Dancing About Architecture, the Early Days

who has had the most influence on you? Or, more simply, which one do you consider the best?

I'd say these are two different questions, and might mean two different people.

Yeah...I wasn't quite sure how to phrase that. I guess just vote for whichever one feels right. (Do you think I got the right five people? sw00ds helped out and thought those were the right five.)

bangs was probably the most revelatory, and though i went through a long period of wanting to not read him because i think a lot of people quickly find out how pernicious his influence was and so you react against his excesses (stylistic or emotional), but i re-read psychotic reactions over the summer for the first time in ages, i was amazed by how good and rich so much of it is under all the bluster and baloney.

christgau has the widest range of interest, i think, of any of these guys. and has written more and better over a longer period. and despite his occasional glibness has more to say about that wider range of music. and he's also probably the least hamstrung by his biases and the most open to hearing new things in new ways, though lord knows he's got his uh quirks of taste and massive blind spots and etc.

i think, though, i'm gonna go with marcus, even if i can't make heads or tales of his taste for the last 20 years, and his obsessions are so completely antithetical to mine, and he's kind of driven some of his pet ideas into the ground, because mystery train was a life-changer for me and is still one of my all-time books, music or otherwise.

Would have swapped Dave Marsh for Paul Williams, but even then probably voted for Christgau. Even looking through his writings from the late 60s onwards, he has been widely right on the nail about most things, spotting trends and future talents very early. Even now there's stuff I'm discovering from his "Rock albums of the 70s" and I've had the book since '83. That Coulson Dean McGuinness Flint LP of Dylan covers from 72 he raves about is top notch.

(A very American slanted poll, by the way, admittedly the UK music press had no equivalent to "Rolling Stone" et al in the 60s but ignoring writers like Ian McDonald, Nick Kent or others could be a problem for us Brits. But then it may be outside of the remit of the poll).

also, marsh never meant anything to me, really. maybe that's a blind spot of my own, but so be it. and meltzer is just infuriating. i can appreciate his importance, even as just a fly in the ointment, but when i went back a year or two ago to re-read some of whore the mix of massive self-congratulation and total resentment and weird self-pity radiating off of every sentence just made me me clench my jaw through the whole process.

have never really known where to start with marcus or meltzer, if there are specific pieces or collections or topics where you get their best work or the truest sense of their writing

Apologies to British readers--I really am out of my element there. (My friend suggested both McDonald and Kent for the expanded list, and Simon Frith was on there too--and you could argue that Frith belongs in the Top 5, although going by his bio on Rock's Backpages, he seems to start publishing in 1970.)

I never got through The Aesthetics of Rock myself, but many people love it. For Marcus, I'd start with the discography in Stranded, then Lipstick Traces and Mystery Train.

more and more i'm thinking it was the combination of all those voices at the same time that sent me off on my journey. christgau and bangs probably best represent my yin and yang.

yeah some dude i would say just pick up mystery train for marcus. it is a great, great book.

i would just say avoid meltzer entirely, but i'd still love to hear someone present an argument for him here.

There's some lengthy Meltzer advocacy from Frank Kogan here:

Richard Meltzer - trivializer of the awesome or awesomiser of the trivial?

A thread for two of them (with only a few posts, not boding well for this poll): Richard Meltzer - trivializer of the awesome or awesomiser of the trivial?
Bangs: Richard Meltzer - trivializer of the awesome or awesomiser of the trivial?
Marsh: Richard Meltzer - trivializer of the awesome or awesomiser of the trivial?

I'm pretty much with Thus Sang Freud (though I will cast a vote): four of them had a big influence on me directly, and Meltzer has undoubtedly had a roundabout influence through other writers. I have an inherent respect for all the early people, just like I maintain a fascination with all the film-critic battles of the '60s. Even when specific writing doesn't hold up all that well, which it sometimes doesn't, I just think you deserve a pass when you're literally inventing something. (Said pass starts to expire in the early '70s.)

Oops.

Taking Sides: Griel Marcus vs Robert Christgau
Lester Bangs - Classic or Carburetor Dung?
Dave Marsh

Bangs without a doubt. He's the only one of the five whose album reviews actually got me excited about finding and hearing those albums.

Lipstick Traces is my favourite ever music book, but i probably need to read wider to vote in this

ilx's classic xgau thread:

This is the thread where you ask for help in parsing one of Robert Christgau's sentences.

Bangs is my favorite writer; I find his style the most engaging of the writers listed.

I can take or leave Christgau. He's often very perceptive, but when he falls for an artist, it seriously clouds his judgment (the fuck, A+ for A Thousand Leaves?). And when he wades into areas he should stay the fuck away from, it's nagl.

Love much of Marcus pre-80s writing, and Lipstick Traces, but I can't abide his recentish "old, weird America" twaddle. But his assessment of Keith Moon (in the Rolling Stone obit) was absolutely spot-on; few writers were able to grasp and/or articulate Moon's genius the way Marcus did.

Marsh has probably shaped my musical taste/worldview as much as anyone. The Book of Rock Lists was a motherfucker of an eye-opener for a 12-year-old with only a cursory grasp of the music's history. His Who bio is the high-water mark for the form, primarily for the extramusical/social/political connections it makes/questions it asks (even Christgau admitted as much in his review, and they weren't exactly pals). His Pearl Jam love baffles me. But he's an unwavering hardcore leftie/socialist, so major points for that.

Never read Meltzer.

Is Xgau Dying?

Bangs. All the others don't really mean anything to me :/

The ghost of Lester Bangs has requested that I bump this, before it disappears into some Hackamore Brick/Joy of Cooking/Crawdaddy void.

I didn't, and can't, vote -- Just can't pick one of these guys, who've all got stuff I love and stuff I don't, and who've all hugely inspired my own writing in different ways. I've ripped all five of them off over the years. One of the five (Marsh) does strike me as a step below the other four, but not a giant step. Christgau's the one whose current writing I keep up with the most, since he's clearly the one who keeps up with music the most, though I rarely agree with him about any records anymore (not that that's necessarily a consideration.) Not even sure where I would read current Marcus if I wanted to, though it had been forever since I used him for musical recommendations anyway. Do wonder sometimes if Bangs would still care about music -- and if so, what music -- if he was still around. Meltzer's been useless as a music critic for decades (punk revived him some, for a few years there), but far from useless as a writer, when I actually see his stuff. So I'm stumped.

Agree that the Stranded discography appendix, and then Mystery Train (including its appendix) are where to start with Marcus. And for Meltzer's music criticism, right, The Aesthetics Of Rock obviously, though I actually like Gulcher (mostly not about music, at least not directly) at least as much as a book and probably way more for its prose style. The Marsh on my shelf is mostly in his best-of collection Fortunate Son, though I do really wish I had kept those year-by-year Book Of Rock Lists discographies.

Got The Crawdaddy Book for my birthday last month -- had barely read anything in that magazine before -- and have to admit I'm pretty underwhelmed by it (allowing that I'd already read most if not all of its Meltzer pieces in other contexts.) Obviously I understand Paul Williams' historical importance in terms of helping invent "rock criticism" as a form (Xgau's Any Old Way You Choose It has pieces starting in 1967, Crawdaddy's first issue was January 1966), and that early I guess making a big deal about rock being Important Art or whatever can be forgiven, and he's obviously trying to formulate rock's worth in relation to the industry selling it, which must have been really interesting and even revolutionary at the time. But I'm not sure how much of it holds up as writing, or as ideas. Amusing to see how much some of those Crawdads didn't like garage rock at the time though -- "Rock has, through its growing goodness and through the graces of the generation that stayed with it, built up a huge audience for quality rock, creative rock, people who'd rather hear a good ten-minute rock track than an easy-to-listen-to, dull, catchy two-minute thing. Those people know the difference between Question Mark and the Mysterians and the Buffalo Springfield." It's been a while since I read the stuff Marsh/Bangs/Nuggets/Creem/etc. were reacting against. "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" seems to have been really worth fighting against in Paul Williams's mind, too -- Kind of hilarious.

Thanks, xhuxk--I was expecting you to lean towards one, so I like your non-vote.

I've stolen from/been influenced by four of them to varying degrees. Not Meltzer--I've read very little by him. If anything, I remember a few reviews from early '70s Rolling Stone (L.A. Woman, especially) and early '80s Creem (there was one of the Minutemen--think they were short Rock-Ramas) most of all. I was always at my worst early on when I was blatantly imitating Marcus, Bangs, or Christgau. Don't think I ever imitated Marsh (not sure what that would look like), but the first Rolling Stone guide was a big influence. I took good stuff from all four, of course. From Marcus, the idea that I should write about what it feels like to listen to a certain song (rather than try to figure out what the song personally means to the artist, which is not of major interest to me). Also, as I've said before, Lillian Roxon was an odd influence on me too.

In the end, I'll vote for Marcus, largely because of the Stranded discography.

xp Though I don't know, I may be overstating that. Could've sworn I saw something even more garage-dismissive from Jon Landau in the book somewhere, but paging through the garage bands in the index (and actually there's a lot of them -- lots of Troggs entries), I'm not finding the passage I was looking for. And Landau apparently loved the Animals and Young Rascals and Remains (who I've never gotten myself), so he couldn't have been too much a punk-hater. The real swipe at "These Boots" is from a writer named Chris Brown (! -- in a smart negative review of "Nowhere Man," no less), though Williams does get an anti-Nancy Sinatra dig or two in too; maybe her song was just really hard to escape from in 1966. I've hated better records than that over the years, I'm sure. Also, I have liked the Sandy Pearlman stuff I've read in the book. But it still does bug me how so much of the book is taken up by who-cares here's-what's-coming-out-this-month/who's-in-the-studio type news lists.

(That was all about The Crawdaddy Book, if that wasn't clear.)

And wait, clemenza -- you were expecting me to lean toward a particular one of the four? Really? Which one?

And I expect I'd have all the same problems with Crawdaddy as you.

(I thought you'd go for Christgau, obviously influenced by personal friendship--that's human nature.)

lol, this thread really hammers home to me how disconnected I am from the core of modern music crit because I've never actively followed any of these guys or sought out any of their writing

xp "Of the five," I mean. I clearly need to eat breakfast. (Okay, I guess if somebody held a gun to my head, I'd take Bangs. But nobody is.)

like, it never even occurred to me that I might want to spend time diving into any of them, even in the days when I was having personal fantasies about becoming a music critic

Xgau

xp But yeah, clemenza, it's possible Xgau has influenced me the most -- partly by actually knowing and working with the guy. But more so by the fact that his three Consumer Guide books are pretty much always an arm's length away while I'm writing, and the fact that I could almost recite most of his Pazz & Jop essays verbatim. At least the ones through the '80s. And he really did teach me how to write short reviews, too. And if not for him I wouldn't have done this for a living, duh. But the other guys taught me other things -- he's not necessarily my favorite writer of the four. Bangs is, probably, even though I never actually read him anymore. So see, this is why I'm abstaining.

Ack, I keep saying "four," for some reason. Guess I really have discounted Marsh.

voted meltzer because when he's on form he's the funniest, the most stimulating, and the best writer-as-writer (or at least the one w/ the most copyable schtick.) agree w/ strongo that the WHORE collection is p depressing, mostly - tho' I think it's part of his point that any such collection should contain as much shit as gold. but within that there are at least two pieces that are as good as any music writing I've read - 'vinyl reckoning' and the brilliant john cage review. he's probably my favourite writer about jazz, too, tho' he never did enough of that.

also, Gulcher really is v. v. ahead of the game in terms of expanding the remit/field of cultural crit (in some ways it's the American equiv of Barthes' Mythologies, for real.)

I'm with DJP. Smeone bought me Carburettor Dung but it's all about old records. Christgau put me in a book so I might vote for him, but he's read more of my words than I've read of his. Suspect the Atlantic is a big factor in this.

Maul Poorly

xp Though Marsh is probably where I picked up a lot of my Midwestern/Michigan chauvinism and populism and suspicion of coastal artsy-fartsies, inasmuch as those traits still exist in my writing. So that counts to. Plus, I love the first two Rolling Stone Record Guide books (especially the first red one), if not necessarily for the reasons he would want me to.

Ned Raggett.

Part of the idea behind this was actually seeing how much younger ILM people still care. There have been threads (more than one) for all these people, so they've probably been talked to death by now, but the Kael thread always inspires lots of people to jump on. I feel like Bangs and the rest are losing that lightning-rod aspect.

Marcus always admitted to West Coast chauvinism--took him years to come around on the Velvets, very little enthusiasm for the Ramones, etc.

And you could obviously say the same (maybe even more so) about Christgau and New York (though I don't know whether he'd ever admit it.) We all just root for the home team, apparently.

am struck on this thread abt ppl's relative indifference to Meltzer - back when Forced Exposure was my bible in the 1980s, Meltzer was def the guy they all wanted to be, or write like, much moreso than Bangs.

True--from my own memories of Forced Exposure (just a couple of issues, really, but also stuff from Byron Coley here and there), Meltzer was a touchstone.

Bangs was probably too emotional, and maybe too open-minded, for Forced Exposure. But I think FE (and especially Coley) drew on Meltzer's stylistic quirks way more than his ideas about music. Frank Kogan did way more with the latter. But Meltzer's time as a music critic just seems so brief compared to these other guys, even Bangs. He gave on the form (music and music crit both) when the others were just getting started.

"He gave up on the form..."

And I guess I should say "his career as a rock critic," since he did do great jazz writing later (and some great punk writing, though he considered punk something other than rock). Plus great rock fake rock criticism. But my point is that he somehow got off the boat early, which might explain why he hasn't stayed as much of a touchstone. (Actually, though, I probably hear Marsh talked about less than him these days. Marsh is the one whose voice has probably held up least.)

Marcus.

meltzer

Bangs is a good read but his music taste is narrow and uninteresting.

The appendix to Stranded and parts of Mystery Train are classic all the way but Marcus describes things too monumentally for his own good in the long run.

I've used that big singles list Marsh made for reference but I have yet to really read him.

Read a fairly long interview with Meltzer once and it was obnoxious.

Xgau is king no doubt

The Doors book Marcus did last year really surprised me. His best work in years.

Voted Bangs.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I might be wrong, but I think there's only one book where you can find four out of the five (Christgau, Marcus, Bangs, Marsh): The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. Always thought my 1980 was the first edition, but I see now it's the second--not sure if they're all in the original '76 edition. That'd be my most worn music book alongside Stranded, the Lillian Roxon encyclopedia, and the first Rolling Stone and Christgau guides. Christgau, Marcus, and Bangs have a bunch of good essays in there; was never sure why Marsh got Neil Young, as he didn't seem to be much of a fan. (Which is fine, I'm just not sure if that was the best place for a takedown.) Too bad they didn't get Meltzer to write about the Doors.

Never read Marcus or Meltzer. Love Marsh in the Rolling Stone Record Guides, and his 1000 best singles book's classic status is totally justified. Also love the (New) Book of Rock Lists, and I hope he writes a new version soon. Not a fan of Bangs at all, if Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung is any indication. I mean I know it completely ignores the work he did for Rolling Stone, but whatever. Marsh wins.

The lack of British critics on this list is a shame, but it's not like their work is available online anywhere. Does the work of the notorious "hip young gunslingers" Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill still hold up after 30 years? HOW DO YOU KNOW????

Get a copy of "The Boy Looked at Johnny"

(i.e. ans: It Doesn't)

Then again, all this writing is for "now", not posterity...

(OK, maybe not all, but as far as Joolz and Tone are concerned..)

Part of the idea behind this was actually seeing how much younger ILM people still care.

i'm with DJP and SM. only read one of these (xgau, and even then only bits and pieces of reviews, none of which inspired me to read more deeply). i really never read any music crit growing up and the bulk of it that i have read is by my contemporaries or about music i'm interested in, neither of which apply to any of these guys.

Don't think I ever felt that way, even in middle school--I've always been interested in the past. Musically, much of the early credit (or blame, if you'd prefer) goes to Lillian Roxon and American Graffiti.

it's not about "not being interested in the past"

Too broad, right--narrow that down to "not interested in early rock criticism." Because of Roxon, and a collection of early-'70s Rolling Stone reviews I bought young, I've always taken an interest. But I realize that won't be true for most people.

my first and indeed lasting impression of rock criticism was the contempt of 90% of the critics in it for the music i loved

Paul Morley. Kinda US-centric this poll? Like ILM.

have read, enjoyed, laughed at people not understanding most bits of xgau i've happened to come across but otherwise the rest of this era has never felt partic relevant to me and i've never been compelled to seek it out. i would be way more amenable to checking out old britcrit though so i guess this comes under national lines somewhat.

just in terms of the kael/lightning rod aspect though i do strongly feel that classic film crit will always be kinda more deathless, i know i'd rather and indeed do dig into more of that anyway

*Have never read any Robert Christgau, Dave Marsh or Richard Meltzer! <--------- UK centric!

(*the occasional review aside)

There are a lot of ways to approach this, but on the sheer-enjoyment level it's hard to top Bangs. On first exposure, he's a rollercoaster. He's also more of a journalist than the other guys, in the sense of just going out and seeing what's going on. More interviews, more on-the-scene type stuff that really gave a sense of not just the music he was writing about but the people and how it all felt on the ground. I think of Bangs as being on the street or in the club, whereas I think of the other guys as being a little more removed (even though obviously Christgau in particular has seen more gigs than I can dream of).

As criticism, I think Christgau's CG short-form bursts are genius, I love the compression and even sometimes the near-incomprehensibility of it. And Marcus' long-form is similarly inspired, though I think it sometimes lets in and gives rein to some pretty tendentious notions. Marcus' tendency to mythologize in particular is suspect, even when it's fun.

Christgau for musical taste

Meltzer for writing style

Kinda US-centric this poll?

Yes--again, a blind spot for me. Are there any UK critics publishing in that '66-'69 window who had as much long-term influence as these five? I don't know. I'd put Simon Frith on the same plane, but I don't think he started getting published until 1970.

Nik Cohn!

... well that's one, but 1966-69, probably not. I associate Bangs + Marcus with the 70s tho.

Considered Cohn, definitely.

So, yes, withdraw my US-centric objections on the ground that rock criticism was shit in the UK, 66-69

DJP makes a good point in that none of these guys wrote well or at all about the 80s/90s music he likes - DJP and millions of others. It's a baby boom thing

I think Christgau wrote well about '80s and '90s music, whatever you think of his actual taste.

Xqau made an effort- still does - but he missed the boat on a lot of the stuff Dan likes which is why he was never compelled to read old school rockcrit. This is not a criticism of Christgau, just my observation. not trying to speak for DJP either? Just commenting on what I see as a generational divide.

voted christgau, though i have love for all these guys except marsh - though it's possible i just haven't read the good stuff

Robot A. Hull should be on here.

Christgau doesn't get something pretty central to the sensibility of people who grew up in the 80s or later: jokey gothy horror grossout stuff. and he doesn't like music by nerdy introverts, unless those nerdy introverts pretend to be rock stars.

shorter me: he doesn't really give a fuck about indie culture.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

For me, Bangs is pretty much the only non-musician who has ever written anything worthwhile about music.

DJP makes a good point in that none of these guys wrote well or at all about the 80s/90s music he likes

Bangs gets a pass there obv.

wow. I'm disturbed by these results

Is is there anything more crushingly depressive and anti-life than celebrating music writers of the past? Just enthuse about something please!

Surprised by the results--thought for sure Christgau would win.

I think Christgau and Marcus wrote well about lots of '80s/'90s music--Marcus's "Real Life" columns from the mid-'80s were fantastic (Eddie Money and the Timex Social Club next to Sonic Youth next to Sam Cooke)--but DJP specified music that he likes, so that may well be true.

Depressive and anti-life? Just music writers of the past, or should we throw novels and films in there too?

i'm guessing if the names of the options were in the thread title the Xgau stanbase would've overrun the thread and made it a landslide

i guess i always figured lester would win in a walk

there is like a tenth as much discussion of bangs as christgau on ilm though

If Xgau had died in 1981 no one would give a shit about him today.

Presumably the '70s book would still have come to light, and that's the one that means the most to me.

If Xgau had died in 1981 no one would give a shit about him today.

Does anybody who's not a music writer give a shit about him today?

I'm quite sure he has lots of old Voice readers who still check his MSN column regularly. Not writers, but people who've been reading him for decades. Old habits, etc.

gonna say, i'm amazed what a lively nerdtastic comments section he seems to have

There does seem to be a lot of writers and people who know him in there, but probably not all of them. ILM's Thus Sang Freud was a regular at one point.

Does anybody who's not a music writer give a shit about him today?

The thing is, there's nothing wrong with having your legacy be a readership that's mostly people who are in the field. In fact, it's quite a nice thing to have.

(And, of course, a lot more people are sort of "in the field" now via things like ILM or people's blogs, etc.)

I think that means a lot less when your field is entirely about another field. I think a lot more musicians were influenced by Bangs via Creem, but then I've never met anyone IRL who mentioned xgau. I guess it's a NY thing?

whatever gets you through the nights of incessant xgau jabber on ilx

xgau never had a print home in the uk afaik, but his name at least is familiar to britishes rockfans of certain age thanks to 'Take No Prisoners' (and his 70s record guide was fairly widely available as an import)

Didn't see this in time to vote, but I'll say briefly why I would have chosen xgau: his 70s Guide. As the post-Woodstock music biz was finding a way to ride and exploit the rising tide of mass bohemianism etc, the extended range of acceptable sounds, xgau also adapted, by extending the range of his voice as a writer. Some of his earlier ruminations (preserved on his site) slogged and droned, but the Guide compressed and crystalized his insighrs and assbites. Sometimes they organized impressions/suspicions/hopes I already had (Bangs) sometimes took a leap (Meltzer)(imagine xgau with one of those guys in the weirdly intimate Voice line-edit, which could be more like a character-edit in my experience). Bangs' writing was a feast, but sometimes a surfeit, like "Why should I bother listening to this platter, Bangs already served it up!" Also, seems like Christgau had more of a range as a listener than these other guys, though he never has had much use for metal. It helps that my taste seem to be similar to his (I've heard most of the records in the 70s Guide). Oh yeah, this was when he also had a much wider range of grades than later, examining a range of failures--as one musician said of another, "I didn't know you could make some of those mistakes!"

Even the long-ass early stuff could be first-rate when he was more the journalist; he's always been good at that.

yeah i used to post more on that xgau comment section. discovered i wasn't learning or laughing as much as i do here. they're smart guys but there's sort of a tribal mindset. or who knows, it's hard to generalize. i voted xgau tho.

"other" Nik Cohn, Rock From The Beginning, also published under other titles, as it should be , because it's not some blah-blah chronology, it's his own first-second gen.,still youthful lust for kicks, fed by Little Richard and Johnnie Ray, PJ Proby and Phil Spector, for instance. He can art-appreciate Bard Dylan, "and if he killed the thing I loved, well, that was hardly his fault." Nick Tosches, Country, both editions. Reminds me, the second edition of Mystery Train is where Marcus does truthfully deal with the later careers of his heroes. I'd like to read his Dead Elvis too. Loved Frith's Letter From Britain columns in Creem; are they in any of his books?

It's really weird, and a little scary, the extent to which the tastes/favorite music of people posting comments on that Expert Witness blog all seem to so slavishly mimic Christgau's tastes and favorites. I'm a longtime fan of his writing, obviously, but have always thought he's been wrong about all sorts of things (and right, metal is way up there. Though personally I'd say he has too much use for "indie culture" these days.) I've never understood the mindset that says critics can only be good if you agree with them most of the time, though.

Yeah, he def got me into some stuff I never would have even listened to otherwise. And one thing (maybe the only thing) I'll always like Paul Williams for (other than providing Crawdaddy as a home for more insightful writers, readers, listeners): his collection Outlaw Blues includes a very congenial late-60s conversation with a guy who says the last time he listened to "A Day In The Life", he started laughing; like, "Oh wow, is the record gonna blow up." Just over the horizon: Creemster apostates like Greg Shaw calling for and recognizing the return and extension of rock as pop (don't remember if Shaw in particular liked the Dolls, but Creem sure did).

Got me to *check out* some stuff I never would have etc., that is.

But Dylan Hicks is mostly nerf, and while xgau had to learn to love Ned Sublette's solo guitar, that's what really immediately grabbed me about Kiss You Down South. But I'm very glad he led to me to it. Also, still hate the icons in the 90s Guide; does he do that as much now?

You mean those goofy turkeys and bombs and useless waste-of-space "neithers" or whatever they were? I don't think so. Only positive reviews (and occasional honorable mentions maybe) nowadays, as far as I can tell.

But I don't read him anywhere near as religiously as I used to (and had to, for several years there, as part of my job). Have the site bookmarked, but weeks can go by without me thinking to click on it. And when I do, I often just quickly glance, at reviews and comments both.

Bring back the Turkey Shoot!

That was an antidote to the Gift-Giving Guides, the giftee-burning kind we get elsewhere this time of year.

It's really weird, and a little scary, the extent to which the tastes/favorite music of people posting comments on that Expert Witness blog all seem to so slavishly mimic Christgau's tastes and favorites. I'm a longtime fan of his writing, obviously, but have always thought he's been wrong about all sorts of things (and right, metal is way up there. Though personally I'd say he has too much use for "indie culture" these days.) I've never understood the mindset that says critics can only be good if you agree with them most of the time, though.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, December 11, 2012 11:58 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wonder if there's anyone in the world who's listened to a Wussy album but hasn't read Christgau

also missed the vote, and would've voted bangs. he has his faults, undoubtedly (some of which he addressed in his later writing, fwiw), but he can be so exhilarating and entertaining in full flight (thinking specifically the piece about playing saxophone at his landlady, White Noise Supremacists, his piece about Electric Miles in the second collection, the Metal Machine Music pieces).

Yeah, and his vision of the vision of the Godz was so compelling (and cautionary: pointed out that trurly inspired primitivism is hard t achieve). Good thing I didn't actually hear those records 'til way later, though; I might not have done what I done in between.

I wonder how different the experience of reading that Bangs' collection back in the late 80s would have been if I could have streamed all the music he was writing about instantly.

(xpost) It occurred to me that I had never, ever heard the Godz. Now I have, and they're nothing at all like what I always envisioned (which wasn't good, which is why I never went searching for any of their records). I'll have to go back now and read what Bangs had to say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJabNnPOVQU

wow, i completely missed this poll. i would've voted marcus, who's been an embarrassingly huge influence on my life and tastes since discovering 'mystery train' at 15 (and 'lipstick traces' about a year later), even if i don't care about most of the stuff he's been writing about for the last 20 (30?) years. bangs i haven't read in about a decade, but he's classic forever for the 'astral weeks' piece which would just be a gorgeous, wrenching piece of writing even if he'd made up the album he was writing about. i suspect i'd rather reread him than any of the beats. xgau's a blind spot for me -- i like some of his longer essays. my experience with meltzer's similar to strongo's -- he seemed amazing when i first discovered him but he's such a one-note writer, every single one of his pieces reads exactly the same to me and his passive-aggressive dick attitude doesn't help.

Have you seen the Marcus interview book, J.D.? It includes the rockcritics.com e-mail thing from 10 years ago, so we're both in there (at least I think it's you). I actually haven't seen it yet. I wish the guy had used my Marcus interview from '86--because I was just starting and had no clue what I was doing, I asked him about stuff you normally would never see Marcus hold court on (Anita Baker, Janet Jackson, the Jesus & Mary Chain).

just googled it and you're right, i am! i can't help but wish i'd asked a better question, haha. i'm pretty sure i've seen the interview you did -- was it the one where he called REM 'the most boring band ever'?

Yes--he changed his mind after "Losing My Religion," which, oddly enough, I consider a huge bore.

marsh is kind of the odd man out here -- does he still actually write? he really does seem to belong to another time -- even rolling stone doesn't really write about bands with the kind of intense (almost uptight) seriousness that he did. he just always seemed so angry, even when he was writing about stuff that he liked. my high school library had a couple of his books, and i have fond memories of going through that '1,001 best singles ever' book and vowing to track them all down. (which really did seem like a tolkien-level task back in the days when there was no napster et al and the only ways to get new music were $16.99 CDs at sam goody and mixtapes from friends. i must've read about how awesome 'be my baby' was for at least two years before i actually got to hear it.)

The lack of British critics on this list is a shame, but it's not like their work is available online anywhere. Does the work of the notorious "hip young gunslingers" Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill still hold up after 30 years? HOW DO YOU KNOW????

i tracked down 'the boy looked at johnny' long ago and no, it doesn't really hold up as writing or criticism, tho it's a pretty endearing time-capsule. it's funny to stumble on a julie burchill piece from time to time (like that horrible trans-phobic column she wrote the other day) and realize that her voice and attitude haven't changed at all since she was 19 and writing hilariously unfair things about the clash.

It's a good book - a period piece and with hindsight lots to criticise about it, but also funny, idiocyncratic, passionate etc. A funny thing is that their proposal for way forward is the Tom Robinson Band!

My first encounter with any of these guys, apart from stray record reviews I may have read without paying attention to who wrote them, was Greil Marcus, because he did his Real-Life Rock Top 10 in Salon in the late '90s, when I was in college. His interest in drawing connections between disparate pop-culture artifacts, and in relating them to their sociocultural contexts, made a distinct impression on me. I read and enjoyed his Double Trouble (2000), since much of it was about the decade I'd just lived through, but I realized I didn't have much interest in his writing on earlier cultural figures/scenes to which I had less of a connection. (I was a music lover but not really a rock-canon guy.)

When I discovered ILM and got more serious about music and criticism, I came to appreciate Xgau's Consumer Guide reviews (though I rarely checked out his archives). I also admired bits and pieces of Carburetor Dung -- I particularly liked learning of Bangs's fondness for Kraftwerk and Anne Murray. I was always intrigued by Meltzer, but maybe mostly because of the title The Aesthetics of Rock; every time I flipped open the book at a store, it seemed like post-Beat logorrhea. Still haven't read him. Marsh, either.

In general, my reluctance to engage with a lot of old-school rock critics comes from a sense -- as reductive as it probably is -- that they're really invested in the Importance of Rock, as either a personal ethos or an intellectual project. I don't entirely blame them; I'm sure a lot of what motivated early rock criticism was a desire to elevate popular music within the cultural conversation. But by the time I started paying attention, that battle had already been won. Furthermore, what shaped me most as a music fan was early '90s pop and late '90s indie rock, and both suggested musical landscapes beyond, and often in opposition to, the traditional rock-and-roll narratives.

This poll is missing the guy whose review for Metal Machine Music was the word "NO!" repeated 100 times.

I've written about this before, possibly even on this thread, but I think Marcus's "Real Life" column was at its best in the Voice in the mid-'80s. (I never saw the original incarnation in New West.) He was writing a lot about the likes of the Mekons and Elvis Costello and Pussy Galore, but he was placing them side-by-side with Eddie Money and Timex Social Club and "I Want to Know What Love Is" (and Something Wild, and lots else). He still paid close attention to pop hits on the radio, which, as he has said himself, he no longer did once any semblance of a Top 40 format fell by the wayside. If you don't know, the column has been in The Believer the past three years or so--finding it in Toronto isn't easy, so I only see it now and again. Excerpts are online each month, but I don't remember to check regularly.

http://www.believermag.com/issues/201301/?read=column_marcus

Marcus's next book: The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1839470

Nothing too surprising--I've never heard, or heard of, "Guitar Drag"--except "Shake Some Action." I don't think I've ever come across a single mention of it anywhere from Marcus. I'll buy the book solely for that.

Don't see a Marcus review of "Guitar Drag" online, but I see that its this Christian Marclay thing

Over the last decade, Marclay has created ambitious work in a variety of media. The video Guitar Drag (2000) features a Fender Stratocaster being dragged behind a pick-up truck along rough country roads in Texas. While on one level the work is an expression of Marclay’s interest in creating a new sound, it is also a nod to the guitar-destroying antics of rock stars as well as a reference to the murder of James Byrd, an African-American man dragged to his death behind a pickup truck

http://whitecube.com/artists/christian_marclay/

tosches really belonged in this poll. anyway strongo's response to meltzer: "the mix of massive self-congratulation and total resentment and weird self-pity radiating off of every sentence" is why i like the guy so much i think.

like all the writers we're discussing here are very performative, very much about this move from 'writing about music' to 'rockwrite' and trying to push on what that might mean or how that might work. meltzer pushed it further and felt the limits first i think. he fought against his shtick even as he developed it, so he stays freshest to me, funniest, hardest to in any sense 'grow out of'.

From Raul Sandelin, who did the Bangs documentary a year or two ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ1isHKPHbA

I imagine some of it will be unbearable* and some of it will be great. (Just watching the trailer, it's the first time I've put faces to at least five or six of those names.) Marcus gets mentioned, but I don't actually see him anywhere, unless he flashed by quickly and I missed it.

*An exaggeration, but what I mean are things like Andy Shernoff saying image became everything with MTV, and music wasn't the most important thing anymore. As if image wasn't hugely important since...day one, probably.

Not to mention that Andy/Adny Shernoff was in the Dictators, and they seemed just a little image-conscious.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61P18cEICJL.jpg

Good point. Dow also mentioned the movie here:

Rolling Music Writers' Thread

Haven't had a chance to listen yet, but Scott Woods has an interview up with Richard Goldstein, who was one of a handful of people who actually predated these guys.

http://rockcritics.com/2015/06/24/richard-goldstein-podcast-interview/

Hope to read the book over the summer.