has lousy taste (though his share of fawning reviews far outweighs his slams, especially in the past three decades). But a critic has to be able to say what he/she hates, else there nothing being ventured when s/he says what s/he loves. How can you trust anyone who listens to a lot of music and claims to like it all? Critics ideally are passionate music fans who earn their platform by having an extensive grasp of music history/context, and being able to write. For example, NYC critic and former Trouser Press editor Ira Robbins is one of the best. We disagree on a lot (he hates prog, for starters), but his views are always well defended. Good critics are like any other music fan-- When they hear something they think is terrible they feel personally offended. That's the way it should be.
While overall positive, it in many ways isn't. Stating that the title track was 'the most vital piece of music written since TYA is an example.
Granted, self-proclaimed "Dean of Rock Critics" Robert Christgau was only one member of the Rock Critical Establishment, but he was both widely read and influential, and his opinions typified those of many back in the daze. To wit:
JETHRO TULL: This Was - I find his [sic] success very depressing. C MINUS
THE MOODY BLUES: On the Threshold of a Dream - Rod McKuen out of Ray Conniff with assists by Hugo Montenegro and Bob Crewe. Ugh. D MINUS
PROCUL [sic] HARUM: Broken Barricades - I hope I'm never induced to play it again. C-
KING CRIMSON: In the Court of the Crimson King - Beware the forthcoming hype--this is ersatz shit. D PLUS
YES: Fragile - Incredible technique, yup, but isn't there more to art than great contrivance? B
THE NICE: Nice - Lots of folks are impressed with Keith Emerson so I would like to designate the Nice "Most Overrated Group This Side of the Moody Blues". Ugh. D PLUS
FRANK ZAPPA: Hot Rats - Doo-doo to you, Frank--when I want movie music I'll listen to Wonderwall. C
THE MOTHERS: Fillmore East, June 1971 - The usual moderne clichés are packaged with a lot of adolescent sexist drivel… One more slick exploitation. D PLUS
PFM: Cook - I've always wondered what it stood for, and this title gives me a clue: Pasta Fazool Machine. C-
PINK FLOYD: Wish You Were Here - I'm astonished to conclude that this is a very good record. A-
......notice that he's "astonished" that it's any good!
VAN DER GRAF GENERATOR: Godbluff - Inspirational Verse: "Fickle promises of treaty, fatal harbingers of war, futile orisons/swirl as on in the flight, this mad chase,/this surge across the marshy mud landscape/until the meaning is forgotten." D PLUS
TANGERINE DREAM: Stratosfear - ...the soundtrack for a space travelogue you don't want to see. C
EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER: Works: Volume 2 - But is it rock and roll? C PLUS
......that last question says it all with regard to the disposition of the RCE to "Prog"
Last edited by mogrooves; 06-05-2013 at 05:25 PM.
Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes
Christgau did indeed have a problem with prog, though some of the artists he slams here (esp. Zappa, Crimson and Procol) were admired by critics in general. In fact the magazine that was most anti-prog was Creem, from which came Christgau and Lester Bangs (who didn't like it much either, though there were exceptions). But again, nothing was universal-- Circus had as many readers and their viewpoint was just the opposite, they loved everything English. Rolling Stone at the time was basically split down the middle. I used to swear by a Circus writer named Ed Naha, who raved about a lot of albums I would never have encountered otherwise (Audience's "Lunch" comes to mind).
And I do think a lot of people who post here would agree with his assessment of that particular Starcastle album!
Christgau's good 'ol ("authentic") Rock 'n Roll:
THE GRATEFUL DEAD: Live/Dead - An admitted fanatic raves to all the other admitted fanatics. Side two of this four-sided set contains the finest rock improvisation ever recorded, and the rest is gently transcendent as usual. A PLUS.
THE GRATEFUL DEAD: Workingman's Dead - A
THE GRATEFUL DEAD: American Beauty - A MINUS
THE GRATEFUL DEAD - As a certified Grateful Dead freak, I wish some of this had been done in the studio, but the old magic remains. A MINUS
GRATEFUL DEAD: Blues for Allah - I find the arch aimlessness of their musical approach neurasthenic and their general muddle-headedness worthy of Yes or the Strawbs. C MINUS
....note the guilt-by-association with "Prog"...
CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL: Fogerty's subtlety as a political songwriter comes as no surprise.This is everything a good rock album should be--the best they've done yet. A PLUS
....evidently, "real" rock is political; presumably, Prog is neither.
BOB DYLAN: Blood on the Tracks - ...this is the man's most mature and assured record. A
THE BAND: Northern Lights/Southern Cross - ...the pure comeliness of every melody on this album led to an immediate infatuation. A-
NEIL YOUNG: Zuma - A MINUS
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: ...An important minor artist or a very flawed and inconsistent major one. A-
.....the "Dean" hedging his bets on the "Boss"?
Last edited by mogrooves; 06-05-2013 at 05:22 PM.
Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes
My recollection is that RS mostly ignored the music, which is telling in and of itself.
Well, when the man's right, he's right!And I do think a lot of people who post here would agree with his assessment of that particular Starcastle album!
Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes
Not sure of your point here-- Most of these albums are indeed great.
Well, if you don't think all that much of the Dead - and there are as many people here who can't stand 'em as those who love 'em - he's got a point. Also, notice that he gives his best reviews to the rootsy Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, while slamming the borderline-proggy Blues for Allah.
Creedence, meanwhile, were one of the first roots-rock bands and possibly the first big one. And if there's any music which is the "Anti-Prog", it is roots-rock - it goes back to the blues, back to old-time C&W, back to Fifties rock 'n roll, back to early R&B, back to a sort of imaginary, composite Golden Age. It very specifically rejects the notion of "progress" in rock, and in the case of Creedence, does so brilliantly.
True, but he loves Live/Dead which (assuming you like the Dead) is progressive as it gets. I think Blues for Allah was their last great album, but one could argue they were running out of gas by then. I see your point on Creedence but they too got progressive (or at least psychedelic) on Pendulum.
It's not the issue of likes or dislikes per se. It's the idea that people with a completely unintelligible grasp of music are writing about..music. It's like someone said above, music is hardly ever discussed as music in RS.
To his credit, even Lester Bangs wasn't as bad as Chistrgau/Marsh/Hillburn. He may have not known much about music, but at least Bangs had a refreshingly wide array of musical tastes. And even though he used writing about music as an excuse for..writing about himself. at least he had some skill as a writer. These guys were and remain the absolute worst.
Regarding that NY TImes Review, I didn't even know who that guy was. I showed the review to Bill Martin and he did know who he actually was. He wrote back: "I was immediately peeved to see that this review is written by Rob Sheffield, from Rolling Stone, who has long been a hater of all things progressive rock. For whatever reason, he was also allowed to review the most recent Yes album, with predictable results. Clearly Sheffield has an obsession for policing this field that he has no appreciation for whatsoever. Of course there is varying quality in progressive rock, but it's hard for me to see how anyone who knows anything about music would not see that the best of it is very good, creative music, often played with a high level of virtuosity. Sheffield is simply one of the "cool kids" who knows little or nothing about music (of any kind); indeed, he is a good representative of the typical American anti-intellectual type who has quite possibly never listened to a single good piece of music in his or her life, whether that be Shostakovich or Miles Davis or King Crimson."
You're projecting. Considering he quotes "Yours is No Disgrace" and "Tempus Figit" in his review, I would venture that Sheffield knows quite a bit about Yes. I disagree with his review, but that's the breaks-- his specific complaints (misses Jon Anderson, feels Steve Howe is too restrained, doesn't think Benoit cuts it as lead singer) are pretty negative but hardly amount to a dismissal of everything Yes.
Maybe this is reaching, but Live/Dead came out in late '69. And while Crimson and Yes had both released their first albums by that point, I would argue that "prog" hadn't yet really been codified or recognized as a musical movement of its own, as something distinct from one of many strains of psych or "underground" rock. It certainly hadn't made it into the big time, and wouldn't for another couple of years. So it's possible that Christgau didn't yet recognize it as something specific to be resisted and opposed in any and every form, but just as the sound of isolated albums he encountered and liked or didn't like.
Okay, but the argument was that Christgau seemed to respond best to music that was 'rootsy" or backward-looking, and Live/Dead was hardly that.
And a few more Christgau reviews to prove that nothing's universal:
A New World Record [United Artists, 1976]
Eat your diploma, Eric Carmen--after years of floundering, they've gone all the way and made a Moody Blues album with brains, hooks, and laffs galore. My fave is "Rockaria!," about a lass who "loves the way Puccini lays down a tune." Granted, I initially thought it was strictly for those who got off on music appreciation in high school, like the lass. But now I think it's also for those who hated it, like me. B+
A Salty Dog [A&M, 1969]
A new discovery; haven't stopped playing it since seeing them at the Fillmore. A+
Red [Atlantic, 1974]
Grand, powerful, grating, and surprisingly lyrical, with words that cast aspersions on NYC (violence you know) and make me like it, or at least not hate it (virtually a first for the Crims), this does for classical-rock fusion what John McLaughlin's Devotion did for jazz-rock fusion. The secret as usual is that Robert Fripp is playing more--he does remind me of McLaughlin, too, though he prefers to glide where McLaughlin beats his wings. In compensation, Bill Bruford supplies more action than Buddy Miles. Less soul, though--which is why the jazz-rock fusion is more exciting. A-
Only to show his bias, which is as much (or more) ideological as it is--presumably--musical.
Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes
I would say it is substantially ideological. With regard to musical knowledge, there is no "there" there.
When music gets ideological, I lose interest. By ideological, I'm not talking about singing anti-war songs or political stuff. I mean the fundamental existence of bias without any rational foundation or justification.
Well, I could argue that even in their improvisations, the Dead were still more rootsy than almost any prog band. An awful lot of their musical vocabulary came out of blues and bluegrass, and many of their improvs could be seen as an extreme extrapolation of blues or bluegrass jamming, with no set structure or key but many stylistically recognizable licks and turns of phrase. In a way, it was like free jazz played by musicians who had little or no actual jazz background, and tried to approximate the sound of it with what they did know.
And when it comes to the few more reviews, one could say that A New World Record, and mid-period ELO in general, were pretty much straight-up pop, and descended quite directly from Revolver and Abbey Road. Procol Harum owed an equally large and clear debt to R&B, most obviously in Gary Brooker's voice and phrasing. Finally, Crimson drew audibly from the blues, as filtered through Hendrix and Bartok, then extrapolated almost to the point of atonality - and never so obviously as on Red, whose title track is actually built around the classic twelve-bar form.
Or, in other words, maybe Christgau wasn't quite so harsh on progressive music if it was clearly built from something more basic and contained large and clear references to those more basic roots.
Last edited by Baribrotzer; 06-05-2013 at 10:15 PM.
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