Albums for which critical opinion has changed the most over time

e.g. Talk Talk's Laughing Stock which was "virtually ignored upon its release" (allmusic) and is now straight canon.

Negative examples too!

surely this has been done before?

Sorry but I don't believe Talk Talk's Laughing Stock was "virtually ignored upon its release". Why would it be?

... also, is it "straight canon"?

maybe i read ILM too much?

Laughing Stock was ecstatically received by Melody Maker at the very least (#12 in EoY poll) and that's all that mattered to me...

(also, not ignored, but SLATED by NME - David Quantick possibly?)
xp

When Metal Machine Music was released, Lou Reed needed an armed police guard for 6 months and was sent at least 2 nail-bombs thru the mail. But in 2011, MMM is the best-selling album of all time in 17 countries, and has a day dedicated to it in Portugal where all TV stations play the album in its entirety throughout the day.

In my head, that last post is entirely true.

Embarrassingly I proclaimed Squeeze "VU's best album yet!" upon its release.

In 1967 when the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the critical and public acclaim was such that the band needed an armed police guard for 6 months, and in a tearful review on BBC1's flagship arts show Aquarius, Malcolm Muggeridge declared that the album had made all previous music "irrelevant", and that the ouevre of Mozart was "some old bollocks" in comparison. And yet today, the record is probably the most despised item in the Beatles' discography, leading one Pitchfork reviewer to describe it as "pitiful sub-Deerhoof cuntery" and music critic Paul Gambaccini to wipe his arse with a copy of the album sleeve on BBC1's flagship arts show The One Show.

I think the Zombies' Odyssey and Oracle has kind of retroactively been treated as a classic which it wasn't really seen as at the time

Fatboy Slim got a lot of great press in the late 90's but I think everyone kinda thinks he's shit now and has always been

Also I can think of a number of bands like Neu!, Cardiacs, and Faust, that have kind of now been given classic status as their work becomes available, as many people thought it was a waste of time when it came out

as many people thought it was a waste of time when it came out

This just isn't true about Neu! or Faust, they always had supporters. Faust probably never had a bad review in the UK press in their career! Dunno abt the Cardiacs but I do know they are in no way classic!

LOL Cardiacs

yeah they always did of course but they were still fairly obscure; from what when Faust actually released something that people bought (Faust Tapes) it was panned heavily

MGMT 'Congratulations'

...people liked that mgmt album?

Faust actually released something that people bought (Faust Tapes) it was panned heavily

Yeah, by Jim Kerr, not by critics!

panned heavily

Love their use of stereo.

The first four Black Sabbath albums. BANK!

In 1986 The Smiths were set to become the most popular band in Britain with their hugely anticipated new album, The Queen is Dead. Unfortunately, they made the mistake of releasing the record in the same week as It Bites' The Big Land in the Windmill. The Smiths' record was completely eclipsed, managing a couple of single paragraph reviews in Sounds and the NME and nary a mention in the mainstream press. The band were subsequently dropped from their record label and imploded acrimoniously, Johnny Marr going on to a short-lived career as the rhythm guitarist in Saxon and Morrissey eventually becoming the North-West's number one children's party magician.

And yet, in a 2010 list of records which are compulsory listening for all practising Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI described the album as "a seminal moment in the development of English guitar pop", whilst the Observer's chief music critic Jim Davidson wrote "that bloke needs to cheer up a bit, he sounds a right miserable bastard. Mind you, it's better than all that bongo bongo music innit mate, know what I mean?"

Johnny Marr going on to a short-lived career as the rhythm guitarist in Saxon

... somewhat more interesting than his actual post-Smiths career

Q mag were very big on Talk Talk's late period back in the day. 4 stars for Eden definitely, not sure about Laughing Stock. neither were slagged off in many places i'd wager.

stock answer here is Be Here Now. in my lifetime there's not been an album as ridiculously praised then beaten to death that i can think of.

noodle killin it itt

The British press ignored early albums by Outkast and The White Stripes that have now become critical favourites.

XTC's Skylarking wasn't that popular with the critics when it came out and was actually their lowest charting album but is now seen as one of their best.

When George Formby debuted his controversial song "Mr Wu is a Window Cleaner Now" at the 1937 Reading Festival he was bottled so heavily that he had concussion for a month and exuded a faint tang of urine for the rest of his life. But when the song was revived for a 1987 Levi's Jeans ad, it spent 27 weeks at number 1 in the UK charts and proved so popular that his body was informally disinterred and paraded by cheering crowds through the streets of Wigan.

you don't hear folk reference this as an influence anywhere, i mean considering the original hoopla, but whether the crits still stand by it i'm not sure:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2138/2477894033_8c8a027e40.jpg

Michael Jackson may be famous as the USA's number 1 children's party magician, but it could all have been so different if his 1982 solo album Thriller hadn't met with such a chorus of critical disapproval. Industry insiders believe that his decision to have the video for the title track made by director Lucio Fulci, and the video's subsequent banning from all TV stations in the western world, may have led to this former child star's critical demise.

what i'd be interested in isn't necessarily what albums got a positive critical reception on release - and then, years later, critical consensus with an entirely different set of critics turned against them - i kind of want to know whether the actual critics who praised the albums in this thread still think they're good, or whether they've changed their minds.

like if someone who gave be here now 5 stars at the time still thinks it's worth that (or even still thinks it's good), that doesn't count imo.

if john harris was still alive, i'm guessing he'd still rate it

Only 100 people read John's review of Be Here Now, but every one of them went on to send him a nail bomb.

Serious answer: Miles Davis's On the Corner. Pretty much universally loathed upon release in 1972, now recognized as a classic, precursor to half the clattery electronic music made in the mid-1990s, a proto-No Wave stroke of perverse genius, subject of an entire boxed set, etc., etc., etc.

charles shaar murray did the Oasis one for Mojo. i'd love to know what he thinks of it now. truth is of course most of the critics didn't think much of it then anyway but they had to say something great about it.

Only 100 people read John's review of Be Here Now, but every one of them went on to send him a nail bomb.

― The north-east's Number 2 children's party magician (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 8 March 2011 16:07 (2 minutes ago)

tbqfh he was tempting fate with his 'if this isn't the best album since the style council's coruscating debut, then my postbox is made of semtex ' comment

xpost Yeah. Oasis sold paper, so it made sense to give them good reviews. I still hate the fact my lukewarm Aeroplane review got upgraded because said publication was featuring him at one of the nights they were running. But that's the way it is I guess.

truth is of course most of the critics didn't think much of it then anyway but they had to say something great about it.

OTM

... not confined to Oasis of course

I would bet that genre landmarks would rule this thread if only because those releases were usually ignored by pop/mainstream critics who finally come around years later.

Some possibilities:

NWA Straight Outta Compton
Black Sabbath
Slayer Reign In Blood

Pavement, Wowee Zowee. I remember a 2 star review in Rolling Stone.

I'm sure I read a Tom Ewing article about how the first Sabbath album, arguably the first ever heavy metal album, was called derivative by critics upon first release. Not sure if it was Lester Bangs who described it as a sub-par Cream rip off or something to that effect.

Swells reviewed Straight Outta Compton for the NME, it was a shit review and the fact that he mistook the word "wack" for "white" didn't help much.

isn't it true that the velvet underground are the epitomy of such a turnaround ?
according to the various bits-n-bobs i've read, very few people bought their bands debut release, and yet now its definitely part of the all important canon.

Maybe but even the Velvets got good reviews, had fans etc

The late-1970s edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide gave The Velvet Underground & Nico 3 stars out of 5. The next edition boosted it to 4/5. Thereafter it finally got 5/5 from RS, and is now on just about everybody's list of the greatest, most influential rock albums of all time.

i read that kate bush's the dreaming and joni mitchell's the hissing of summer lawns were both panned as being too difficult, overly experimental etc - both generally considered to be among artists' best nowadays

Well, it did make the Billboard charts at #99 or some such. (The VU 1st)

also, xposts, the fact that the White Stripes album got ignored isn;t the same thing. If it had got played/reviewed, it would have got good reviews, undoubtedly.

The late-1970s edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide gave The Velvet Underground & Nico 3 stars out of 5. The next edition boosted it to 4/5. Thereafter it finally got 5/5 from RS, and is now on just about everybody's list of the greatest, most influential rock albums of all time.

That's Rolling Stone I suppose. It was pretty highly regarded elsewhere before the late-1970s. Whereas seems everybody hated Sabbath.

I hate it when people claim famous band x were complete unknowns until being rescued from the dustbin of history. I know what it's like to be in a completely unknown band, and believe me, neither the Velvet Underground nor Nick Drake (the major example of this phenomenon) were unknown.

I think we had a thread about the ratings changes in those two editions. I seem to remember Led Zeppelin getting bumped way up and the Doors getting bumped way down.

Well if you had a record deal you weren't "unknown" but I did think Drake's rise to public consciousness was pretty slow and largely post mortem? There were a lot more artists on big labels back then, easier to get lost in the crowd.

Nick Drake at least got pretty good reviews - the few times he was reviewed at all...

Well if you had a record deal you weren't "unknown" but I did think Drake's rise to public consciousness was pretty slow and largely post mortem?

Well he didn't play live - precious twat - so that probably didn't help. I think there were a hell of a lot of artists with record deals at the time who were more obscure and less critically acclaimed than Nick Drake!

Dunno abt the Cardiacs but I do know they are in no way classic!

WRONG. totally and utterly classic!

but anyway... they always had an unusually fanatical and adoring fanbase, but were largely ignored by the press (partly due to an NME ban on covering them). since tim's illness and the release of the tribute/fundraiser album, their profile has increased dramatically and their influence has begun to be more widely acknowledged.

Well he didn't play live - precious twat - so that probably didn't help. I think there were a hell of a lot of artists with record deals at the time who were more obscure and less critically acclaimed than Nick Drake!

Yup.

drake seems to be the last 'major' - canonical - performer whom there are almost no interviews etc with? apart from jandek, obv

Nick Drake did play about 8-10 live shows, and sold about 10,000 records during his lifetime. Got noticed by lots of well-known people - Elton John (who recorded four Drake songs early in his career), John Martyn, John Cale, Joe Boyd, several Fairport Convention members, etc.

Thinking Whitehouse maybe, nobody had a good word to say about them for most of their existence but now they are almost critical darlings

wut?

Same thing happened with Throbbing Gristle, to some extent

early Sabbath pwns this thread

I guess catastrophic depression makes precious twats of us all.

It might have cheered him up a bit, playing a few gigs

feel like with ppl like Whitehouse and TG it's more a case of critics who would be willing to speak positively of them getting jobs where they could do this? I guess that is not entirely distinct from 'critical opinion changing over time'

NWA Straight Outta Compton

Placed #6 in the Pazz & Jop poll in 1989. So, pretty sure it doesn't qualify here.

As for On The Corner, Christgau gave it a B+ (way lower than it deserved, but not exactly loathing, either), and Lester Bangs put it on his Top 10 albums of the decade list when the '70s ended. (Tied for first place, with The Clash and Raw Power.) Of course, it had been out a few years by then. And maybe jazz critics (and other rock critics) did loathe it when it came out -- unperson would know that better than I would. I'd be interested in reading some examples of such reviews, if they still exist, though.

I'm also still trying to figure out on which planet Talk Talk are part of the "canon," but what do I know.

The late-1970s edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide gave The Velvet Underground & Nico 3 stars out of 5. The next edition boosted it to 4/5.

Nope. It got five stars in both the red and blue editions (I'm looking at them right now), as did Loaded and 1969 Velvet Underground Live. Live At Max's and (in the second edition of the book, after the albums had apparently come back in print) White Light White Heat and the self-titled album all got four stars.

Slayer's Reign In Blood got pretty good reviews when it came out too, as I recall. Even metal-hater Christgau gave it a B+. (Did the metal mags dislike it, though? I kind of doubt it, but I get the idea bands like Venom had been widely dismissed in those mags a few years earlier.)

I do agree Black Sabbath is by far the winner of this thread, though.

Does anyone have the Yes reviews from older RS album guides? IIRC, they weren't always this kind: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/yes/albumguide

I seem to remember decent reviews in the 70s book that got a lot worse in the 80s.

And maybe jazz critics (and other rock critics) did loathe it when it came out -

Stanley Crouch yo

yeah IIRC they gave Tales from Topographic Oceans and Drama 4 stars but the Yes Album only got 3...they seem pretty clueless

1979 First edition Close To The Edge and The Yes Album get five stars; everything else gets three or four. And yeah, in the 1983 second edition those all plummet -- three stars for three albums, two stars for four albums (incl The Yes Album), one star for five albums.

"I'm also still trying to figure out on which planet Talk Talk are part of the "canon," but what do I know."

my planet!

Black Sabbath does win, most likely, but some of the old Led Zeppelin reviews are incredible, though they was never a negative consensus around them afaict:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=J22X_SkWQn4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=mendelssohn+led+zeppelin&hl=en&ei=uGV2TYzmNoaKrQHNzYjmCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-preview-link&resnum=4&ved=0CDYQuwUwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

i wrote rave sabbath reviews for the last rolling stone album guide, replacing the less than rave reviews of another ilxor in the previous edition. but i love that ilxor!

Crouch has never changed his mind about On the Corner, fwiw:

http://books.google.com/books?id=WP3vqad5-1gC&pg=PA240&lpg=PA240&dq=Stanley+Crouch+%22On+the+Corner%22&source=bl&ots=7rZKm7AD8v&sig=M5w0lAmOLa-ZlVklzg3xQwQfQYk&hl=en&ei=Hmh2Tae5KZCqsAOzxrHOBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

so sad that when i think about stanley i just think of this now:

"Y'see, the kids, they listen to the rap music, which gives them the brain damage. With their hippin' and their hoppin', and their bippin', and their boppin'... so they don't know what the jazz is all about!"

http://www.spikednation.com/sites/default/files/emvideo-youtube-OHFYJO9v5Xg_1.jpg

his hatred of it isn't as baffling as his estimation that it is a commercial/sellout record. Yeah, free-form jazz skronk was really burning up the airwaves back in '72 oh wait... it's as if Crouch had never actually listened to a rock record or James Brown or whatever. it's bizarre.

Wasn't Aerosmith initially written off as Rolling Stones (or maybe NY Dolls) wannabes and nothing more?

xp because miles was playing to (large) rock audiences at the time?

yeah i think there were plenty of jazz people who thought that miles was catering to the freaks. hippie freaks.

my father, for instance.

I know Dylan was booed when he plugged in onstage for the first time but how were those first electrified ellpees treated by the critics at the time?

xp because miles was playing to (large) rock audiences at the time?

judging a music by its audience, always a classy move

re Aerosmith:

Maybe by some critics, but again, others liked them. (Xgau gave Toys In The Attic and Rocks B+'s; upped the latter to an A- by the time his '70s book came out. Wayne Robins's writeup in those first two RS guides are middling, mostly two and three stars, though he gives Greatest Hits four in the blue book.)

"I know Dylan was booed when he plugged in onstage for the first time but how were those first electrified ellpees treated by the critics at the time?"

um, critics tended to like that guy a little back then. just a little.

xp For a hard rock band that wasn't too bad though! AC/DC gets all zero stars in the first book -- a perfect score! -- and Sabbath and Nazareth get mostly all one-stars with one token two-star album each. (Actually, AC/DC might give Sabbath a run for their money in this competition, come to think of it.)

I was thinking about the early rap albums although now that I think twice about it, most of it was from NYC where Voice and other NYC-based critics made up what I assume was a disproportionate percentage of critics back in the day, and I think they tended to be more likely to not ignore a new thing taking place in their backyard.

That said, were Run DMC's early releases critically lauded in general?

First and third Run DMC did real well in Pazz & Jop.

xp By the RS second edition, though, AC/DC have been upped drastically (incl a four-star for For Those About To Rock); Sabbath and Nazareth stay more or less the same, though for some reason Paranoid loses its second star.

Actually, AC/DC might give Sabbath a run for their money in this competition, come to think of it

eh maybe but I don't think critical opinion of them has done quite the 180 - they aren't lauded as gods/forebears of an entire genre the way Sabbath are. A critic could still be dismissive of AC/DC today as stupid/juvenile/etc in a way that would be suspect if applied to Sabbath.

quite the SAME 180

stanley crouch is a dickhead

The RS Record Guides were particularly venomous toward Sparks, giving their albums the lowest possible scores, then docking them one star each "for being partially responsible for Queen."

haha wow never heard that one

(well I mean I've heard the Queen thing, just never heard of them being so critically loathed. that is mystifying)

Yeah, they didn't get Sparks, or Pere Ubu. First guide (which is pretty much permanently in my bathroom "library") is pretty hilarious for giving higher rankings to, like, Aztec Two Step than AC/DC.

xp Kind of agree, Shakey, but I also think AC/DC wound up having more presence outside of the world of metal -- being sampled in hip-hop, covered and quoted by Nashville country bands, hell even Sarah Palin likes them. Back In Black sort of wound up being synonymous with rock music and good times in a lot of people's minds. Which is a different kind of influence than Sabbath, but it's still pretty huge and maybe even more inescapable, and I doubt many critics would deny it.

Paul's Boutique ?

Rolling Stone's "Worst Album of 1996":

http://redmarketer.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/weezer_pinkerton.jpg

Paul's Boutique bombed commercially but did critics really hate it? (Apart from Bob Mack calling them "retired" in SPIN?)

Critics loved it.

There's a great line in Joe Carducci's Rock and the Pop Narcotic about how if you dig deep enough into the music library of anyone - rapper, country singer, whoever - you'll find a copy of Back in Black.

Sergeant Pepper, already mentioned upthread. While I wouldn't go so far as to say it's despised today, it has gone from being considered a monumental piece of art to something that I don't think very many people would name as one of the their two or three favourite Beatles albums. About the nicest thing that gets said about it anymore in print is that it's a good collection of songs, but nothing more.

Did rock critics just listen to like Randy Newman and Warren Zevon all day in the 70s?

xpost Whoa, is that true about the current prevailing opinion re Sgt Pepper?

I don't think anyone actually regards it as their best album anymore.

Except for Geir, but, yknow,

OK, that probably makes sense.

It still gets five stars here but so do many of their albums: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/the-beatles/albumguide

The review gives it more credit than "a nice bunch of songs" tbf. As I suspected, Revolver seems to be estimated 'highest' of the five-star albums. Not totally sure why that's so much better than the rest. "Love You to" is awful and "Yellow Submarine" is slight at best, embarrassing at worst.

Actually, this makes more sense than "a good collection of songs":

It's a masterwork of sonics, not songwriting—the words and melodies are a lot more rickety than on the previous three albums. But with Paul overdubbing every instrument under the sun and George Martin fixing the holes, Sgt. Pepper still sparkles, especially the jangly "Getting Better," the half-past-dead "A Day in the Life," and Ringo's greatest hit, "With a Little Help from My Friends."

someone bought an ELO album from me the other day and said it was one of their "guilty pleasure" albums. in 2011! ELO, America's dirty little secret.

Reading some of those tin-eared reviews of bands like Sabbath, Yes, Zeppelin etc is hilarious. It's amazing that some of them still right, except for the self-appointed "Dean" of course, who I think has been justifiably put out to pasture

substitute "write" for "right"

Not quite pasteurized yet, Bill:

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/expert-witness-blog.aspx

bill magill hates led zeppelin! i always have to point that out.

let's not go there

"Not quite pasteurized yet, Bill"

Ugh, that's way past its expiration date. F-

or a little exploding bomb or whatever he does now

Select results from the 1971 Pazz and Jop Poll:

11. Mahavishnu Orchestra: The Inner Mounting Flame (Columbia)
14. The Kinks: Muswell Hillbillies (RCA Victor) 120
19. Procol Harum: Broken Barricades (A&M)
30. Led Zeppelin: IV (Atlantic)

bill magill hates led zeppelin! i always have to point that out.

― scott seward, Tuesday, March 8, 2011 1:42 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my position is somewhat more nuanced than that, but i agree with Shakey.

Inner Mounting Flame is a fucking killer record, should have been in the top 10 there.

1974 Pazz and Jop:

15. Ry Cooder: Paradise and Lunch (Reprise) 42 (4)
16. Average White Band: Average White Band (Atlantic) 40 (4)
25. Blue Magic (Atco) 20 (2)
27. Big Star: Radio City (Ardent)

Ha, they're different, but I can see a case for ranking Inner Mounting Flame over Zeppelin IV. Is that Procol Harum album any good?

I would just like to go on record as saying the Average White Band fucking suck

Ha, they're different, but I can see a case for ranking Inner Mounting Flame over Zeppelin IV

^god, Inner Mounting Flame utterly owns that overplayed dinosaur.

AWB did not suck! sheesh, why would anyone say such a thing?

Yeah, at the very least the singles (Pick Up The Pieces, Cut The Cake) are great. Try as I might, though, Inner Mounting Flame is WAY too wheesdlywheedlywheedly.

urgh AWB is like the quintessential "white guys doing a slick job of ripping off black guys" schtick. drives me up the wall.

xp

I would just like to go on record as saying the Average White Band fucking suck

Pick Up the Pieces is literally just a bunch of James Brown licks strung together

xp

listen

I don't want to write Sgt. Pepper out of existence. Yes, you can still find places where it's treated as a landmark (which it was, whatever you think about it). But it has taken a big hit over the years. It finished #1 in Gambaccini's greatest-ever book from the late '70s. That would never happen today--unless it were the most mainstream panel of '60s critics imaginable (and I don't know who that would be--not Marcus, Christgau, etc.), I don't think Sgt. Pepper could finish Top 50 in such a poll (probably much worse).

xpost - I used to frequent a blue-collar black bar in my neighborhood where the locals would play AWB stuff like "School Boy Crush" and The Steve Miller Band, in between JB and Parliament and it was all good.

Ha, I wonder what John Mendelssohn would have thought of Mahavishnu Orchestra.

(I love Zeppelin IV, to be clear.)

ask almost any hip-hop producer/musician/etc what they think of AWB. go ahead, i'll wait here.

a bunch of James Brown licks strung together

so...why is this a bad thing again?

you know who really loves AWB? questlove. its definitely one thing that me and that guy can agree upon:

“I would play along verbatim with the Average White Band’s live double album Person to Person two times a day, from when I was eight until I was about 18.”

it just annoys me, the shamelessness of it

xp

also lol ?uestlove, that guy likes everything

Hey, at least they only claimed to be "Average".

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61J9Y0GYD7L._SL290_.jpg

The Average White Band preparing to rip off a black guy, earlier today.

other than the letter "Q" apparently

xxpost

There has to be some Consumer Fraud law that AWB is in violation of, based on that record cover

lol Noodle

it's all good guys, you will not convert me on this count, it's like a personal foible of mine

Bill I think that was the "joke" of their name.

p much every AWB fan ive known has been black

im not really familiar w/ their stuff beyond 'schoolboy crush' which, obv, as the basis for microphone fiend & the bells on hella rap classics is A+++

We haven't seen many that went the other direction: From critical praise to cries of overrated.

I nominate "Times Up" by Living Colour.

That one fooled a lot of us at the time, including xhuxk and myself.

Tracy Chapman

I imagine there are a whole bunch of entries in Pazz and Jopp who are now completely forgotten

I only know who Blue Magic are, for ex., because Parliament makes a joke about them on Mothership Connection

"From critical praise to cries of overrated."

Ladies and Gentleman, I present "Goddess in the Doorway"

well that was just ONE critic.

and I bet Jann still stands by his review lol

metacritic for goddess in the doorway is 62/100...if you threw out the 100 from Rolling Stone, I'm sure it would be lower.

that album isn't that bad actually

I'm happy to say that I will never find out if that is the case or not.

I nominate "Times Up" by Living Colour.
That one fooled a lot of us at the time, including xhuxk and myself.

??? ...I was pretty ambivalent about the band at the time, actually. (Even totally slammed an EP by them in Spin. Gave Vivid an iffy review in the Voice when it came out; it's way down at #461 in my metal book. Thought Times Up was worse.) Can't say I feel I either over- or underrated the band; haven't listened to them in forever, but I doubt my opinion would change much if I did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC8-2o5e6Yg

I am lol'ing at this drum loop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swTwBGS01r4&feature=related

this isn't so bad I guess

Ram and McCartney II are worth mentioning.

Also feels like Tusk is "more canon" now than it was twenty years ago?

We haven't seen many that went the other direction: From critical praise to cries of overrated.

Well, here's the '71 P&J: http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres71.php

The Rod Stewart is good but not held up in the way it used to be. I've never heard anyone describe Joy of Cooking as canonical. (Afaik, I've never heard the band.) That Procol Harum would probably not be ranked over Led Zeppelin by most people today.

randy newman - live no less! - beating out sly, oof. beating out anyone really...

Joy of Cooking is a good example of a critics darling that just faded away (never had hits or big radio songs, didn't get reissues 'til late in the cd era). Critics of the time probably remember them fondly, but they draw a blank from newer generations.

Also: Tusk was pretty well-reviewed at the time (despite being huge, the Mac were still big critic's pets), it just wasn't as popular with the public.

Joy of Cooking is a great record. not sure i agree it's quite a A+; forgotten but it deserves or at least deserved better than X'gau's lone championing

Joy of Cooking are, like, the ILX poster child for this sort of thing. (also see: Arrested Development's first album)

that Loretta Lynn album from '03 or thereabouts
Blackalicious
The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (but not The Soft Bulletin)
Travis
anything grime

Every Picture Tells A Story might fit here which is terrible. that album rocks my soul (and both Greil Marcus and the Dean are with me).

Didn't critics love Macy Gray once upon a time?

I'm trying to think of the last time I've heard the "It's their Sgt. Pepper's" trope regularly used to describe a new album. Maybe some of the mainstream reviews of Daydream Nation or Mellon Collie when those came out?

Prescient!

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/03/clip_job_richar.php

Reveal
Out Of Time

Kula Shaker's "K". I still love it though, although maybe not to quite the same extent I did the first couple of weeks after I got it first.

Ram and McCartney II are worth mentioning.

"McCartney II" is not at all particularly rated outside ILM. Surely, the two singles are considered to be among his best solo work, but the rest of the album is generally considered by most critics to be typically clumsily pretentious, like a lot of his 70s work.

On the opposite end there is "Tug Of War", which was considered a true return to form at the time, but which is now not rated so highly. I kind of regret that though, seeing it as his biggest solo masterpiece and I just love the smooth production that way too many people dislike the album because of.

And, "Rio" surely? Possibly Duran Duran's debut as well. Really, really, really hated by the critics at the time, now often mentioned alongside "Dare", "Lexicion Of Love" and "Tin Drum" as an example of quality work from this particular era.

Sergeant Pepper, already mentioned upthread. While I wouldn't go so far as to say it's despised today, it has gone from being considered a monumental piece of art to something that I don't think very many people would name as one of the their two or three favourite Beatles albums

Among those who were around at the time, and still considered themselves huge Beatles fans, "Sgt. Pepper" is still considered their one masterpiece by most. For younger generations getting into them later, its influence seems less obvious because it first and foremost influenced prog. So they tend to get more into other albums that seemed more relevant after punk.

I think Sgt. Pepper is the Beatles' most dynamic album from Beatles for Sale on.

I think Every Picture Tells a Story is still very highly regarded. There's a line that most critics draw through Rod Stewart's career, and Picture is on the right side of that line.

xpost: Your assessment of Sgt. Pepper may be true for the majority of fans who were around at the time, but I'm pretty sure not critic-fans. I've never seen Marcus, Christgau, Marsh, etc. single out Sgt. Pepper as the Beatles' "one masterpiece" (not least of which because they had a few).

Pavement, Wowee Zowee. I remember a 2 star review in Rolling Stone.

― kornrulez6969, Tuesday, March 8, 2011 11:18 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

Spin gave it a decidedly lukewarm review too.

Dunno if this counts, but Rolling Stone gave the Who's It's Hard five stars in 1982. But RS was (is) notorious for such reviews in exchange for cover stories/access to stars.

i seem to recall niggaz4life and death certificate both were critically reviled upon release (mostly the racism/misogyny thing, no?)

Probably not a massive swing, but I want to say Neil Young Trans. That has been critically rehabbed in a big way.

Dunno if this counts, but Rolling Stone gave the Who's It's Hard five stars in 1982.

ugh, i bought this at the time because of the RS rave

dude, "eminence front". primo techno-who.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV5-DaI5ULg

i would have been happy if it's hard had been all ox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJDlbgwzxhU&feature=related

I'm seriously dismayed at all of these stories of 'reviews/ratings for sale'.

i'm charmed. it's like hearing about the glory days of unions.

I've never seen Marcus, Christgau, Marsh, etc. single out Sgt. Pepper as the Beatles' "one masterpiece" (not least of which because they had a few).

Not sure if I would consider those fans of the Beatles though. If Cristgau is a fan of any 60s music, it would be either R&B or Velvet Underground.

Christgau's top 5: Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Chuck Berry, The Beatles and The New York Dolls.

xp How the heck did you come up with that one?? Actually, he listed six Beatles albums (including Sgt. Pepper's) in the "Core Collection" section of the "Rock Library: Before 1980" discography appendix to his '80s Consumer Guide book. And there's way more '60s music than just VU and R&B on the list.

And Marcus lists eight Beatles albums (Sgt. Pepper's not among them) and eight additional Beatles singles in his appendix in the back of Stranded. Pretty sure if you dig out Marsh's singles book or Book Of Rock Lists discographies, you'll find plenty of Beatles in those, too.

How the heck did you come up with that one??

Came out of his brain, as usual. Must be a Lou Reed album appropriate for this thread surely?

guys remember that when Geir says things they come unmediated from his midbrain & have nothing to do with whether, say, Christgau loves the Beatles or anything - for Geir, that Xgau loves R&B means he doesn't get the Beatles, who as we all know completely hated R&B, etc

like, to ask Geir "how'd you come up with that?" is like asking the Magic 8-Ball to clarify its remarks

Has time been kind to Grand Funk Railroad? I know they were pretty much hated by critics at the time...

Pretty sure if you dig out Marsh's singles book or Book Of Rock Lists discographies, you'll find plenty of Beatles in those, too.

Not only that, but he wrote a (brilliant) book on The Beatles' Second Album.

i would have been happy if it's hard had been all ox.

"The Quiet One" is a great song, but it's on Face Dances. Entwistle's contributions to It's Hard ("It's Your Turn," "Dangerous," "One At A Time") were the worst kind of corporate-rock you could hope to have a nightmare about. Makes Asia sound like Captain Beefheart.

But yeah, "Eminence Front" is brilliant, and I'll rep for the raging self-loathing of "Cry If You Want."

I Thought about The Verve for the first time in months today. They went from being the great white hopes of British psychedelic music to some jokesome Oasis-knockoff with one hit in about a year, didn't they?

Well, Urban Hymns sold truckloads, had at least two huge singles, got blanket critical praise and was one of the most ubiquitous British albums of that year, so no.

Although everyone's forgotten about them now and the reunion had a bit of a lukewarm reception.

eve 6 - s/t

Was trying to think of who, among first generation rock critics, was actually a big Sgt. Pepper proponent and then remembered: Meltzer.

haha between Shakey's argument on the Hendrix thread and the Average White Band one here i feel like dude has a lot of very odd race-driven opinions about music

it makes perfect sense to me that 60's critics who had their minds blown by the rock of that time would have been bummed out by the major label entertainment rock of the 70's. and it explains why they fell for punk in such a big way. and in xgau's case, punk and rap. i don't begrudge their lack of love for sabbath or grand funk or any of that stuff. and i even like the changing critical opinions over time. opinions SHOULD change. its healthy.

...i don't begrudge their lack of love for sabbath or grand funk or any of that stuff...

I do. They can fuck off and die.

haha between Shakey's argument on the Hendrix thread and the Average White Band one here i feel like dude has a lot of very odd race-driven opinions about music

I ... guess? race is a pretty essential facet of how music has historically developed and evolved

That may be the understatement of the year!

Well, Urban Hymns sold truckloads, had at least two huge singles, got blanket critical praise and was one of the most ubiquitous British albums of that year, so no.

Although everyone's forgotten about them now and the reunion had a bit of a lukewarm reception.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 9 March 2011 16:18 (51 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah exactly. I never really followed them, but I know A Northern Soul was deemed classic and then Urban Hymns sold loads, but whenever I think of the Verve all I can think of is "da dada da da dah dada dah da da dah" from that one song and it drags me right down.

I ... guess? race is a pretty essential facet of how music has historically developed and evolved

― You hurt me deeply. You hurt me deeply in my heart. (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, March 9, 2011 12:04 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

obviously, but i find i have no problem balancing an understanding of that with an appreciation of the musical merits of "Pick Up The Pieces" or "Purple Haze" that isn't clouded or diminished by all that.

so, the boomer-age critics were down on some of the big fat stadium rock acts and some of the big prog groups - just reading bangs thing the other day where he says band on the run is a really good muzak album but that's all it is - and they WERE listening to 70's jazz and r&b/funk, but were they reviewing the artier end of things pre-punk? the exploratory and progressive underground strains a la krautrock and the whole tumultuous island/harvest/vertigo revolution of folkpsychprogjazznoisewhatever bands that were building on the technical and spiritual and artistic successes of the 60's? did xgau or marcus ever review amon duul records? what did they think of can? can were not grand funk. and they were exciting and punk (in their way) before the school of '76.

cuz really it seems to me (and where i would cry foul) that lots of people - excluding bangs and meltzer - got down with the cali sunshine elecktra/asylum singer-songwriter thing pretty darn quick for people who wished they still made them like they did in '67. rolling stone was all about carly and linda and james and CSNandsometimesY. the cocaine was flowing like a river. of cocaine.

Scott, I think people underestimate just how few and far between most of that Kraut-rock stuff was in the States until, say, well into the '80s or even '90s. I remember being in Germany in the early '80s, just figuring out on my own that it was a sort of genre. But it didn't even have a name yet, as far as I could tell -- I come up with some goofy ones for it in my metal book (Unidentifed Flying Rock!), which came out in 1991; never even heard the phrase "Kraut-rock" until once the book was out. So the stuff was more obscure than people remember. That said, Bangs obviously wrote about Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream; not sure whether he (or somebody at say CREEM) ever reviewed Amon Duul or Faust or anybody along those lines. I bet somebody did, but I also bet almost nobody noticed. Christgau wrote up a Can entry for the "Subjects For Future Research" appendix in the back of his '70s book, indicating that he found them at least potentially interesting ("next to Henry Cow.., art-rock's most genuinely avant-garde band"), but hadn't really figured them out yet. Some other critic might well have tipped them off to him, though.

On the other hand, I feel like Bangs at least mentioned Amon Duul once -- in his Godz piece maybe? (How many of those weirdo Kraut albums actually even got Stateside release at the time? Or did they mostly just sparsely cross the ocean as imports?)

you could get amon duul records in the states via united artists. there was some stuff that made it over here.

xpost Hmm, that's surprising to me. Given how much folks like Bowie and Eno were borrowing from that scene, and how much people liked (and wrote about) Bowie and Eno, you'd think someone would have been on the German beat. Were the non-Kraftwerk LPs simply literally harder to come by?

it makes perfect sense to me that 60's critics who had their minds blown by the rock of that time would have been bummed out by the major label entertainment rock of the 70's. and it explains why they fell for punk in such a big way. and in xgau's case, punk and rap. i don't begrudge their lack of love for sabbath or grand funk or any of that stuff.

Could you explain it? I've read a few explanations but have still never really understood it tbh. Prog and the artier end of hard rock seem like they follow pretty logically from the experimentation of Sgt Pepper or Hendrix, both of which were major label entertainment commodities. (It's not like Lou Reed or Jackson Browne were not major label artists either.) And a lot of punk seems more divorced from the roots of 60s rock than the hard rock that preceded it.

i think UA even released tago mago and some other stuff here. but, yeah, it was hard to find. but these guys wrote for RS and lots of other places. if they didn't have access to imports than nobody did.

So when a frequent and loquacious interview subject such as Eno name-dropped Neu!, the best you could do is shrug and say "huh."

?

(Actually, perhaps this belongs in a different thread, though I don't know which one, but when did the proto NYC hip-hop stuff start getting national distro? Or for that matter, when did west coast writers start covering it?)

What's really incredible about most of the reviews of prog and hard rock from the 70s is that the critics always seemed to trash the music for being prog or hard rock, not for failing to achieve its goals. It's almost the equivalent of reviewing 100 house tracks and complaining that they all have this repetitive 4x4 beat.

chuck, there was actually a Brain label sampler in the 70's called KRAUTROCK. think that was where it started.

If I remember right, Bangs does make disparaging comments about both Amon Duul II and Can in his 'How to Be a Rock Critic' piece. But I think xhuxk is right about most of it just somehow not being on the radar at all and "hadn't figured it out yet" probably extends to the lot of them. I don't even think the '70s U.S. punk zine people really wrote much wrote about krautrock.

and you most definitely could find a lot of island/harvest/vertigo stuff in the states at the time. tons of interesting records. and most of it wasn't written about at great length. but you CAN find a ton of joy of cooking reviews out there. no offense to joy of cooking.

greg shaw probably did more than anyone as far as bringing attention to lesser-known bands from afar pre-punk. on a label A&R level and on a magazine/fanzine level.

"So when a frequent and loquacious interview subject such as Eno name-dropped Neu!, the best you could do is shrug and say "huh."

the first neu! album got a stateside release. the only people who bought it lived in ohio.

"Could you explain it? I've read a few explanations but have still never really understood it tbh. Prog and the artier end of hard rock seem like they follow pretty logically from the experimentation of Sgt Pepper or Hendrix, both of which were major label entertainment commodities. (It's not like Lou Reed or Jackson Browne were not major label artists either.) And a lot of punk seems more divorced from the roots of 60s rock than the hard rock that preceded it."

rock had become empty artifice and ego and money. the exploratory nature of the 60's had died or become calcified. blah blah. and then punk reminded us how free and cool and exciting we could be. completely neglecting the fact that their was TONS of exciting stuff happening from 1970 to 1975. it just got ignored. in favor of, i don't know, poco. and i love poco! but, you know, they pretty much wrote about whatever they were fed via the labels. and people still do, but the internet has done away with that to some degree.

beasite boys - check your head

rock had become empty artifice and ego and money. the exploratory nature of the 60's had died or become calcified. blah blah. and then punk reminded us how free and cool and exciting we could be.

Yeah, that's the usual narrative from those critics. I just have trouble squaring it with the actual music they were writing about.

(for the reasons I gave upthread)

I don't know if you're joking about Ohio, Scott, but supposedly the Velvet Underground had a real following there too -- which would explain the Kraut/Velvets sounds carried over to '70s Akron/Cleveland bands like Rocket From the Tombs, Electric Eels, Devo, Bizarros, Mirrors, Styrenes, etc. (Wouldn't be surprised at all if Crocus Behemoth or Peter Laughner or one of those guys did some fanzine writing about some of the Kraut bands. But again, you're talking super underground rock crit, at that level.)

I've always assumed that a lot of the '70s rock crit dismissal of metal and prog was generational -- like, the industry is fooling those gullible kids out in mid-America. But not us smart sophisticated grownups here in New York, Boston, and L.A. (For '70s metal, usual biases against music that working class white people and middle class suburbanites listen to no doubt figured in as well. Rock criticism's still working on that one.)

Bangs obviously wrote about Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream; not sure whether he (or somebody at say CREEM) ever reviewed Amon Duul or Faust or anybody along those lines.

I remember a one-word review of Can's self-titled LP (I think it was in Creem) that said "Can't."

xp Still, I'm not sure why any music should be judged on whether it "achieves its goals." Why should that even matter? Music should be judged on what it does, not on what it tries to do (as if you can even tell). But that's a whole 'nother can of worms I don't feel like opening again.

a Q magazine Album Of The Year in 1990

http://image.kazaa.com/images/21/859523001021/World_Party/Goodbye_Jumbo/World_Party-Goodbye_Jumbo_3.jpg

I've always assumed that a lot of the '70s rock crit dismissal of metal and prog was generational -- like, the industry is fooling those gullible kids out in mid-America. But not us smart sophisticated grownups here in New York, Boston, and L.A. (For '70s metal, usual biases against music that working class white people and middle class suburbanites listen to no doubt figured in as well. Rock criticism's still working on that one.)

This makes a little more sense, like it was more a social/cultural issue than a musical one... "We thought this stuff was going to bring a revolution in the 60s and now it's not even trying anymore, it's just another mass produced corporate product for the passive suburban masses"?

Also, on that generational thing: Just about the only early '70s critic who did consistently support heavy metal (until it died in, like, 1974 or whenever) was Metal Mike Saunders, who was born in 1952 and started writing as a teenager and gave the genre its name in a Sir Lord Baltimore review. And I don't think he liked space-rock much. From The Heavy Metal Consumer Guide By Bobby Crisco ("This column was originally rejected by Popular Mechanics, @Nov. 1973"):

"Space Ritual," Hawkwind (UA)
One of the most respected critics around, Hot Scott Fischer of St. Louis, Missouri, tells me this is where the music of the future is headed. Hope you have fun on Venus, Scott. D minus.

-----

Maybe Scott Fischer liked Amon Duul, too.

Still, I'm not sure why any music should be judged on whether it "achieves its goals." Why should that even matter? Music should be judged on what it does, not on what it tries to do (as if you can even tell). But that's a whole 'nother can of worms I don't feel like opening again.

I think it is often possible to tell: Obviously, a major part of basic music theory, for example, has to do with analysing how certain kinds of patterns, e.g. chord progressions, work to produce certain effects (e.g. expectation, tension, resolution) in a given idiom. In the example I gave, if you review 100 house tracks and find that they all have a similar beat, there's probably a reason for it: The beat's probably doing something that the audience expects and appreciates. You could give them all failing grades for having that beat but that would probably end up saying more about you than about the individual tracks.

All criticism says as much about the critic as about the music.

Also, though, sund4r -- I'm going to disagree with what I wrote above here -- in the '70s, the music had changed. And if people are going to complain about critics then not liking Sabbath or Uriah Heep or Grand Funk or ELP or Rush, you can't ignore that lots of those same critics did like Aerosmith and the Dolls and Zeppelin and Mott The Hoople and Slade and Lynyrd Skynyrd (and sometimes Blue Oyster Cult and Thin Lizzy and Alice Cooper -- lots of which, to be fair, were listened to by middle-class mid-American white kids.) So it's not like critics as a whole were rejecting all hard rock or art rock. (They liked Roxy Music too, lots of them. And King Crimson.) Maybe they just liked the stuff that sounded more rock'n'roll to them. Which isn't a completely ridiculous aesthetic to have. Maybe they disliked Sabbath for the same reason that I dislike lots of metal now -- because they didn't hear any boogie or blues in it. (Which wouldn't explain Grand Funk, but still -- critics liked "American Band," I think.) Sabbath had an awesome groove, but it was also usually slow as fuck, and I totally get why critics who'd loved '60s rock would think the slowness made the music sound dead in the water. Sometimes they were even right.

working class white people and middle class suburbanites listen to no doubt

some; maybe most. but let's not make a gross generalization

That's a fair point about 70s music, xhuxk.

a Q magazine Album Of The Year in 1990

^^^album is awesome btw

I thought it was the British press that coined the term krautrock - and obviously tons of Britishers were onto it (Lennon/Ono, Bowie, Eno, Hawkwind). did the US just ignore all that because the records were hard to find over here?

yes, yes they did.

But given the success of "Autobahn," you'd think German rock would have at least been on the radar. Guess not.

It was just a blip -- a weird novelty hit that got to #25 on the pop chart, then went away. The success of "Hocus Pocus" and "Radar Love" didn't make American rock critics all that interested in Dutch rock either. And the success "Rock Me Amadeus," "99 Luftballons," "Da Da Da," "Major Tom (Coming Home)," and "Axel F" didn't even inspire any in-depth trend pieces that I'm aware of in the mid '80s. So it's not really that surprising.

By the way xhuxk, about Living Colour, I mixed up "Times Up" with the debut which you did list in Stairway To Hell but in the addendum said something about how you overrated it.

And "Time's Up" did make #5 in that year's Pazz & Jop:
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres90.php

So I am probably right, even if it's not your fault (it was in part mine though!)

yeah contrary - ironically - to the we're-gonna-burn-everything-down mythology of punk, i think a lot of older critics - who'd had their fill of acid-derived exploration by then - were big on punk cuz it was a return to chuck berry! which is a super simplified explanation of its appeal, but that roots of garage rock approach that punk had was refreshing for a lot of people who were sick of the bloat setting in with the big label acts. and things were already getting pretty bloated by the end of the 60's. and the hard to find stuff from germany and japan and south america - as amazing as it was and the early 70's is when those countries really got their rears in gear when it comes to acid rock and every other kind of rock - was probably just seen as an extension of the 60's stuff that they'd had enough of in some ways and if not disregarded then seen as more of the same in a way. stuff hendrix had been doing 5 years before. people can listen now and say: wow, that album by so and so from 1972 was ahead of its time! a critic back then might have thought, eh, another headphone headtrip album to nod out too. they had heard a LOT of the stuff. plus, in the states, you could trip out to mind-bogglingly great jazz and funk and soul records that were coming out every day, so, it's possible that krautrock or pastoral britpsych just seemed beside the point in a way. we can say now holy toledo faust were in a league of their own, but THEN you could turn on the radio and holy toledo sly stone and marvin gaye and a zillion other people are reinventing the universe! i can dig that. sly stone reinvented my world in the early 70's. he helped make me the person i am today. and faust didn't.

uh thats kinda garbled cuz i started that post like 2 hours ago and i've been talking to people about records for hours and i kinda lost track of where i was going...

Scott, I think people underestimate just how few and far between most of that Kraut-rock stuff was in the States until, say, well into the '80s or even '90s. I remember being in Germany in the early '80s, just figuring out on my own that it was a sort of genre. But it didn't even have a name yet, as far as I could tell -- I come up with some goofy ones for it in my metal book (Unidentifed Flying Rock!), which came out in 1991; never even heard the phrase "Kraut-rock" until once the book was out. So the stuff was more obscure than people remember. That said, Bangs obviously wrote about Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream; not sure whether he (or somebody at say CREEM) ever reviewed Amon Duul or Faust or anybody along those lines. I bet somebody did, but I also bet almost nobody noticed. Christgau wrote up a Can entry for the "Subjects For Future Research" appendix in the back of his '70s book, indicating that he found them at least potentially interesting ("next to Henry Cow.., art-rock's most genuinely avant-garde band"), but hadn't really figured them out yet. Some other critic might well have tipped them off to him, though.

interesting I was under the impression that Craig Bell and a few other Cleveland heads were heavily into the music at the time. Thought it was something I was reading in interviews with him a few years back.

Pinkerton is almost universally acclaimed now, but had decidedly mixed reviews when it came out.

I was under the impression that as much as The Ramones confused a lot of the public, that they were mostly loved by critics, a disproportionate number of which were based in NYC, because critics generally liked new and unique (with notable exceptions) and this (and the other NYC stuff) was happening in their backyard/playground.

I also think the UK punk went over well in the UK, partially for the same reasons and also because those tabloids seemed to love controversy as much as good music and the early punk stuff was certainly controversial at the time.

Warning: These are hypotheses only! I was not there and have not researched the Voice and Melody Maker back issues to test them.

X post to Scott.

Faust had an outsize influence in Britain/ Ireland thanks to Virgin putting out the Faust Tapes for 49p - back then, records were MUCH more expensive in terms of working hours needed to buy one than in the states, so a cheap record was a heap record, and it found its way into a lot of teenage bedrooms as a result - mine included. Back when I had about 20 LPs it was one of them.

yeah, i knew that about the cheap faust release, i love that story. in the states we had overstuffed cut-out bins of cheap reduced price records that didn't sell and this is where you could often find the odd and unloved of the 70's and the truly obscure as well.

I think opinion of a record will change when a pivital band makes note influence from something not so obvious.. No example comes to mind, but I'm sure its out there... lol!

Cleveland heads were heavily into the music at the time

Yeah, we've said that. Not sure how that contradicts anything else that's been said, though.

Danny Baker, who contributed to Sniffin' Glue before writing for the NME, always makes the point that for many UK musicheads in the 70s, punk was seen as a continuation of prog - ie they were both weird kinds of music that were outside the mainstream

Re Josh's comment about Eno and Bowie mentioning German bands in interviews: thing about that in the 70s, seems like, is that a comment in an interview had no real way of sticking around and reaching people. It came out in a mag, people read it, the mag went into the trash and another was on the way a month later. And there was no way of sharing what was in those mags with anyone but the people you actually saw every day. Compare that to now when a quote can be re-blogged until the end of time. People then who read airmailed copies of the NME or Melody Maker probably knew about it because it was covered regularly but I suspect that audience was small.

I do remember that, before punk, what most of the true music nerds in my high school (suburban Detroit, mid to late '70s) seemed to love was Zappa. And actually, the more I think of it, I'm pretty sure there was a guy who did reviews for my high school paper (not that I was paying close attention -- I was a baseball fan then, not a music fan) who did an article or two where he favorably mentioned Patrick Moraz, Jan Hammer, Popol Vuh, and Amon Duul (II I assume -- not their super experimental anarchist ancestors), which I'm sure would have been the first time I ever heard of any of those artists; later on, he formed a punk parody band for the student variety show called Luke Mucus And The Phlegm (of "I Want To Sniff Sheila Young's Bicycle Seat After A 20 Mile Ride" fame), and they later evolved into a new wave band called Luke Warm who got some actual gigs. Anyway, that must mean German art rock (even if in the U.S. it was just considered part of prog, not a separate "Kraut rock" genre) must have had some small cultish presence in the States, and that at least a couple copies of Amon Duul II LPs must have crossed over the state line from Ohio. But outside of very very briefly Kraftwerk (who had a #5 album and then never got higher than #119 in the '70s), none of it was making any kind of major dent. And critics -- who I don't get the idea ever even cared about Zappa much, after the initial few Mothers LPs -- were always real selective about what underground cult art rock acts they gave the time of day too. (Lots of them dug Beefheart, I guess, but at least he was obviously blues-based, right?) So again, I'm not shocked that they weren't keeping close tabs on this obviously esoteric, inaccessible, and very foreign stuff. (And I say that as a fan of lots of Kraut-rock, fwiw.)

amon duul and other stuff was for serious headz in the states. there were people who sought that stuff out for sure. i've seen enough brainy stoner record collections from that era to know that in amongst the prog and classic rock are usually some oddball euro freakfests as well.

and obviously prog fans in the 70's. hardcore u.s. prog fans bought lots of choice european psych and weirdness.

But outside of very very briefly Kraftwerk, none of it was making any kind of major dent.

Since I played keyboards in a rock band, I frequently used to read Keyboard magazine (or some such), and I recall Kraftwerk making the cover a couple of times in the late '70s and early '80s, which is how I first learned of them. My parents subscribed to magazines that catered to stereo geeks in the US like High Fidelity and Stereo Review, which also had lots of album reviews. Much of it was classical and jazz, but the popular music reviews leant towards arty stuff, prog, atmospheric music. My folks kept back issues all the way from the early '70s on the bookshelves, so I had plenty to read. There was breathless prose about how great Brian Eno was. I don't remember what they had to say about Kraftwerk, but I do remember they were at least reviewed. And lots of power-pop - Big Star they assured me was great. So was Fotomaker.

US radio in the late '70s played disco and mellow pop, with occasional hard rock if the singles charted high (there were album-rock stations I didn't listen to until high school, and one "progressive" - actually what would now be considered alternative - station that I occasionally listened to but didn't usually like, since I never recognized anything they played). But mostly is was top-40 pop. Every third song seemed to be the Bee Gees. Punk was just a curiousity, and at least the circles I inhabited was treated dirisively. The Sex Pistols may have topped the charts in the UK, but they didn't even make the top 100 in the US. I remember seeing a huge crowd queued up to see the Ramones who were playing at the college student union. Who were the Ramones? I never heard them on the radio....

Also, though, sund4r -- I'm going to disagree with what I wrote above here -- in the '70s, the music had changed. And if people are going to complain about critics then not liking Sabbath or Uriah Heep or Grand Funk or ELP or Rush, you can't ignore that lots of those same critics did like Aerosmith and the Dolls and Zeppelin and Mott The Hoople and Slade and Lynyrd Skynyrd (and sometimes Blue Oyster Cult and Thin Lizzy and Alice Cooper -- lots of which, to be fair, were listened to by middle-class mid-American white kids.) So it's not like critics as a whole were rejecting all hard rock or art rock. (They liked Roxy Music too, lots of them. And King Crimson.) Maybe they just liked the stuff that sounded more rock'n'roll to them. Which isn't a completely ridiculous aesthetic to have. Maybe they disliked Sabbath for the same reason that I dislike lots of metal now -- because they didn't hear any boogie or blues in it. (Which wouldn't explain Grand Funk, but still -- critics liked "American Band," I think.) Sabbath had an awesome groove, but it was also usually slow as fuck, and I totally get why critics who'd loved '60s rock would think the slowness made the music sound dead in the water. Sometimes they were even right.

Going back to this, I guess it's more just that, in general, even the best-liked hard rock and prog bands almost never seemed to get the sort of widespread acclaim that subtle singer-songwriters or garage punk rock bands got. As you noted, Aerosmith's ratings were only good compared to other hard rock bands'. They did better than AC/DC but those are still pretty middling ratings. Even the fourth Led Zeppelin album (the #1 album in your metal book!) only placed at #30 in the 1971 P&J poll, below Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. And that's after merging the critics' and readers' polls. So I do see a broad genre-based bias in journalistic/critical attitudes from that time. (To be fair, it is worth noting that the albums ahead of Led Zeppelin on that poll include Mahavishnu Orchestra, Procol Harum, and Jethro Tull. I still think there's something to what I'm saying though. None of them was ever going to beat Van Morrison, for instance.)

It is more nuanced than I might have originally suggested though.

Maybe it's that the newer and possibly weirder styles were more controversial and might have received both good and bad reviews whereas it was easier for most writers to see what was good about Joni Mitchell or Van Morrison? Hm, will think some more...

Pinkerton's reviews were generally quite favourable, some evidence (advisable to ignore allthingsweezer boardies' gushings of course):
http://allthingsweezer.com/bboard/index.php?topic=27844.msg698086#msg698086

Pavement, Wowee Zowee. I remember a 2 star review in Rolling Stone.

― kornrulez6969, Tuesday, March 8, 2011 4:18 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

seems pretty fair... out of ten

even the best-liked hard rock and prog bands almost never seemed to get the sort of widespread acclaim.... So I do see a broad genre-based bias in journalistic/critical attitudes from that time

I totally (well, probably 95%) agree with this, for what it's worth. Like, even though Lynyrd Skynyrd got pretty decent reviews, they never once placed in the Pazz & Jop poll. And Aerosmith didn't either, at least until Pump in the late '80s. Which is of course ridiculous.

On the other hand, it's worth mentioning that, as tin-eared as rock critics in the '70s could be, their taste still was still about 1000 times better than critics now, judging from Pazz & Jop results. So it's seems a bit odd to focus on how clueless they were back then.

I definitely heard way more hard rock on the radio in the late '70s than Lee626 did, but then I was living in Detroit, and mostly listening to AOR stations. Which were pretty great. But he's right about punk -- as far as the mass audience was concerned, it didn't exist, give or take features you might come across in Time magazine or whatever. (In that particular feature, one of the punks pictured in England was wearing a shirt that said "Black Betty Blam De Lam," so I figured punk must sound like that Ram Jam song. I also remember reading about how the Ramones wore leather jackets and were into old rock'n'roll, and I associated them in my head with Fonzie and Sha Na Na. And I used to get the Sex Pistols mixed up with Love Gun by Kiss, since the names were so similar.) I don't think any real "punk rock" (as opposed to new wave) songs got played even on AOR stations in Detroit until the Clash's "I Fought The Law" in 1979, which was of course a '60s garage cover; the next one that got played regularly on I believe all three AORs (WWWW, WRIF, WABX) late that year, bizarrely, was "Homicide" by 999 -- not sure whether Detroit was unique in that or not. (They never had an album chart higher than #172 in the States.) There was also a song around then called "Punk Rock Christmas" by the Ravers, from Colorado apparently, but that was obviously just a novelty. No Ramones ever, no Pistols. And this was Detroit, where you could still hear the Stooges and MC5 on occasion -- I even heard the Dolls played once or twice.

Also hear what Lee626 is saying about Kraftwerk and keyboard magazines. They did have some audience here. My wife, for instance, grew up hearing them early in the morning on the way to camping trips with her dad, who loved them, and was also into new-age-leaning pre-eletronica stuff like Vangelis. But that was mostly the early '80s, I think; he also liked Yello and Gazebo -- was apparently introduced to all that Euro synth stuff by a fishing buddy or somebody. In Texas. Otherwise, his tastes run more toward Don Williams and Merle Haggard -- figure that!

Even the fourth Led Zeppelin album only placed at #30 in the 1971 P&J poll, below Commander Cody...the albums ahead of Led Zeppelin on that poll include Mahavishnu Orchestra, Procol Harum, and Jethro Tull.

I wouldn't put too much credence in that 1971 poll, though. It's sort of not even a "real" Pazz & Jop poll, since only 39 critics voted, and, as you noticed, 55 readers were also allowed to vote, and contribute to the ultimate tally. There wasn't another poll until three years later, 1974. And the question of whether to count that first one was always iffy -- explaining why, say, in 1986, Christgau would refer to it now being the "13th or 14th Annual Pazz & Jop Critics Poll" in his essay. That was sort of a running joke; later, the Voice management nixed i

blimey, that Voice management nix power is Strong!

But didn't Who's Next top the "first" P&J poll? Hard rock, that.

Yeah, and the Stones' Sticky Fingers finished second. But those were '60s bands!

No Ramones ever, no Pistols.

Actually, this might not be exactly right, if you count the specialty new wave shows that one or two of those AOR stations aired during the mandated public-service radio ghetto of Sunday nights. (I even heard something off Prince's Dirty Mind on one of those once, in 1980 or '81.) But the Ramones and Pistols at least never got played in the regular rotation, during weekdays (like those Clash and 999 songs did.)

If baby boomer critics had a bias against prog, that bias surely got even bigger with the punk generation critics, no?

Even the fourth Led Zeppelin album only placed at #30 in the 1971 P&J poll, below Commander Cody...the albums ahead of Led Zeppelin on that poll include Mahavishnu Orchestra, Procol Harum, and Jethro Tull

^to repeat what I said above, this is a just result, at least as far as the Mahavishnu Orchestra album vs. Zep IV goes.

I definitely heard way more hard rock on the radio in the late '70s than Lee626 did, but then I was living in Detroit, and mostly listening to AOR stations.

That's what I was trying to convey - alot of hard rock/metal was *only* on AOR stations. If you listened to typical pop radio in '70s US, you probably had never heard "Stairway to Heaven". I never heard Sabbath on top-40 radio. You'd occasionally hear Van Halen or Ted Nugent or Aerosmith, but that stuff was mostly the domain of AOR radio.

As for punk, I frequently have to convince teens nowadays that almost nobody in late-'70s US had even heard of the Buzzcocks or Television or the Clash. You'd be amazed at how many kids think this is the music that was blaring in high school parking lots in 1978. Vintage punk is far more popular in the US now than when it was made.

I never heard Sabbath on top-40 radio

By the late '70s, at least, they actually didn't get played much on rock stations, either! At least in Detroit. You'd maybe hear "Iron Man" or "Paranoid" once in a while, very late at night, but that was it. (First time I heard them, I swear I got scared!) Of course, that may have been different in the early '70s, when stations were more free-form, before consultants reined things in. I was too young then to listen.

I kind of get the idea that Sabbath was really losing their audience by the late '70s, anyway. They'd had one Top 10 and three more top 20 albums between 1971 and 1974, but Technical Ecstasy in 1976 peaked at #51, then Never Say Die! in 1978 way down at #69. So maybe the rock stations just thought they were old news by then! It wasn't til the early '80s, with Heaven And Hell and Mob Rules, that they started to see a brief upswing again.

a pompous snub which nowadays ironically translates as a pretty great endorsement imo

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/paranoid-19710415

Yeah, and the Stones' Sticky Fingers finished second. But those were '60s bands!

Sure, but there was massive audience overlap between the Who and Zeppelin (less so between the Stones & Zep, I'm guessing). Critical overlap, ok, not so much.

that tosches review rules. and it basically outdoes anything i've ever written about music in one shot. i'm hanging up my fountain pen.

except i think its a black widow review? cuz kip trevor was the singer for black widow. someone at rolling stone should get on that.

Probably a joint review; for some reason, the RS website doesn't bring up both records that are reviewed when you search for one.

I was wondering about that myself, but I became so transfixed by the review, I almost didn't care.

wiki entry on Born Again:

The album was released in October 1983[1] and was a commercial success. It was the highest-charting Black Sabbath album in the United Kingdom since Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and became an American Top 40 hit.[16] Despite this, it became the first Black Sabbath album to not have any RIAA certification in the US.

The album received negative reviews upon its release.[17] Allmusic's Eduardo Rivadavia gave the album one and a half out of five stars and wrote that the album has "gone down as one of heavy metal's all-time greatest disappointments". He also described such songs as "Zero the Hero", "Hot Line", and "Keep It Warm" as "embarrassing".[1] Blender contributor Ben Mitchell gave the album one out of five stars and claimed that the music on Born Again was worse than its cover.[12] Martin Charles Strong, the author of The Essential Rock Discography, wrote that it was "an exercise in heavy-metal cliche".[18] However, Scott Seward of Rolling Stone gave Born Again three out of five stars and described the album as a "monstrous beast and one of the best Sabbath albums that hardly anyone has heard."[15] Popmatters contributor Adrien Begrand has noted the album as "overlooked".[17]

Author Martin Popoff has written that "if any album in the history of Black Sabbath is getting a new set of horns up from metalheads here deep into the new century, it's Born Again."[5]

Allmusic and Blender? In 1983?? (Somebody should edit the first sentence of that second graph; I don't think any of those reviews listed were "upon its release.")

haha! nope! that would take some "digging" to get era-appropriate reviews. just noting the shift on the wiki page from "embarrassment" to "overlooked".

I wouldn't put too much credence in that 1971 poll, though.

Yeah, actually, the biases become much more evident when you look at the 'real' polls. The top 10 placing for Agents of Fortune in 1976 is kind of amazing though! Patti Smith and Meltzer connections, I'm guessing?

http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres74.php
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres75.php
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres76.php

On the other hand, it's worth mentioning that, as tin-eared as rock critics in the '70s could be, their taste still was still about 1000 times better than critics now, judging from Pazz & Jop results. So it's seems a bit odd to focus on how clueless they were back then.

I don't know how to judge better taste per se but I do feel that it's easier to understand where 70s critics were coming from and what they were looking for and thus, to appreciate why some albums got better reviews than others. With respect to the writers here, current Pazz & Jop lists feel pretty random to me, probably as a function of how much more diverse the music has become and how many more writers participate. (How is someone supposed to evaluate Flying Lotus vs Taylor Swift vs Agalloch?) I don't mean that this means critics' tastes are worse though! If anything, they are probably more broad-minded.

This is one reason why I am focusing more on older critics. But it's mainly because the thread is about albums of which the critical opinion has changed over time!

"I don't think that this means..."

it's easier to understand where 70s critics were coming from and what they were looking for and thus, to appreciate why some albums got better reviews than others.

(The fact that there do seem to be clear, often genre-based, criteria is what I'm talking about and questioning, I guess. Btw, this could work in reverse. You could probably search for great prog records by looking for the words "pretentious" and "self-indulgent" in those old RS guides.:P)

I'm not necessarily convinced that music is more diverse now than it was in the '70s, though it's possible the scope of music covered by critics is. (As I've written before, though, the scope of music that finishes toward the top of the Pazz & Jop poll results, especially when you take singles balloting into account, seems to be becoming less and less diverse as time goes on -- Though at least 2010 was an improvement over 2009's all-time low.)

Anyway, speaking of 1983, I've got another serious nomination for this thread, maybe even up there with Sabbath: The first Madonna album. (Maybe the first two -- how much do people like Like A Virgin these days, anyway?) I don't have any old reviews handy, but if my memory's right, with very rare exceptions -- Dave Marsh and Barry Walters, at least -- critics mostly despised Madonna when she first came out.

How is someone supposed to evaluate Flying Lotus vs Taylor Swift vs Agalloch?

Easy: By how much they like the records.

i don't remember the madonna hate early on. and i was an early madonna adopter. only heard her on the local college station inbetween the cure and depeche mode before her first album came out. thought she had some built-in nyc street cred what with the jellybean connection and all.

in the 80's i kinda took it for granted that rolling stone was gonna hate everything that i loved.

The top 10 placing for Agents of Fortune in 1976 is kind of amazing though! Patti Smith and Meltzer connections, I'm guessing?

^Hopefully because it's a great LP!

A big hit single (a great one, with enough Byrds in it for the '60s oldsters) probably helped, too.

Anyway, speaking of 1983, I've got another serious nomination for this thread, maybe even up there with Sabbath: The first Madonna album. (Maybe the first two -- how much do people like Like A Virgin these days, anyway?) I don't have any old reviews handy, but if my memory's right, with very rare exceptions -- Dave Marsh and Barry Walters, at least -- critics mostly despised Madonna when she first came out.

Whenever critics review her entire catalogue (which happens from time to time when she is on tour etc) the first album still tends to score rather lowly. The fact that it sounds very much of its time (lots of drum machines, brass synth, very typically 1983 sounding) makes it an aquire taste and it may not appeal so much to other generations than us who grew up with that sound.

"Like a Virgin" may be a better example though. The "Like a Virgin" is seen today as quite good by a lot of critics, but they still tended to hate all things Madonna at the time. It wasn't until around the "Papa Don't Preach" single and "True Blue" albums that she was becoming critically revalued.

"Into The Groove" placed #11 on the P&J singles poll (the year before "Papa Don't Preach" placed at #20), but yeah the other pre-Like A Virgin singles and albums got very little recognition.

im curious about how the critical response to Prince shifted over time, anyone have an idea?

3 and a half stars for like a virgin in rolling stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/like-a-virgin-19850117

positive review of the debut:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/madonna-19830929

was rolling stone in the 'review everything w/ 3-3.5 stars' zone yet then tho

From Christgau's 1984 P&J essay (though he's talking about the single here, not the album):

Read what you will into the burlesque escapism of "Ghostbusters" or the pathological deceit of "Like a Virgin (or the pulp-fascist sadism of Shout at the Devil) I trust that most Voice readers, if not most New Republic readers, still prefer rock and roll's hegemony to the president's...

For me the taste treats were John Waite's "Missing You" (the most unequivocal such commodity to chart, though the loathsome "Like a Virgin" came damn close) and the Romantics' "Talking in Your Sleep" and especially the Thompson Twins' "Hold Me Now."

Also, same year:

give thanks that neither Madonna album snuck into the top 100

I'm actually quite impressed with those Pass & Jop polls. There are a handful of albums that would likely rate lower or higher in a modern critic's poll of those years, but most of those records are still considered prime today, and hardly any make me roll my eyes and wonder "what were they thinking?". Several mentions of bands that are too often undeservedly overlooked nowadays - (Detroit) Spinners, Dwight Twilley Band, Amazing Rhythm Aces, etc. - and a few favorites of the masses that I didn't expect to show up on a critic's list (Rod Stewart would soon fall off the rock-crit radar, but I thought he already had from Smiler onwards).

It's a good enough representation of the best music of the era that I find myself wanting to check out the few I've never heard of (The Wild Tchoupitoulas?). I've heard good things about the James Talley and Andy Pratt albums cited and keep meaning to download a few samples. Maybe tonight...

As for Madonna, I think her first album is a decent example of dance-pop circa 1983, but she hadn't really found her sound yet; it's good but generic, and Madonna at her best was anything but generic.

Pazz

ray of light got 4 stars. they liked true blue a lot. like a prayer got 3 and a half stars. bedtime stories got 3 and a half stars. pretty consistent from the debut to bedtime stories.

I think Madonna's debut album is easily the best album she ever made. (But then, maybe I prefer her generic -- or at least prefer the genre she was generic too. But I also think that album had more of her best songs than any later album did.)

neither Madonna album snuck into the top 100

In other words, she did a lot worse in 1984 than, say, Ke$ha this year.

yeah, i was such a big fan of the madonna singles that came out prior to the debut album, so i will probably always like her first album best, but i like everything up to and including ray of light. um, except for the dick tracy thing.

Wild Tchoupitoulas album is awesome; wish I still owned a copy. James Talley (which I have on CD) is duller (and way less Western Swing) than its rep suggests, but I like it okay. Never got what was supposed to be interesting about Andy Pratt.

andy pratt i've heard falls flat. splat!

how the critical response to Prince shifted over time, anyone have an idea?

Critics ignored his first two albums (including his second, which is great); loved him starting with Dirty Mind, and I'd say guaranteed support started dropping off after Sign O' The Times (which won Pazz & Jop) or maybe Lovesexy. (Though maybe that's just when I started losing interest myself; feel like he's had a couple fairly respectable Pazz & Jop finishes since, but I couldn't tell you which albums even if you held a gun to my head.)

i bought 1999 the day it came out cuz of a review i read at the time. probably rolling stone. but, yeah, the bandwagon had formed before that.

Okay, just took a wild guess and looked up Graffiti Bridge in 1990 -- That actually finished Top 10. I'm not looking up any more, though.

dirty mind was definitely the first i knew of prince. saw the album, read about it, don't know if i heard it though at the time. maybe. after i bought 1999 i would look at the other previous albums in the stores but i think i chickened out and didn't buy them. until after purple rain. then i probably bought them all used.

andy pratt i've heard falls flat. splat!

― scott seward, Friday, March 11, 2011 2:30 PM

Ah, so we've found an album who's critical rep has cratered!

Rolling Stone in 1976: Resolution "has forever changed the face of rock."

But Allmusic still calls it "a classic that deserves to be heard by a wide audience" and gives it 4 1/2 stars and an album pick checkmark. Although they acknowledge that it's a bit far-fetched to claim Andy Pratt changed the face of rock forever.

oh but you know its posssible i didn't hear the one that everyone loves. maybe i heard a later more dudly one.

in fact i'm pretty sure i've only heard the stuff he did for the mostly dudly nemperor label.

dirty mind was definitely the first i knew of prince

I actually learned about him a few months before then, when my new wave friend Sharon had seen him do "I Wanna Be Your Lover" on some TV show, and was imitating his high notes and talking about how weird he was. And I was thinking, "What? Isn't he just some dumb disco singer?" Duh...

in fact i'm pretty sure i've only heard the stuff he did for the mostly dudly nemperor label.

Resolution was on Nemperor. So were Steve Forbert's first four albums (two classics followed by two duds). The Romantics and Stanley Clarke were also on Nemperor, so they had at least some non-dud discography.

yeah, i like the romantics stuff on nemperor. and the lenny white album. and the tommy bolin stuff. don't really need the stanley clarke or jan hammer stuff. not a big fan of 4 out of 5 doctors or the andy pratt stuff.

don't think i've ever listened to a steve forbert album all the way through.

i've never had much of a need for steve forbert or marshall crenshaw. though i liked their one hits. speaking of great white rolling stones heroes who hardly anyone listens to anymore.

speaking of which, other than the first 2 or 3, i can't give away elvis costello records in my store. i would have to pay people to take them. and i can't sell any joe jackson. even for a dollar. this might be specific to where i am, i dunno.

on the other hand, talking heads remarkably resilient sellers. and i sell them to all age groups.

plus, troo elvis and joe fans tend to be older and have everything on cd. not looking for vinyl. so there is that.

Marshall Crenshaw's first three albums (and a preceding non-album single) all mostly strong IMO. Forbert was a victim of having "New Dylan" expectations bestowed upon him, which none of the many artists that've been thus labelled could possibly be. Not even Jakob.

I have never even heard of this Forbert guy

The Steve Forbert Game

where were the critics on, like, jam & lewis, 'control' by janet, sos band etc during the 80s?

Most of the critics I read thought they were stone-cold geniuses, but then again most of what I was reading was MN press

can't give away elvis costello records in my store. i would have to pay people to take them.

^you would certainly have to pay me big to take one.

lol I know the guy that wrote that Steve Forbert Game wow

Control placed 11th in 1986. SOS Band never did much in Pazz & Jop, I don't think (maybe a single or two placing, at most, but probably not even that), though they seemed to be reviewed positively, when they were reviewed at all.

l I know the guy that wrote that Steve Forbert Game wow

Don't recognize his name, but if he started it in a bar in Bethesda, Maryland, I may well have crossed paths with him. I used to live in Bethesda, and crawled most of the pubs there.

I have no idea. He used to write for the SF Weekly.

Ha, at least this thread has got me to pull out Sgt Pepper again after forever. I love it! I might be the one holdout who ranks it highest. At least I am right now.

bought 12 boxes of records at auction last night and they came with 3 boxes of music books. price guides and other stuff. 70's, 80's, and 90's consumer guide books and the 2 volumes in paperback of the 1971 rolling stone record review from 1971. so i'm gonna dig through those for some choice metal mike and bangs reviews. also in one box were some 1970 and 1972 ccpies of The American Record Guide magazine. mostly classical, but they had a rock column written by leslie and kenneth gerber called "In The Pop Bag". their review of e pluribus funk by grand funk includes the choice line: "I still doubt that it will appeal to any listener with a musical IQ above the idiot level." they did note that it sounded like Mark Farner had been taking guitar lessons though.

I can't be bothered to read this whole thread, but if I remember correctly, Paul's Boutique was met with blank stares, open mouths and incredulous consternation by critics upon its first arrival.

^Not true. Rolling Stone gave it a four-star review; John Leland in Spin in a glowing review said it was better than License to Ill; Christgau in the Village Voice called it a tour-de-force and gave it an A.

Also finished #12 P&J; critics were all over Paul's, it just didn't sell well.

I know most mainstream press for OK Computer was positive, but my local paper wrote a very "amirite" review that gave it two and a half stars, chastizing Radiohead for "stooping as low to include electronic blips and bloops"

I'm not necessarily convinced that music is more diverse now than it was in the '70s, though it's possible the scope of music covered by critics is.

Music probably isn't but I definitely think that the range of music covered by English-speaking pop music journalists has broadened, especially considering how many publications there are now that cover particular niche markets.

the scope of music that finishes toward the top of the Pazz & Jop poll results, especially when you take singles balloting into account, seems to be becoming less and less diverse as time goes on

It's hard to measure eclecticism but this isn't obvious to me. The 2010 top 20 includes an album featuring mostly instrumental electronic music with less emphasis on traditional song structures (Flying Lotus), an idiosyncratic harp player adding tambura and harpsichord to some of her arrangements, electronic Swedish pop music, chart country, and noise-rock as well as hip-hop and more traditional g/b/v/d pop-rock. From a cultural point of view, there seem to be more albums that were not on major labels or that did not produce radio singles, for example.

more albums that were not on major labels or that did not produce radio singles

Well, that's more a change in the industry than a change in critics, I'd say. But yeah, indie labels have probably been increasing their Pazz & Jop market share all along, starting with those first Brains and Pylon singles way back in the early '80s. (Well, there were probably some before then, actually.) I'd say the increase in indieness has been mostly to Pazz & Jop's detriment, oddly enough. (And the lack of radio hits among high-ranking Pazz & Jop singles lately has definitely been to Pazz & Jop's detriment.) But I don't want to turn this into a Pazz & Jop thread, and these issues have already been discussed to death on plenty of those.

(And of course it's not indie labels per se', but rather what I hear as the limited nature of the sorts of indie music that scores in Pazz & Jop, that I take issue with. Though I get that you disagree with me on the latter.)

But I don't want to turn this into a Pazz & Jop thread, and these issues have already been discussed to death on plenty of those.

Sure, np.

xhuxk, do you still stand by your two-star review of Depeche Mode's "Violator" in RS?

(BTW, "Violator" was my suggestion for the thread, I had no idea you reviewed it for RS until five minutes ago)

Is that critically lauded now? Christgau gave it a C-.

I just wanna stop in and say that this thread has been really interesting, good work everybody. Especially fascinating to read about back-in-the-day reviews and rankings. I have a bunch of early 90's Rolling Stones in the basement, I should look through them for stuff that fits here.

I've read a bunch of reviews (including the one currently on AllMusic) of the Pretty Things' Parachute that mention how it was voted 1970 Album Of The Year in Rolling Stone. Except it wasn't. I just read that issue's (2/4/71) year-end roundup, and the Pretty Things aren't mentioned at all.

Does it count if the critical opinion that changed over time didn't happen in the first place?

Afghan Whigs - Black Love

do you still stand by your two-star review of Depeche Mode's "Violator"

Doubt I've listened to it since, tbh. I've got a best-of CD by them called The Singles 81-85 and 45 of "I Feel You," and that's always seemed about sufficient for my purposes. And right, if Violator has picked up an especially favorable critical rep over the years, I never noticed. (That RS review was part of a latter-day techno-pop roundup, right? I still kind of like the Beloved's Happiness, which I believe I gave the most positive writeup and score to in that one.)

If I recall correctly, NME said Paul's Boutique could be the Sgt. Pepper's of rap, if only 3 Feet High and Rising hadn't just claimed that title.

3 Feet High and Rising is more like The Who Sell Out

Paul's wasn't critically ignored, but the masses didn't like it as much as LTI. I remember guys from my middle school crew dissing it for all the 70s stuff.

Beck - Odelay

And right, if Violator has picked up an especially favorable critical rep over the years, I never noticed.

Yeah, it isn't exactly a DM review, but rather a review roundup that included New Order, ABC, and the Beloved, but your review and rating is what comes up when you search RS for "Violator". But RS rates it highly now -- it made RS' list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (in 2003) and was on their list of the Top 100 Albums of the 90's (in 2010).

And it got a 5-star review on allmusic! (three guesses who wrote it)

Moby's Play doesn't seem to elicit any great passion anymore. It feels more like a precursor to lol-mashups than the kind of insightful cross-genre affinities people heard at the time.

Oooh, Play's a good one. I remember Spin doing their "Best of the 90s" issue in the summer of '99. IIRC, Play and Prince Paul's A Prince Amongst Thieves* were the only albums from 1999 on the list.

*Speaking of this thread, how highly is Prince Paul rated these days? That album and The Handsome Boy Modeling School lp got him serious ink at the time.

Now thinking back over other "End of The 90s" lists, I remember Alternative Press doing theirs in (lol) late '98. They had Hole's Celebrity Skin ranked at like #16 (out of 90) and it had only been out a month or so when the mag hit the stands.

"Destroyer" is now considered the one Kiss album that it is OK to like. I am pretty sure the critics hated it just as much as they did all other Kiss albums back in 1976 though.

And it got a 5-star review on allmusic! (three guesses who wrote it)

5 stars at AMG usually means "this particular act at its very best" rather than "music at its very best" though.

First edition of Rolling Stone Record Guide, 1978, Destroyer was the only Kiss album to get four stars. All the other regular studio releases got two or less. So it's possibly always been the critics' favorite among their albums.

Christgau didn't like it, though, called it "their least interesting record," said "Ezrin adds only bombast and melodrama," gave it the lowest grade (a C+) of the four Kiss albums he rated in the '70s. (He skipped the debut, by far their best as far as I'm concerned.) So actually, I have no real idea what the overall crit consensus was, if there even was one.

Going from "(possibly but he's not sure) hated" to "OK to like" is not exactly an earth-shattering shift in critical opinon

Speaking of not exactly an earth-shattering shifts in critical opinion, "Faust IV" has gone from "slightly disappointing follow-up to groundbreaking earlier albums" to "ILM's favourite Faust album"

Moby's Play doesn't seem to elicit any great passion anymore. It feels more like a precursor to lol-mashups than the kind of insightful cross-genre affinities people heard at the time.

― bendy, Thursday, March 24, 2011 7:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I still love this album. I think part of the reason that its fallen out of favor a little is because the songs were just EVERYWHERE--movies, ads, etc--between 1999-2001, which really anchors the album to a time period

Yeah, I liked it at the time, but I've not felt the need to ever hear it again because of the overexposure.

Going from "(possibly but he's not sure) hated" to "OK to like" is not exactly an earth-shattering shift in critical opinon

"Destroyer" is often seen as a good album though. Except by those who have decided to hate anything by Kiss because it is by a cartoon band.

revisit play, its a winner

I remember when Daft Punk's Discovery first came out, the general critic population was fairly "meh" towards it.

Play is one of the few albums that very vividly brings back the memories of where I was/what I was like when I first listened to it. It's one of those albums that seems to exist in a very specific point in time and sounds a little strange outside of it. A good part of it is the overexposure but I think there was just something about that sound that just felt like a one-off movement. Maybe my brain's screwed up.

As I recall, the critics loved Fatboy Slim too, but I don't think many of them would admit their love for You've Come a Long Way, Baby anymore

There is also a category of albums who are at first almost universally praised as masterpieces, then experience a very obvious critical backclash, but then in a few decades retrospect enough critics tend to admit that, yes, it was a good album even though maybe not the historical masterpiece it was originally thought to be. Examples of this I feel may be albums like "Born In The USA" and "Brothers In Arms".

(Of course "Born In The USA" and "Brothers In Arms" may also touch the overexposure discussion here)

Where was Brothers In Arms originally considered a "historical masterpiece"?? (Not being sarcastic -- maybe in the U.K. or the rest of Europe, it was. In the U.S., despite it topping the album chart for several weeks, critics really didn't have very much use for it.)

Daft Punk Discovery did pretty well in Pazz & Jop the year it came out, fwiw -- finished 25th.

yeah brothers in arms was definitely the people's choice when it came out.

making movies was a critic fave though, no? and it should have been cuz the first side rules school.

i get teenagers and college kids looking for springsteen all the time in my store. don't think i've ever sold a dire straits album to any of them. not even for a dollar. (most of their albums are a dollar in my store.)

Play is such a weird little album and it's still pretty great.

Brothers was also the choice of insufferable stereo salesmen trying to show off the fidelity of their gear using this fantastic new "Compact Disc" technology. Cannot count the number of times I heard that thing blasting at full volume for just that purpose.

Brothers In Arms is a total classic y'all

making movies was a critic fave though, no? and it should have been cuz the first side rules school.

Pretty much everything before Brothers was raved about, and yeah, justifiably so. Brothers wasn't exactly slammed (and most critics seemed to dig "Money For Nothing"), but was met with a resounding "meh." Seeing it on the charts with BITUSA, Thriller, and Purple Rain was definitely a "one of these things is not like the other" scene.

making movies was a critic fave though, no?

Yeah, that was by far Dire Straits' biggest critic album in the States -- #18 Pazz & Jop, the only time they placed, I think. (Debut finished #42 in 1978, according to Xgau's essay that year. "Money For Nothing" was #12 single in 1985, though.)

i saw dire straits on that tour. i fell asleep cuz i was so stoned. they played for six hours, i think. sounded great though until i nodded out.

Brothers in Arms is still one of my favorite albums production-wise. If nothing else the Straits really worked hard to achieve a clean, sterile sound, not unlike (say) Kraftwerk. That said I don't know if it was really appropriate for the music but I dug it.

I love "Brothers In Arms". Of course, by that album they were quickly turning into Chris Rea, so I can understand those who enjoyed the early albums may have been a tad bit disappointed ;)

Italo surely qualifies - Valerie Dore, Ken Laszlo, Laserdance, Savage, Modern Talking, Koto. Detroit made them respectable retroactively, but I remember critics didn't take them seriously at all. How many italo records were in the P&J lists back then?

anybody who brings up laserdance is okay with me.

italo sure. tons of early 80's dance was completely ignored for the most part. by critics.

tons of early 80's r&b STILL ignored by critics to this very day.

Well then critical opinion hasn't changed there.

How many italo records were in the P&J lists back then?

Exactly as many as now? (Okay, I'm not even sure Italo exists anymore, so that's probably a moot point. Still don't think the vast majority of music critics care about it one way or another, though. Fwiw, I actually did a lead Italo-disco piece in the Voice in early 1988, but I'm weird. And Black Box's "Everybody Everybody" placed #6 in the P&J singles balloting in 1990, if Italo-house counts.)

Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day

The album was initially released in 1970 but was a commercial failure and Bunyan retired from music for many years.

It went from zero critical reception/ignorance to folk classic after the re-release.

In the case of Italo it is at least acknowledged as an important influence on a lot of critically renowned dance/electronica, but I am not sure if the actual sources are actually that rehabilitated by the critics. It is considered kind of camp, really.

tons of early 80's r&b STILL ignored by critics to this very day.

A large dose of early 80's r&B has never been available on CD other than "Greatest Hits" compilations. Makes it hard to be revalued by critics, as critics have always tended to be albums oriented rather than singles oriented.

i cant go five minutes without some critic saying how good Ken Laszlo is

Well Sally Shapiro is 100% italo and her records were/are pretty well received. Same with the whole Bunker/Clone/CBS/Legowelt/I-F/Rude 66/etc scene.

i cant go five minutes without some critic saying how good the Legowelt scene is

And it's pretty hard to find music critics today who really hate italo, as opposed to the mid 80s where poppy italo disco was probably the least respectable music around,

Now, remember that, surely, Italo is an important influence on a lot of rather respectable slightly camp dance/electro stuff today (the Norwegian scene with Lindstrøm/Diskjokke etc. for instance), but - mind you - in the 90s it was also a very important influence on Eurodance...

This five minutes criterion pretty much disqualifies everything mentioned on this thread anyway.

And suggesting that Legowelt's italo/electro-revival was not critically well-received...wtf?

Reading Decibel 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces has alerted me to the fact that apparently Transylvanian Hunger was pretty roundly dismissed when it was released.

Yes and so were Satanic Rites, Apocalyptic Raids, In The Sign Of Evil and Deathcrush.

Most extreme metal was very badly received in the metal press throughout roughly 85-94 - the big mag editors were all NWOBHM fans.

it's pretty hard to find music critics today who really hate italo have any idea that any such thing as italo existed, as opposed to the mid 80s where poppy italo disco was probably the least respectable music around when it was pretty hard to find music critics who had any idea that any such thing as italo existed.

Of course, that's the U.S. I'm talking about. (I assume that, if there are critics in Italy, they've long been vaguely aware of Italo disco.) But the U.S. should be fair game, since Siegbran did mention Italo's '80s absence from Pazz & Jop up above. (Did Sally Shapiro's album get many Pazz & Jop votes? I'm not sure; but she sure didn't place in the overall results. And those other names Siegbran mentioned are all new to me.)

Fwiw, I'm pretty sure NWOBHM never got paid a whole lot of attention to in the States back then, either. (Definitely not as much as Metallica or Slayer, if those count as "extreme.")

I mean, I do agree that probably more U.S. critics know about Italo disco now than did in the '80s, but I'd assume that has more to do with critics specializing in the electronic dance music in general being way more common now than they were back then, even if they still make up only a mere minor fraction of critics overall. (Only U.S. critic I'm aware of who wrote a lot about Italo back in the '80s was Michael Freedberg, in the Boston Phoenix. He's who learned about it from. Everybody else was pretty much oblivious.)

Actually, Annie -- who at least landed a couple singles in the Pazz & Jop results in the mid '00s, and who I assume was at least somewhat Italo-inspired -- might make for a better argument than Sally Shapiro. But I'm still not sure how versed most Annie voters would've been in old Baby's Gang or Scotch or Max-Him or Fun Fun singles.

"Fwiw, I'm pretty sure NWOBHM never got paid a whole lot of attention to in the States back then, either."

Maybe in the mainstream press, but in the metal press it got plenty of attention.

Although by the nineties I guess most of the attention was probably directed at grunge-metal, alt-metal stuff (didn't read many metal mags by that point-but certainly through the 80s they still had time NWOBHM stuff.)

What was the U.S. metal press in the '80s, beyond say Circus, Hit Parader, Creem Metal (which I wrote for) and (later in the '80s) RIP? Or are those the magazines you're referring to? Didn't most of those just basically concentrate on whatever was selling, or on MTV? So what NWHOBHM did they really care about, beyond say Def Leppard and Iron Maiden? Not arguing; I just didn't look at them all that much, especially early in the '80s, so I'm curious. (I don't even get the idea that Kerrang, say, was all that easy to find in the U.S.)

Re: italo I'm obv talking from a Euro perspective where it was pretty hard to miss italo with an acts like Modern Talking selling 50+ million records and it being the default mainstream club music. Like trance ten years ago, really.

...With acts like...

Most extreme metal was very badly received in the metal press throughout roughly 85-94

Most metal, extreme or not, was very badly received in the music press in general until around 10 years ago.

Metal Edge? Metal Something Something? I was pretty young at the time, but I feel like Leppard and Maiden and even Motorhead, Venom, Priest, etc, were still getting a bit of attention through the 80s although I guess post-86-87 that might have dimmed a bit. Didn't feel like until the rise of hair metal anyway that metal mags were too influenced by MTV (since it's not like outside of Leppard metal bands got much MTV play anyway prior to that.)

Do Ratt, Quiet Riot, Twister Sister count as hair metal? (I guess so -- 1984 must be the dividing line. And I'm not sure how often Van Halen or AC/DC were on MTV before then.)

Motorhead, Venom, Priest

These make sense -- or least Motorhead and Priest do -- though I always think of them (especially Priest) as having been around too long to count as NWOBHM, and Motorhead being too pub rock or punk rock or something, and Venom more being the beginning of "extreme"/speed/thrash-etc metal. Guess it depends where you draw the line. Actually, related subject, I've got this issue (well, most of the issue -- cover's missing) of Extra Kerrang! (whatever that was) from c. 1984 that has this goofy roundup column called "Janet And John Guide To Metal" by Paul Suter and Xavier Russell, where they go off on how horrible all these Angel Witch, Bathory, Cirith Ungol, Voivod, Slayer, etc., LPs are, in a section called "The Devil Is Alive And Well But Highly Embarrassed About All This S**t Going Down In His Name." No idea how common that was at the time, though.

Yeah Kerrang! were mostly pretty negative about first wave Black Metal, but then they put Duran Duran in there so fuck them. Most of the metal fans I was at school with hated BM too, they were into Ratt, Motley Crue, Kiss, Def Leppard, Maiden.

Van Halen 3. At the time, critics/fans hated it and called it one of the worst albums ever.

Now...most people have forgotten it exists!

(I liked it!)

Speaking of Italo, I guess one of the reasons European critics dissed it in the 80s was because the bigges hits were by the cheesiest acts, like Sabrina. And the Italo stuff that inspired 90s/00s dance music was more underground (except maybe in Italy), so it wasn't written about much, especially since popular music writing was still more rock oriented in the 80s. So it's less of a case of a shift in critical consensus, and more of this stuff being evaluated for the first time by a large number of writers,

Well choosing not to write much about some artists (and not placing them on end-of-year lists) is in itself already a statement. Compare with, say, the way critics tend not to really engage with highly visible artists like Tiesto, Inna, Cascada or Tokio Hotel today.

Didn't people not really love Sleater-Kinney's The Woods at the time and now they do?

i remember the woods being pretty unanimously praised when it was released

Speaking of Italo, I guess one of the reasons European critics dissed it in the 80s was because the bigges hits were by the cheesiest acts, like Sabrina.

I reckon it was more because of the disco backclash. Italo Disco was.... disco.. And as such....
You are right that critics were largely rock oriented and actually rather generally anti-synth in the 80s. But they were still more likely to back ABC, Human League or even Culture Club than to back Italo Disco.

Speaking of Culture Club, they might fit in here. Their first two albums went down rather well with a lot of critics. Today they are... well... not hated or disliked, but largely forgotten in critical terms.

Well choosing not to write much about some artists (and not placing them on end-of-year lists) is in itself already a statement. Compare with, say, the way critics tend not to really engage with highly visible artists like Tiesto, Inna, Cascada or Tokio Hotel today.

What I was saying is a different thing, though. Because 80s music criticism was more rock-oriented (and also mostly focused on the US and UK,) and because (as Geir points out) disco had fallen hard from the mainstream, most critics probably didn't even know about Eurodisco acts like Laserdance or Koto, except for the critics in their home countries where they might've had local hits. (When Eurodance acts had big Europe-wide hits, like Modern Talking or Sabrina did, I'm sure the critics still wrote some disparaging comments about them.) Whereas after the 80s European dance music scene has become such important part of global popular music that not being aware of Tiesto seems less likely - like you say, the critics make an active choice in ignoring him.

This raises one interesting question, though: "I Feel Love" is now considered the Rosetta Stone of dance music, and Giorgio Moroder is seen as a pioneering electronic music genius, with only Kraftwerk being rated higher than him in that regard. But what was their status before house and techno music put them on the pedestal? Before the late 80s, did critics rate them highly, or did they think "I Feel Love" was just another example of cheesy synth-drive Eurodisco?

I seem to recall that all things Moroder was seen as kind of cheesy in the 80s. Mind you, even ABBA were largely looked down upon by then.

"I Feel Love" was, I'm pretty sure, actually listed in the discography at the end of John Rockwell's "Art Rock" chapter in the first update (1980) of The Rolling Stone Illustrated History Of Rock & Roll. (Somebody who still has that edition should check, though. I've only got the 1992 edition now, and the Art Rock discography in that one lists five 1974-77 Moroder LPs and soundtracks, along with three by Kraftwerk and one by Edgar Froese under "German Art Rock.")

First edition of the RS Record Guide gives Summer's I Remember Yesterday only two songs, but does call "I Feel Love" a "Kraftwerk-derived dance tune." Kraftwerk get four stars for Autobahn in that edition, three for three other albums. Trans Europe Express placed #30 Pazz & Jop in 1977; Christgau gave it an A-. I'm fairly sure that was the only time they ever placed in P&J, but they got at least some votes in other years. (The Man Machine, an Xgau B+, was Tom Smucker's #3 album of 1978 for instance.)

"only two stars" for that Summer LP, I meant.

And, as mentioned above, Lester Bangs seemed to like Kraftwerk enough to do a feature on them, though I'm not sure how much he liked them.

Uh, I guess nobody was really asking about Kraftwerk, but whatever.

S-K The Woods finished #4 P&J in 2005 -- pretty high.

Kraftwerk get four stars for Autobahn in that edition, three for three other albums.

Compare with AMG now where every album from Kraftwerk 2 to Computer World gets four, four and a half, or five.

"only two stars" for that Summer LP, I meant.

Well, TBH, the LP is a bit disappointing compared to the brilliance of "I Feel Love". But I'm still kinda wondering, what was the critical opinion on "I Feel Love" and other early synth disco, like Cerrone? I know rock critics were pretty dismissive of disco as a whole, so I'm not sure if they saw any exceptions to the rule...? Was disco rehabilitated only in the 1990s because of its influence on electronic dance music (and because of the general 70s revival that took place in the 90s)?

I am pretty sure Kraftwerk were never really hated. But they weren't considered part of the "canon" until the 90s.

But they weren't considered part of the "canon" until the 90s.

What do you mean?

Was disco rehabilitated only in the 1990s because of its influence on electronic dance music (and because of the general 70s revival that took place in the 90s)?

Basically, yes. And only some of it. I doubt Baccara and Boney M will ever be rehabilitated.

What do you mean?

As in appearing in lists of the best ever albums ever made.

Well, I confess I haven't read every list of best ever albums ever made, uh, ever made but pretty sure Kraftwerk would have been in one or two before the 90s

They were indeed considered an important influence on synthpop, but 80s critics were largely baby boomers or punkers who hated anything with synths in it.

No comment required I think

^ The now forogtten work of genius by Phil Collins.

I don't think 80s critics hated anything with synths in it, but the sort of synth heavy music that had its roots in white and straight scenes (rock, punk, new wave) was certainly rated higher than the synth heavy music that had its roots in black and/or gay scenes (disco, R&B, soul). That is why they wrote a lot about synth pop and new pop, whereas boogie, Italo, early house, and hi-NRG were mostly ignored.

xp Certain "rock critics" liked lots of disco. Most rock critics probably liked some disco. Some definitely liked Cerrone. It's not like all rock critics had the same tastes. And I doubt many more are conversant in Cerrone now than in the '70s or '80s, tbh. I think he's great, myself, but he's a minority taste, still, where critics are concerned. (Just like Italo-disco, or the post-disco r&b you call "boogie.")

Vince Alleti's top 10 from 1977 (though he was admittedly more a disco guy, like Michael Freedberg): Cerrone: Love in C Minor 10; Love & Kisses 10; Donna Summer: "Once Upon a Time . . ." 10; The Emotions: Rejoice 10; Loleatta Hollaway: Loleatta 10; Teddy Pendergrass 10; C.J. & Co.: Devil's Gun 10; Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express 10; Jean Carn 10; Peter Brown: Fantasy Love Affair 10.

And here's his 1978 list: USA-European Connection (Marlin) 10; Don Ray: Garden of Love (Polydor) 10; Musique: Keep on Jumpin' (Prelude) 10; Voyage (Marlin) 10; Sylvester: Step II (Fantasy) 10; Alec Costandinos & the Syncophonic Orchestra: Romeo and Juliet (Casablanca) 10; Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (ECM) 10; James Wells: True Love is My Destiny (AVI) 10; Ashford & Simpson: Is It Still Good to Ya (Warner Bros.) 10; Cerrone: Cerrone IV: The Golden Touch (Cotillion) 10.

Ha, good stuff!

I don't think 80s critics hated anything with synths in it, but the sort of synth heavy music that had its roots in white and straight scenes (rock, punk, new wave) was certainly rated higher than the synth heavy music that had its roots in black and/or gay scenes (disco, R&B, soul).

Typical white early 80s synth based pop music had its roots in both though. New Pop/New Romantics was just as influenced by disco/funk as it was by new wave and punk. Plus a lot of key figures in that scene were bi or gay males. Bands like Culture Club, Thompson Twins and UB40 (I'd arguably count the latter partly as part of the same scene) were also multi-ethnic.

UB40 had nothing in common with new pop/synth-based music/Culture Club/Thompson Twins. You may as well say the Jimi Hendrix experience had a lot in common with the Equals because they were both multi-ethnic groups at roughly the same time.

I'd argue there is a synth/new wave element in the music of UB40. It isn't pure reggae.

Pretty sure they trying their damnedest to make pure reggae - when they started anyway

Also, you don't get synths in reggae?

Of course there are synths in reggae (Black Uhuru used a lot of them around the same time), but I know reggae fans didn't count UB40 as true reggae at the time, feeling they had to much of a pop element in their music.

But sure, I agree Culture Club and Thompson Twins are more typical examples of the point I was trying to make (both of which also had a certain reggae element in their music)

No, they probably thought, "British reggae band fronted by a couple of white guys, how good can they be?"

Go and listen to Signing Off, Geir. They were not a synth-pop/new wave band. They were a reggae band in their early years, who became a pop-reggae band and were spurned by purists. They were not spurned by purists for having too much in common with the Thompson Twins. You might argue otherwise, but you'd be wrong.

I agree "Signing Off", and arguably also "Present Arms", were close to true purist reggae. "UB44" I am not that familiar with at all. But already by the time of "Labour Of Love" they had added a lot of new wave-ish pop elements.

The presence of synthesisers does not make a group new wave or synth pop.

battle not with monsters etc

Anyway, as a fan of new wave-ish synthpop/new romantics and not so much of disco/synth based black music (I actually liked a lot of the latter too), I felt critics didn't like any of my favourite music until critics from my own generation started appearing in the late 80s. Sure, there were exceptions, like they could enjoy Human League, ABC, Japan or Scritti Politti, but usually critics would reject most of that typical synth based 80s music, regardless of it being made by black or white people.

Did anyone like the early Judas Priest stuff critically?

"Sad Wings Of Destiny" is a motherfuck but I wonder how it was recieved (and the band didn't really get popular off that release).

I know that the kids in my HS felt that "Rocka Rolla" was abysmal (we were growing up on the "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" Priest and the riff-boogie debut was foreign to us) but it is cherished in some circles now. Don't know what the critics thought of it a decade before, however...

"The group signed to Gull and, in 1974, two still popular albums, Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings Of Destiny, followed. The latter is a masterpiece of demonic heavy metal which beats Black Sabbath into the ground." -- Tony Jasper and Derek Oliver, The International Encyclopedia Of Hard Rock And Heavy Metal, 1983.

"Grunting, flailing Seventies hard rock, as vulgar as its name, but less euphonious. For lovers of recycled Led Zeppelin riffs only." -- Dave Marsh, The Rolling Stone Record Guide, 1979. He gives Sad Wings Of Destiny and two other early Priest albums one star each.

Second edition of that book, 1983, has the exact same review, but now nine Judas Priest albums all get one star each -- ha.

reminded reading that bangs thing on sabbath in '72 that not everyone hated them. and creem, in general, stood up for the dopers. don't know what they thought of early judas priest though.

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Always an exciting day in the classroom when Professor Hongro starts droppin' the knowledge.