Talk:Robert Christgau

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[edit] Word change

Changed "sexual" to "misogynistic" - Christgau never complains about sexual themes (often, he takes on those who seem to be somehow scared of, or resistant to, sex) - just those that denigrate women. Bobby P. Smith Sr. Jr. 05:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Afropop

The Afropop link leads to a disambiguation, which leads to an article on African music that doesn't refer anywhere to Afropop by that name. Who are you talking about, Thomas Mapfumo and Ebenezer Obey and Fela? An encyclopedia reader ought to be able to say "what's that," click on a link, and find out.68.122.192.42 22:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

Notice: I'll be doing a full rewrite and expansion of this article soon. A lot of the information to date has been inaccurate - for instance, the "sexual themes" thing (christgau is one of the most fervently pro-sex critics working today; it's misogyny and homophobia that he has a problem with) and the "world music" thing (Christgau doesn't give a damn outside of Afropop). This article needs help, and I've read more or less every word of published Christgau, so I figure I'll do it. Bobby P. Smith Sr. Jr. 00:54, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


Christgau is a 1962 graduate of Dartmouth College, according to the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. This is confirmed by information on the Dartmouth online directory of alumni. Brian G. Crawford 23:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You should be proud:) Thanks, by the way. I think he went there at age 16 or something, too. Bobby P. Smith Sr. Jr. 00:15, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "explicit sentiment"

I can only guess at what this could possibly mean. It obviously does not mean that they were explicitly sentimental. If someone does not turn this into something coherent within a few days, I will probably remove it. - Jmabel | Talk 03:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links to reviews on album article pages

It seems to be fashionable lately to add links to his website inside album infoboxes' reviews section (usually underneath a link to an AMG review). Unfortunately, most albums don't have a full review on his site, most artists just have a page with a brief review of each album, for example the review linked on this album page. I think we should only have a link when there is a full review for an album, like this rare example. Otherwise, links to pages featuring mini-reviews of all albums by a given artist should be linked from the artist page, in my opinion. Any thoughts? --Alcuin 04:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

PS if there's already a discussion of this elsewhere, please let me know. --Alcuin 04:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the point of adding those links to infoboxes is so that the reader can verify the rating given by the professional reviewer. If you took away a rating just because the link only provides it without including a full review, then you'd actually be censoring that rating (e.g., in the case of Achtung Baby, Christgau's very negative rating provides a discordant note among the other positive ratings; if you take that negative rating away because Christgau didn't bother to make any further comment —as he didn't think the album worthy of it—, then the ratings section of the infobox would give the idea of unanimously positive ratings among professional reviewers, which is not the case). Links meant to reference the reader to full reviews (rather than to verify the ratings) should go in the External links section of the article. 213.37.6.65 19:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
No, review links should not go in the external links section, per a recent change to WP:ALBUM#External links. Otherwise, I agree. --PEJL 11:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Short diatribe

This man is a complete buffoon and completley incapable of reviewing any music at all. He rates otherwise excellent albums really badly, and his point of view is very often unsubstantiated. He maybe a popular critic in America, but no one in th U.K has even heard of the guy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.26.201.121 (talk • contribs) 19 November 2006.

True dat. This guy has some extremely strange views on some undoubtedly classic albums. He also seems to think that he's the boss. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.56.106.236 (talk) 5 August 2007

Agreed, he is a really snobby critic IMHO. 68.34.9.147 (talk) 00:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

He wants to be a New Yorker columnist/Louis Menand type, but he just comes off as an ass.

[edit] Criticism

There certainly needs to be a substantial section on criticism of Christgau. He's one of the most frequently derided music critics of all time, this needs to be reflective in this article. The article as it is now is extremely biased in favor of Christgau and attempts to paint as a major, important writer of high quality who is above criticism. Irresponsible. He's received more criticism than the vast majority of music authors, and has taken an enormous number of unexplained, divergent positions on various issues. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.192.13.138 (talk) 17:34, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

Well said! This guy is a complete idiot. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.250.214.19 (talk) June 28, 2007
I also agree, the guy has no idea what he's talking about. --DvdBengals 00:28, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
So find something citable and add it. / edg ☺ ★ 00:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
So find something citable and add it. - Jmabel | Talk 05:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

We don't have a really great photo of him. Here is what I'm aware of that is GFDL (all of which I took):

The first one is what we've had in the article for about a year. While the one on the right is actually lower resolution, I think it's a better photo as long as we keep it relatively small. I'm switching over to it, but if anyone objects, feel free to go back to the old one. - Jmabel | Talk 06:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How legit is this guy?

I don't see how we link to reviews by this guy for music wikis. The guy writes two sentences, often having nothing to do with the music, about a couple albums, and people link to them on the album page. I think anybody could do that, and including all his ten-word reviews is a farce. You might as well link to random blog posts on the page. EDIT: Oops, it seems like Alcuin seems to already said this. Nonetheless I think it's an issue that needs to be adressed. 70.179.107.205 00:36, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


Definitely. [attack removed] A little picture of a bomb is not a review. This guy doesn't even discuss the music in his pointless littles 2 sentence remarks. I honestly think that all links to this guy should be removed. 75.28.139.80 21:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Even if some people don't like him, he's arguably the most famous rock critic in the world, and he's been doing it for 40 years. His website contains over 13000 reviews of more than 5000 artists, making it a useful resource. Anyway, most of his reviews are longer than two sentences and most of them do discuss the music. Jerry warriner 15:02, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The reviews on his site often contain insufficient details on the music he is supposedly critiquing. These reviews are frequently laden with errors and nonsensical phrases. His allegedly esteemed position should not make his meagre writing sacrosanct; if people want to read his views, they can follow the link from his article. Blobchin 22:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. That's exactly right. How about a compromise- we keep the reviews for albums that have at least one full, relevant paragraph, and delete the links to ones that say absolutely nothing about the music, like this verbatim review of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" :

They do take heavy to undreamt-of extremes, and I suppose I could enjoy them as camp, like a horror movie--the title cut is definitely screamworthy. After all, their audience can't take that Lucifer bit seriously, right? Well, depends on what you mean by serious. Personally, I've always suspected that horror movies catharsized stuff I was too rational to care about in the first place. C- That is not a review, it's just rambling! He gets paid for this bull? The sad thing is, this is one of his more coherent articles. Others just put a grade next to the title. All links to reviews like this need to be removed.

Christgau is as noted the most famous rock critic in the world. It is true that his reviews are often so brief that they might not be considered professional reviews if they were by anyone but him. Review ratings by Christgau are very common in Wikipedia album articles. For example, in my sample of about 1500 album articles there were recently 347 reviews by Christgau. That, combined with the new Template:Rating-Christgau recently adopted (and mentioned at WP:ALBUM#Professional reviews) shows consensus for keeping his reviews in Wikipedia. If you want to lobby for limiting them, may I suggest you take this to WT:ALBUM? Until then, they should stay. --PEJL 09:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

So, just because he's supposedly the "most famous," that makes it okay for him to blather on about nothing and pass off as a legit review? If your job is to properly review and critique music, then you do just that. It doesn't matter how "famous" you are, you can't use your clout to half-ass it. Roger Ebert is a famous movie critic, but his website isn't littered with one sentence throwaways about movies. He writes well thought-out essays, complete with short summaries of the movies, their strong and weak points, and his thoughts on them. You see the difference? And so what if there's a template [attack removed]? That's what we're trying to fix, by eliminating it! At least the links to nonsensical ramblings passed off as "reviews." (And how did christgau get so damn "famous," anyway?)75.39.165.17 11:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The point isn't that there is a template, the point is that including ratings by Christgau in the professional review sections of album infoboxes is widely accepted, as evidenced by the existence of the template, by the template being noted at WP:ALBUM#Professional reviews, by how often his reviews are included in album infoboxes, and by him being noted in WP:ALBUM#Review sites. If you think ratings by Christgau (all or some) shouldn't be included in album infoboxes, the place to argue this is WT:ALBUM, not here. Incidentally, there are currently ongoing discussions about his ratings there. --PEJL 11:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yes, he is highly legit.

I favor using Christgau reviews whenever available. His early arrival, his position at the Village Voice, and his Consumer Guide publications made him the foremost music critic in the United States for about 30 years, and his body of reviews is one of the biggest by a single reviewer. (Tho I wish the Forced Exposure reviews were available online, especially Coley and Johnson.) He's intelligent and frank, and certainly has credentials.

I particularly favor the dense, consise style of his Consumer Guide capsule reviews (tho admittedly, it helps to have some familiarity with his conventions and preferences). The Black Sabbath review quoted above is actually a good example of terse and informative writing, and describes the album better than a lengthy, reverent review with lots of quoted lyrics (example) might — if you want that, Xgau's not your guy.

Of course, some people will disagree on taste (especially fans of heavy metal, U2, and my fave King Crimson). And his website isn't very slick (tho it is economical and downloads much more quickly via dialup than AMG or Rolling Stone). But he's exactly the guy I go to about unfamiliar popular music in subgenres I don't spend much time in. / edgarde 12:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

And yes, this conversation should be taken to WT:ALBUM, where I'm actually advocating for more Christgau. Wanna FIGHT? / edgarde 13:10, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Not just anybody can get a review out via Esquire, The Village Voice, Playboy, Spin, Creem, Rolling Stone and National Public Radio. He tends to be very terse and I have very different tastes than Christgau, we would often disagree, but I still find his opinions to be interesting. And his high notabilty has made his opinions as notable as any other writer for the All Music Guide or Rolling Stone. We should not only select the reviews we agree with for a given article. -MrFizyx 17:12, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it's critics that post shoddy reviews without any actual criticisms, that solely rely on their station within the community ("40 years"), is what makes reviewing itself a subjective means, and one that has very little respect. Please, can we do away with this personality.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.59.129.230 (talk) (turkey) 03:37, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Please take complaints like this to WT:ALBUM. This talk page is for discussing edits to this article. / edgarde 04:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why Christgau (and others) often write very short reviews

Why do Christgau (and others) often write very short reviews? Because that is what someone is paying them to do. Christgau was one of the pioneers of long-form rock criticism: 10-15,000 words to talk about a rock album or band. However, there is no market for that these days. Even Rolling Stone rarely commissions a critical piece (as against a celebrity lifestyle piece) of that length any more, and Christgau was never a "lifestyle" writer.

Christgau is now in his mid-60s, and is writing (above all) for those of roughly his generation who still care, and (secondarily) for younger people who have some sense of what precedes them: far more than one can pick up from an occasional listen to a "classic rock" station. I don't agree with his dismissive remarks on Sabbath cited above, and I wouldn't call it a gem of a review, but it actually says quite a bit for such a short review. 64 words + a rating, and he manages to qualify his dismissal with an explanation of why he personally doesn't relate to what he considers to be at least one of its major appeals to its audience. I consider myself a pretty good writer, but I doubt I could have said so much in so few words.

I've certainly heard Christgau talk about (and lament) the loss of venues for long-form criticism. Does anyone know of a citable place where he has written about this? - Jmabel | Talk 05:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup and restructuring

The "History" section is in dire need of subsections and does not appear to be in chronological order. Help on this matter is available. Just64helpin 20:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Soulja Boy

Is this guy crazy? I mean, if you look at albums by Ice Cube, Jimmy Hendrix, Eminem. He had given some great albums low ratings or descent but he gives Soulja Boy an A-. I'm sorry thats just messed. Soulja Boy raps about his money and cars and how he's the bomb when people like The Game have something to say. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.96.85.49 (talk) 02:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

  • I just noticed that myself. What a joke! Surely he can't taken seriously Ssiww (talk) 06:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • In his 2001 Salon article, he called Radiohead "fucking shit", and in the same article he called Backstreet Boys' "I Want it That Way" one of the best "rock ballads" of all time.

[edit] Updates

If someone has some time to put into this article, have a look at his NPR biography, which has quite a bit that we are lacking, and is certainly citable. - Jmabel | Talk 22:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)