Originally Posted by
Facelift
As I've stated in here before, as a big fan of music and also a big reader about music, I like reading critiques of albums I know, and it doesn't necessarily matter to me all that much if I agree with the reviewer insofar as taste. I like Christgau's style and writing (and often even his taste; at least, within the confines of what it's limited to) but it's a relic from a different time. Christgau came up in an era when the music was more important to popular culture, and when print criticism really mattered.
His reviews are short - if they can provide some small bit of insightful perspective or even just make me laugh, they did their job AFAIC.
As far as Prog and Christgau - what's the point? He reviewed prog back when the original prog bands weren't considered prog bands, but part of rock music in general. Christgau didn't like the basic principles of what much progressive rock stood for, and I think his was a valid - if now very dated - perspective (not one that I ever agreed with, but a valid perspective nevertheless). At least give him credit for ultimately not bothering with things that he knew he'd have no chance of liking: he has not reviewed much of any progressive rock as far as I'm aware, since the 1970s.
Christgau was far from alone in his general disdain for progressive rock, but as I've also said many times in here - that's a dated perspective that younger critics don't have. The notion of prog-influenced rock music being taboo is obsolete, and was limited principally to those critics who grew up on 1960s music and who experienced punk first-hand, as professional writers.
In any event, if there are people out there who really hate Christgau, you can take heart that he has suffered quite a bit over the years. The market for paid rock and roll critics has shrunk to a number virtually at zero, and his CV since his termination at the Village Voice evidences a rather humbling career arc. He has written about it quite unabashedly, so you can go to his site and read it with glee, if you desire. I think it's pretty sad - not because I have any special affinity for him in particular, but because of what it means in the macro sense, as far as rock music and its place in popular culture, and where the advances in technology have left us, in that regard. They times, they a-changed.
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