Robert Christgau A+ reviews POLL 1990-2008

Jesus he LOVES Ghostface. Nothing below A-, even Big Doe.

http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Ghostface+Killah

unless you count Pretty Toney.

Was gonna go Who Sell-out.

Went Magnetic Fields, 69.

Worse than ever. I cannot understand why this particular critic is seen as such a God. He is usually more wrong than anyone else.

punchline in 5..4..

JAMES BROWN! JAMES BROWN!
JAMES BROWN! JAMES BROWN!

otm

wanted to vote for Al Green tho :/

yeah, this is Star Time in a walk

No. 2: the Tabu Ley comp tied with the Franco comp at the very end. Holy shit, people.

actually voted for Kala, just for the hell of it.

of the comps, i'd probably go James, Armstrong, Coasters, Pryor. something like that. (btw, i prefer the original version of Al's Greatest Hits to the CD reissue--with "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" intact, that is.)

voted corny indie fuxxor...

That A+ for A Thousand Leaves is beyond mystifying in a way I'm not able to comprehend.

Went with Iris DeMent.

Picked "Love and Theft," but could easily have chosen Franco, The Immaculate Collection or Timeless: The Singles Collection.

Most of the studio albums I really like (Sonic Youth, Tricky, Williams) are A's or A-'s.

Kala

ugh @ giving that pj harvey album an a+.

disqualifying the immaculate collection, my answer - by some way - is maxinquaye, easily.

MIA and Arcade Fire seem to stand out on that list as slightly odd choices.

But anyway, for once I agree with both Geir and lex; yes, this dude's taste is fucking shocking, and yes, Maxinequaye is the best record on this list.

It was between Love and Theft, the Lefty Frizzell set, and Star Time. I decided to skip compilations and went with Dylan.

went with Charlie Parker but there's a lot of good stuff on there.

Love and Theft

Hard to compare regular releases with box sets and best-ofs. So I will vote for my favorite studio album here which is Love and Theft.

I am shocked by the people who are shocked by people who like Christgau. The man has turned me on to more good music than anybody else in the world.

Only because he';s been around forever and reviewed every album ever in 20 words or less. With all the stuff he's covered over the years there simply has to be a high amount of great stuff, even if only by chance.

exactly.

xp

not if you're into prog/metal/gangsta rap.

xp

haha, Geir, you fuh-knee!! whether or not one agrees, he usually really understands music on many levels. Especially music from the dark continent, which i imagine you would find soulless or something ridiculous.
in 2006 X'gau gave Dylan a A+, it ended up #2 on the Dean's list. the Dolls are placed #1, and he never actually graded it. doesn't that make it a A+?

I voted for Mundo by Arto. That's a good record.

Lucinda Williams getting an A plus has always greatly amused me, as does Christgau's attempt to explain it under the rubric of "this is how Southern people think and write songs, and if you can't get with it, that's your problem," and the line about how she's the "most accomplished record-maker of the age." Funny. As Christgau got into the '90s and got older he did play the age card more and more, and I'm not gonna exactly knock it, he has a right to be suspicious of the indie generation (many amusing lines about the "puny indie mindset," and he is right, it is a rather impoverished way of looking at music, at least in my experience). Maybe he's just too old to be spending so much time with this popular music made for people 40 years younger than he is; I am 50 and feel that way all the time, like these are children I'm dealing with and we all have to re-invent the wheel every 12 and a half years in pop culture. I suppose he's dealt with it as well as anyone and I basically think he's right most of the time. What I think rock criticism doesn't do very well is express for what purpose a lot of music that doesn't fit into "rock" is made; like Christgau rags on people who decided they "liked Morricone" in a Mercury Rev review; I mean Morricone isn't made for the same purpose as the Clash. Taking that view seems to me just to ignore a whole world of music that Christgau and most of us, I count myself in that group (and am not going to attempt to compare myself to Christgau, since he essentially professionalized rock crit by listening to all those records every day, what a fucking grind), have shunted off to one side. Like soundtrack music. What is gained to dismiss it, exactly? Or for that matter prog? I myself think prog is mostly ridiculous but that's the vanity of my taste, and while I don't think there has ever been an "A plus" or even "A" prog album, ever, why should my little grad-school-isms re songform and production values be the standard? Why not analyze what the music does better, not fit it into the schema that Christgau and all of us have constructed?

That's a whole other thread, I guess. Chrisgau has pretty good taste all in all, I love a lot of those records up there.

Is the Ken Burns Jazz series really that good? Haven't heard any of them. Are they a brief overview of the artists' most memorable songs (jazz for pop-ists?)

i like that he admits his blind spots and makes no excuses for them. i mean, you don't go to Bob for the latest in "great" metal albums after all.

xp Nice screed, Edd. I agree with a lot of it (despite having possibly even less use for soundtrack music than Xgau myself, and more use for prog than you do, though I'm still not sure what its A+ would be.)

Basically, 1990 is right around where Bob's tastes and mine diverge. A lot of the big reissues on the list probably almost go without saying (though obviously the point is that this JB or Bo set deserves an A+, not some other one.) Most of the "current" albums on the list dumbfound me, in ways I would very rarely have been dumbfounded by Xgau's equivalent '70s or '80s picks. But (in part seeing how I edited his Consumer Guides myself for seven+ years in there somewhere) I probably have a better grasp of his aesthetic than most, and it's not hard at all to understand that it's just not my aesthetic, that's all. That said, the A+ for Freedy Johnston -- who I've never heard as anything more than mediocre -- will always dumbfound me the most. (Way more than Marshall Crenshaw, even.)

I like some of the current ones, though -- M.I.A. and Gogol and DJ Shadow and Love and Theft are all A-'s, at least. Have never checked out most of the reissues (though I know other compilations by lots of those artists.) Torn between Star Time (which I never much listen to, certainly never beginning to end, and I have trouble believing anybody ever does) and Madonna. Going with Madonna.

(Well, really our tastes probably diverged a half-decade before 1990, at least. But what I mean to say is that, by 1990, I'd basically taken it as a given that we weren't going to agree on much anything. So when we did, it was like a free lunch or something.)

Pickett and Diddley and Jordan and some of those others may well be much better than Madonnna too, by the way. I probably should've just abstained. But the way I tend to do these polls is I first narrow the lists down to records I actually own copies of.

Have never gotten Iris Dement or Arcade Fire either -- those seem almost as un-A+ to me as Freedy, actually. I'll give Bob the benefit of the doubt on the African stuff, which I'm barely versed in at all.

That A+ for A Thousand Leaves is beyond mystifying in a way I'm not able to comprehend.

Went with Iris DeMent.

― Sara Sara Sara, Tuesday, March 31, 2009 9:11 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

for the past 20-something years, he's given every Sonic Youth album (the proper studio albums w/ vocals anyway) an A, with one exception Murray Street, which I always thought was a crazy one to break the streak for.

Louis Armstrong: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: 1923-1934 because it doesn't have one track that isn't short of amazing, plus those recordings set the course for the next 70-80 years of popular music.
I'd pick Magnetic Fields for a non-comp.

Yeah, Armstrong another one that undoubtedly blows away Madonna on an objective level if I didn't just opt for West End Blues: The Very Best Of The Hot Fives & Sevens all the time instead.

Part of my problem with this poll is that I have even less use for box sets than Christgau does.

(Another part of my problem is that he thinks Sonic Youth kept getting better when I thought they kept getting worse.)

Yeah, Xgau's Sonic Youth reviews have always perplexed me.

Is the Ken Burns Jazz series really that good?
They're useful as single-disc comps, but not so much sound-wise as they don't always use the best vinyl sources.

I'm looking at this list and remembering how many of these I bought solely on Xgau's A+ review.
The ones I'm eternally grateful for are the Mighty Sparrow, Freedy Johnston, Iris DeMent, DJ Shadow and Lucinda Williams.
I didn't quite get all his love for the Sonic Youth, Latin Playboys and Arto Lindsay.

Moby 'Play' sticks out o_O wise (equally distant from A+ and F-)

De La Soul can have it - they never released a single i didn't like (except Keepin The Faith maybe)

I've been meaning to pick up that De La Soul comp. I have only their debut, which I love.

Lucinda Williams getting an A plus has always greatly amused me

That particular Lucinda review has always bugged me. It's so defensive that, uncharacteristically, he neglects to say much about the album itself (even though he went into detail in his Rolling Stone review. And bizarrely, he got all schizy about her win in that year's Pazz essay. And even more bizarrely than that, his review for the preceding Lucinda album, Sweet Old World, ends with one of his loveliest turns of phrase ever.
But I just chalk all that up to a life of deadlines.

What I think rock criticism doesn't do very well is express for what purpose a lot of music that doesn't fit into "rock" is made

When it comes to Xgau, though, he's been writing for such a long time that it's easy to forget (or simply not know) that he has discussed the purpose of non-rock music. He addressed movie soundtracks as early as 1969 so it would be a bit redundant if he kept explaining the purpose of soundtrack music, esp. in a 150-word record review thirty years later. Even at that, he still mulls over the purpose of music he hates. Check his great review of Enya: A Day Without Rain.

I voted for Guess who's coming
It's...
Guess who's coming
It's...
Guess who's coming

DJ Shadow!

I'm still struggling with Freedy Johston. I bought the album a year ago and have to strain to hear the Good Songwriting around that voice. Is it because he's a miniaturist that he has to drawl loudly to get heard?

*Johnston, of course.

I'm surprised since it's a VERY Soto-esque album. I got it instantly while I'm still struggling with Marshall Crenshaw (I'm blaming crappy vinyl). He just nails every song like he's never gunna make another album. Start with "The Lucky One." If that song doesn't make give you a lump in your throat or push the tears out, move on to another artist.

Also some of these have probably been knocked down to A status, e.g., Ghostface, Arcade Fire, and even that controversial Sonic Youth one.

make give = give

I like "Responsible" (edd hurt defending it on the Johnston thread had a big impact) and the Syd Straw duet and "The Mortician's Daughter," but "Wheels" and the title track are hemorrhoidal.

(No surprise that the equally meh Crenshsaw plays all over this too).

A Thousand Leaves is still listed as an A+, the only SY album to rank that high.

DJ Shadow is my favourite of the ones I know, though PJ Harvey is really good too.

I'm not counting reissues of old stuff.

A Thousand Leaves is still listed as an A+, the only SY album to rank that high.

He went back on it a bit here.

Ah, the famous taste vs judgement essay.

i feel like checking out that Freedy Johnston album, i remember one of his songs was used by Noah Baumbach in Kicking and Screaming.

from this entire list i only heard about 10 records.... (whatever that says)

i'll vote for Endtroducing, though i always feel the record start awesome, but doesn't truly deliver in the end.

haha Chuck I've played Star Time start to finish dozens of times.

at least 3 or 4 times for me.

(though it's helpful to keep in mind that I got in high school and had that kind of leisure listening time back then. technically I still do but I wasn't inundated with releases, sometimes by myself.)

and duh, "dozens" should be "at least a dozen"

i just listened to A Thousand Leaves again, and I feel a little less ashamed of voting for it...

it is awesome!

I voted Latin Playboys, my favorite of the non-comp non-reissues. That record has so much texture, it sounds so great.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Man, how in the heck is that Enya review an example of him mulling over the purpose of music he hates? All he does there is mock people who find her music comforting by saying that their problems don't count. Sorry, but that's twice in a month this review has come up on ILM of an example of Xgau at his best. And for me, it demonstrates why I feel so alienated from what he does. It also doesn't seem like he's trying very hard, maybe because he doesn't think her music is worth the effort.

So read something else.

Bo Diddley for me, followed by the Charlie Parker Dial set.

as someone who doesn't care for enya any more than xgau does, mark otm

But anyway, for once I agree with both Geir and lex; yes, this dude's taste is fucking shocking, and yes, Maxinequaye is the best record on this list.

― Sickamous Mouthall (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, March 31, 2009 8:31 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark

This mystifies me. Look at this diverse list of mostly good-to-great records! One dude likes all of these! Shocking!

I like Ed Hurt's post here, and agree with most of it.

I decided all the comps and reissues were cheating and voted for Iris Dement because I figured no-one else would.

A Thousand Leaves for me, too.

as an Xgau nut and Enya hata, i kinda agree with Mark and Rev. that review just seems like Bob at his laziest/snarkiest (still pretty funny, tho) to me. sorry, Alfred.

It's entertainment.

People who like Enya will buy her albums.

People who don't should not throw sticks at people who do.

That's it.

Man, how in the heck is that Enya review an example of him mulling over the purpose of music he hates?

Because he locates the purpose of the music (and correctly, I might add; I've talked to countless Enya/Yanni/Kitaro/new age/whatever fans about why they listen to this music and almost all of them have offered some derivation of "it gets me through the night") and then mulls over it.

that's twice in a month this review has come up

Was I the offender both times?

It also doesn't seem like he's trying very hard, maybe because he doesn't think her music is worth the effort.

Ah but he TOOK the effort and discovered it wasn't worth the effort (not entirely true but you get my drift) which is one of the reasons he's so pissed. And which forces him to question democracy itself, i.e., the imperative of hearing everyone out.

But everyone poo-poohing this review is clearly more democratic than Xgau. So a challenge: write a 150-word of A Day Without Rain (or any record you deem worthy of a D-) and mull over the purpose of the music more democratically than xgau does. And I'm not being (100%) snippy. I'd seriously love to read it.

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

I just missed this one. I would have voted "Endtroducing..." It's still easily in my top 100 all-time.

Too bad no one voted for Franco or Tabu Ley--I would have gone for the latter if not for JB. But that's a decent spread of votes for sure.

Moby 'Play' sticks out o_O wise (equally distant from A+ and F-)

this is totally in line with how it was treated at the time tho

get back, everyone, alfred and kevin are gonna have a contest to see who can be a bigger cap'n save-a-gau

Xgau can save himself, hoss. If you're on this thread, and can read this list, no criticism is necessary.

I've never seen someone argue the futility of criticism in defense of a critic before.

I've never seen anyone construct a strawman without criticizing the results of a poll before. Is it the recession?

fuck ppl with opinions

lolllllllll

what strawman? who!? are people so used to using that word in every argument here that they don't even wait for someone to actually make a strawman argument? is it the recesssion!?!?!?!?

Plz post all the times I've defended Christgau on this thread, and if so, how it's relevant to the selections or the poll results.

just because this is a poll thread doesn't instantly make any conversation therein about the poll results

just because you're a good writer and occasionally say funny shit doesn't mean I can't tell you to stfu and go crawl up your own asshole.

wtf dudes

The Arcade Fire: Neon Bible [2007, Merge] 1
Lefty Frizzell: Look What Thoughts Will Do [1997, Columbia/Legacy] 0

:(

ditto, dude! i'll call this a compromise.

Xgau hates Sparks and Cocteau Twins, Says he's too old for metal then trashes some metal.

Ninny