Another Velvet Underground Question, Sort Of

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Were the Velvet Underground the first band ever to be championed by pop/rock critics and ignored by the public? If not who were? (I'm not even sure the VU were championed by critics). In other words how soon after the birth of rock criticism did a schism between public and personal/critical taste occur?

― Tom, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the first schism goes the other way: public taste pro eg zep and sabbath, reviled by first-gen rolling stone critics, but championed by the guys at creem) (haha eg the first "ironic" "faux populists" = the guys who invented the word "punk", in ref garage rock

― mark s, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

which also charted)

― mark s, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

BUT there was always an avant-art writer faction at the village voice, so prob some long-forgotten nyc rad-folk outfit

― mark s, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Holy Modal Rounders arggg

― Tom, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I got the Doug Yule VU boxset! Hurray! (I can be happy because I haven't listened to it yet.)

― cuba libre (nathalie), Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Black Monks (but only in retrospect, and I'm totally just making this up).

― DAn I., Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nathalie, you won't be so happy when you do hear it (unless you've got a taste for fifth-rate Dead-style barroom boogie jams...)

What abt the blues/folk 'scene', where (esp. in the UK) Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf were considered the 'authentic' 'country' voices of the post-slavery African-American diaspora, but whose sales lagged far behind more 'commercial', r'n'b blues jump artists like Louis Jordan, Wynonie Harris, even Jimmy Reed or BB King?

― Andrew L, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark S is OTM re the first split being critics rejecting some popular stuff, not championing the unknown. It's a tough question re rock/pop, because who knows what was being written about before the late 60s? It's almost like rock/pop criticism didn't exist, isn't it? I'd love to check out some "early" pop criticism, from like the 40s and 50s. Where can you find something like that?

I would guess that in jazz critic circles, this was happening all the time all the way back to the 20s. Like Charlie Parker, even.

― Mark, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nathalie, you won't be so happy when you do hear it
I have a vague feeling I won't: I am still recovering from Squeeze.

― cuba libre (nathalie), Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A related anti-pop reflex in music criticism is for white critics to argue that black people are currently making crap sell-out music (maybe to please whitey) and that 10 yrs previous they made more authentically black music. I remember reading a memoir by Peter Guralnick (I think) where he talks about writing about obscure country blues for some music magazine around like '64 - '68. But he says that during this period he was going to the Apollo to see Solomon Burke and Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and James Brown, and it didn't even occur to him to write about them. They were just disposable black pop, he didn't think they'd have lasting value even though he talks about being awed by their performances. And disco and modern R&B got pretty much the same treatment - the "Destiny's Child should go listen to some real soul like Aretha" dismissiveness. I guess Timberland and Missy are getting some mainstream critical success now, but usually it's presented as a novelty like, "Guess what? Not all new R&B sucks!" but more often its the Macy Grays & D'Angelos (artists who are "getting back to the roots of R&B") who get the critical nods.

― , Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(don't want to derail thread (hence brackets) but do we have a dedicated thread for white people's treatment of black music? We should. Related issue: constant referrals to some idea of what black people *really* listen to)

(the *real* fans aren't buying it, obv.)

― Tim, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

>>> for white critics to argue that black people are currently making crap sell-out music (maybe to please whitey) and that 10 yrs previous they made more authentically black music

I dare say that this happens, and that the observation is accurate.

But I don't suppose it happens as much as the more familiar "this is by a white musician - so it's bad" line, re. so-called 'black music' genres. Which is possibly rascialist(ic).

― the pinefox, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(that thread who be a recipe for disaster though, don't you think? how many posts before everbody starts calling each other racists?)

― , Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(that was meant to follow tim's post, and who = would)

― , Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But I don't suppose it happens as much as the more familiar "this is by a white musician - so it's bad" line, re. so-called 'black music' genres.

b-b-b-b-but critics love it when white people play the blues! And they like it when white folks rap too! they even like it when beck pretends to be r. kelly! beastie boys, jon spencer blues explosion, eminem, rolling stones, tom waits, eric clapton, capt beefheart, the clash etc. etc. etc. etc. all generally got great reviews.

― , Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

not to mention the chemical brothers

― J Blount, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

...ritchie hawtin, the police, aphex, dj shadow, fatboy slim, moby...

― , Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dread Zeppelin. No, wait.

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

...Bobby Hurley...

― J Blount, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

elizabeth hurley...

― , Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh goodness me. music 'criticism' could probably reach as far back as Eric Satie, who was ignored and dismissed by the folks at the time, as being to minimal and depressing, which is a bit like the VU isn't it? I'm sure someone could reach back furhter than that too, but are we discussing rock or popular/unpopular? In the fifties , everyone thought Elvis was LEWD.

― Andrew, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But what excited the critics about most of those artists was not their playing "black" music, but their playing a hybridization of black & white musics.

― Keiko, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, this question is only interesting if you're talking about pop forms of music. I'm sure the split has been there in "serious" music since like the 1700s. But when did Pop develop an underground significant enough for pop writers to champion it? And was this underground made of velvet? I'd love to see an article from the 60s talking about how great the Monks were -- anyone know of one?

― Mark, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Monks. Not the Black Monks. Just the Monks.

― Clay, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The VU weren't a big critical "thang" till later.

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

nobody knew who the fuck the Monks WERE back then; they were a buncha GIs stuck in Germany entertaining their fellow troops. and to answer the orig. question, yes, the first rockcrit/audience schism (if we are to keep it in strict rockcrit time, starting c. Crawdaddy!) was the Velvets

― M Matos, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I reckon Jazz must have had the critics/hipsters v. the-great- unwashed-public divide long before pop-rock did.

― DV, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Another backwards example: In '67, Richard Goldstein (rather infamously) panned Sgt. Pepper in the (I think) 'New York Times.' The beginning of criticism (at least until somebody forgot)?

― s woods, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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