#robertchristgau

[jackalsinthekitchen]

pop report #4 (2/4/23)

new beginnings and the same old songs – pop is art & art is pop

How’s your week going? Mine’s alright. A new week of American chart action is coming to a close, with another shuffle of the cards due tomorrow. What does it all mean? Perhaps nothing. But locating the beauty and excitement and innovation and empowerment and restoration in apparent meaninglessness is why we love pop music in the first place. Though I guess “meaninglessness” is for the old days, when men in suits decried the slide from Johnnie Ray to Fabian – yearning for the more contained, prudent noise of, oh, Mitch Miller, another tie-throttled hater who did more to trivialize music than Elvis ever did.

Well. It isn’t the ‘50s, it’s the ‘20s (christ): pop music is artistic expression, & it sounds better than ever.

It may not be better than ever. What has our ever-polarized country enjoyed most this week? Miley Cyrus finally appears atop the country’s slowest and most significant chart, keeping “Kill Bill” down, though SZA can take historical solace in how many great songs stalled at #2. The Cyrus hit sounds better with each play – its music groovy and juicy, its self-love anthem lyrics as vital as those kinds of things always are. As I opined last week, however, for a woman who seems to flock to extremes, MC’s songs always feel so hedged – the chaos and lunacy she deploys more naturally than most pop stars are often difficult to find in her actual music. As art for money’s sake goes, “Flowers” feels fresh enough. But SZA’s hit, and its parent album, really are great art: formally inventive, emotionally raw yet nuanced, musically dreamy without disappearing into the ether, her specialty. That it’s selling is a credit to us (U.S.).

“Anti-Hero” settles into a respectable #3. I wish someone would explain to me, in concise and exciting fashion, why the turnarounds on these entries are so slow. How many different experiences an hour is TikTok? 150? We obviously have a voracious appetite for different shit. But this is how it’s always been, and anyway, Swift’s hit has yet to lose its luster for me. “Creepin” hangs in high; recall that the Weeknd is the guy who finally unseated “The Twist” as the bestselling song in Billboard’s entire history. The thing about the Weeknd, which seems to have been buried by a decade’s passage, is that when he first appeared, with the genuinely underground House of Balloons, he really seemed like a creep. That whole “when I’m fucked up, that’s the real me” shit – his music his almost always about sex, but also always sounds ominous and tortured, and I don’t know how to reconcile those things. But this is a fucked-up country, so honestly if he helps people exorcise lust and pain at once, great. Mope on, Week.

His albums are all over the charts too, reminding me that in terms of pure sales, the Weeknd and Drake are the Elton John and Paul McCartney (& Wings) of their era. SZA, at least, reigns supreme over in that top 10, with Midnights once again right up there too. While both albums are the kind you could live in comfortably for months on end – they draw your worst feelings out, subject them to a full spa treatment and six-session therapy course, and put them right back where they belong – it does seem like SZA’s is decisively better. Taylor’s chronic if inconsistent ungainliness, her ability to settle on the silliest and most awkward couplet in the world and match it to a judiciously sincere vocal and gloriously predictable melody, is part of her charm. But SOS’s lyrical wisdom and musical efficacy are a level above.

We’ll get back to #s 3 and 4 on the album charts – which are NEW ENTRIES – briefly noting that 5-10 are Metro Boomin’s Gloomiest Hits, Drake & 21 Savage Present: Women! Am I Right?, Bad Bunny es Jodidamente Sexy, Offensive: That Very Long Country Album, Zach Bryan’s record (which is still a real joy on contact, so I hope there’s nothing MAGA in the lyrics), and Growing Up Baby (by L. Baby). But because this isn’t readily available information, I should go back to running down the top singles. “Unholy” lives! People still think “I’m Good” is good! They’d die for “Die for You”! They think “Rich Flex” is a flex, Rich! “As it Was” is still there, as it was! “Golden Hour” is having its (OK OK. I’ll apologize later)

Getting back to #3 and #4 on the album charts: Trippie Redd – there’s a pair of words I’ve never seen, but this is his fifth album – is #3, a fairly conventional-sounding hard trap record whose track list is full of pairs of words I have seen, like “Chief” and “Keef”, “Juice” and “WRLD”. (The latter deserves the work he’s still getting four years after his death.) As for #4, if you saw how the artist’s name (HARDY) and the song titles (“beer”), not to mention the album title (the mockingbird & THE CROW), are styled (like THIS), well you wouldn’t know what to think. But though I’m not exactly sure what HARDY stands for (Hey! A Real Damn Yokel, maybe? “ain’t talkin politics, I’m talkin small towns, and if you’re FRUM WON you know what I’m TALKIN BAHOUT”), he’s a country act produced like a pop metal act – like Trippie, solid but unimaginative.

Look: part of why I want to examine these charts is that I have Boomer’s Kid Syndrome. I try to trick my ears into thinking it’s decades ago. But I wanna know what’s happening now, and since the monoculture is decomposing, I feel like this is the closest I can get to a consensus. Of course, this leaves out a wealth of brilliant indie music – not a genre, I remind you, but a classification based on distribution and, consequently, the expected reach of the musical product in question. Indie’s broken into our charts many times, and there was a minute between the aughts & the teens where pure pop actually began to feel like the underdog.

Though power is power, privilege is privilege and good old capitalism is shitty old capitalism, I don’t like to draw these distinctions between pop and art – it’s all pop art, man. It’s like people I remember from school who used to insist that “movies” and “films” are different things, a misguided stance exemplified by the annual kerfuffle in which a thing like Top Gun: Maverick gets nominated for Best Picture and roughly equal portions of people flip their shit (positive and negative). But art is good or bad, and there isn’t even a science to prove which, or how much. Pure enjoyment and undeniable profundity can coexist; can even be melded into the same moment.

So yeah: there’s so much more music to write about than whatever will take these top slots throughout the year, and because this is my brand new blog on fucking Tumblr which at the moment nobody reads (I’m talkin to YOU, reader), I can write something like this: I don’t know what this blog is going to be yet, exactly. For a little over a decade I’ve been writing freelance very casually and with a regrettable dearth of ambition, with little victories and lengthy droughts. I used to write a lot more and a lot worse, but then and now I only ever seem to write about pop music. I have a real thing for the now-octogenarian Dean of American Rock Critics Robert Christgau, who can get away with unwieldier sentences and more absurdly obscure words than anybody should ever try. But in the spirit of finding the momentum in the core of a new beginning, I figured I’d give myself a place to write with no rules, save for the ones I set.

I knew quickly on that writing a piece at a rough rate of one per week could burn me out fast, and have discovered that these Billboard redundancies don’t make for very fresh content. But as I was going down the latest list, recognizing that this piece is nearly a week late by my own arbitrary deadline, I realized something. I missed a week! I didn’t bug you at all about the week of January 28th! So now, not only do you not know what happened, you don’t even know how I feel about it. While I feel true, deep regret for this act of deprival, it’s useful in that it proves to me that the world won’t end if I skip a week. Or two. Or six. But that’s these chart beats. I have plenty to say about all kinds of shit that happened long before.

So adieu for now, with Jackals! to return and roam around a few new fields sometime before this next month comes in like a lion. (February in Texas is more like a hippo – deceptively sedate until it rises up, roars, and bites you through the torso). Thanks so much for reading, you two. And since it’s quiet enough here to not risk embarrassing her, I’ll add a bit more gratitude to that which I give her regularly, and thank Jenna Caire for editing these pieces – a startlingly enjoyable process – & designing our logo.

[vinylanswer]

This live album was in a stack of old records I was given a while back. I finally listened to it and while Reed is, as always, a mixed bag, his band is phenomenal, particularly guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, who shine in the unending instrumental “Intro”—frankly the best part of the proceedings. Critic Robert Christgau liked the album except for “Intro,” which he found to be showboat-y, and Paul Morley thought the entire album was an abomination for turning Reed’s oeuvre into straight-ahead rock songs, but truth be told, the band did Reed a favor. Like so many other damaged rock gods (Brian Wilson comes to mind), Reed is clearly the weakest link in this band and someone had the good sense to surround him with A++ players to carry the ball if/when needed. Hell, I’ve never been a fan of the big wanky guitar solo; I love guitar histrionics as much as the next GenX-er, but if you can’t say what you need to say in under 90 seconds, shut up already. “Intro,” however, is a glorious exception.

[minstrel75itg]

Album Number Two Hundred Two. “Heartbeat City” is the fifth studio album by the Cars, released on March 13, 1984, by #elektrarecords . The band produced the album with #robertjohnmuttlange . My copy is a gatefold on Elektra Records - 60296-1 This marks the band's first album not produced by long-time producer #roythomasbaker . It also represented a return to the success of the band's self-titled debut album, with critic #robertchristgau noting that "the glossy approach #thecars #thecarsband invented has made this the best year for pure pop in damn near twenty years, and it's only fair that they should return so confidently to form." Numerous tracks from the album received airplay on modern rock and AOR stations, with the singles "#drive “ and "#youmightthink “ reaching the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, while the album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200. #rockandroll #theeighties #ricocasek #benjaminorr #ellioteaston #davidrobinson #greghawkes #davidrobinsondrummer https://www.instagram.com/p/CWv267GvRQI/?utm_medium=tumblr

[pointer8708]

#pinkflag #wire #brucegilbert #robertgotobed #grahamlewis #colinnewman #katelukas #daveoberlé #mikethorne #paulhardiman #kemthomas photography: #annettegreen #richardbray #lyndahouse This album was my jam in 77 & 78 way more than #ramones This is what I played when living in #palmerpark in #detroit Tim Gass an old friend who no longer with us, turned me on to this masterpiece! This record influenced everyone from The Cure, Minor Threat, Minutemen, Blur & R.E.M. - this is having me pogoing with Joy! The Village Voice famed critic #robertchristgau called Pink Flag’s debut “ a Punk Suite” and loved it’s simultaneous rawness and detachment - much grimmer and frightening than the Ramones” Enjoy (at Hollywood Hills) https://www.instagram.com/p/CV3zsX-PSZi/?utm_medium=tumblr

[bonnettsbooks]

(2/?) — Articles by counter-culturalist #PaulKrassner and music reviewer #RobertChristgau help settle you in for the reading ahead, alongside a review for the exciting new #ElectricCircus club in NYC. (at Bonnett's Book Store) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBoGzARnrnU/?igshid=xoqnl5acy1zg

[charleyruddell-blog]

Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out • "This is not the forbidding experimentation of an aspiring vanguard. This is the fooling around of folks who like to go out on Saturday night and make some noise—and then go home humming it." The Dean of American Rock critics and Village Voice Rock Sommelier Robert Christgau said this candid statement, among many, regarding Indie royalty Yo La Tengo's intensely prolific recording career. The 2000 release of ninth studio album 'And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out' was a simple continuation in praise for the critic's Indie darlings, but a slightly softer, more mature shift in the band's generally fuzzy, explorative catalogue. 'Inside Out' would go on to earn spots in several "Best Albums of 2000" lists from major publications Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and PopMatters. • Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan once said that the 1993 release of their pivotal record "Painful" was ground zero for their sound, despite having released five albums previously. "Inside Out", like its predecessors, capitalizes on the major themes of "Painful"; Fuzz, long-play jams, timid vocal delivery, and lyrical quirkiness (see: Last Days of Disco, Tired Hippo, Lets Save Tony Orlando's House). The difference between the two is age. "Painful" is a record reflective of early 90s youth and revolt, a wall of sound and energy, whereas "Inside Out" reflects the turn of the century, maturity, space, and introspection. The album's seventeen minute closer "Night Falls in Hoboken" can be seen as more of a guided meditation than rock finale- an indication of self-awareness in the inevitable aging of the creative artist. Matador, 2000. • • • • • #vinyl #records #vinylcollection #recordcollection #yolatengo #andthennothingturneditselfinsideout #matadorrecords #indierock #experimentalrock #folk #hoboken #tonyorlando #irakaplan #robertchristgau #2000 (at Hoboken, New Jersey)

[soundpavilionmusic-blog]

I was just reading up on some music roots and history and found this paragraph in the Funky Four + 1 Wiki: . 'Music critic Robert Christgau of The Village Voice named it the best song of the 1980s.' . Me: Best Song of the 1980s?🤔 . 'In his 1981 review of the single, Christgau gave it an A rating and wrote of its musical significance, "The instrumental track, carried by Sugarhill bassist Doug Wimbish, is so compelling that for a while I listened to it alone on its B-side version. And the rapping is the peak of the form, not verbally—the debut has funnier words—but rhythmically. Quick tradeoffs and clamorous breaks vary the steady-flow rhyming of the individual MCs, and when it comes to Sha-Rock, Miss Plus One herself, who needs variation?" . #Music #MusicCritic #RobertChristgau #TheVillageVoice #1980s #Sugarhill #DougWimbish #Rapping #FemaleRapper #Pioneers #MC #MissPlusOne #FunkyFourPlusOne #Funky4plus1 ##KKRockwell #KevinSmith #KeithKeith #KeithCaesar #ShaRock #SharonGreen #Rahiem #GuyToddWilliams #HipHop #GrandmasterFlash

[frippertronica]

the ultimate white guy critic robert christgau giving the romeo must die soundtrack an A- 

[byblacks]

Afropop superstar #fatoumatadiawara has built a modern global career from her traditional West African roots. Village Voice music critic #RobertChristgau calls her the “subtlest of desert divas.” Nominated in 2019 for two awards (Best World Music Album for Fenfo, and Best Dance Recording for her vocals) the Malian musician stands out in any crowd. Click the link below for tickets to her February 28th performance!  You don't want to miss this! https://flatomarkhamtheatre.ca/Online/mapSelect.asp?doWork::WSmap::loadMap=Load&createBO::WSmap=1&BOparam::WSmap::loadMap::performance_ids=6827AD8A-C3FF-488D-AE6B-ACC234CCCA8C

[timrileyauthor]

#alanlight #tomcarson #chuckberry #halblaine #greilmarcus #robertchristgau #davelaing #xgau @minimusiccritic #creem #chuckklosterman #CameronCrowe #SimonReynolds #EricWeisbard #retrorockism #bbcmusic #musicjournalist #musiccritic #spotify #mojo #LSUG @chrissmithermusic #creem #rrindex https://ift.tt/2TQpfc2

[dougmeet]

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@jerryleelewisthekiller clips taken from essential #tonypalmer #documentary on history of rock n roll @tonypalmer #allyouneedislove @nightflightofficial @rockhall @rocknroll_archives @rocknrollbridemagazine @bobgruen @morrisonhotelgallery @therealmickrock @jimmypage @leylabluetoo @memphisflyer @memphisrocknsoulmuseum @sunrecordcompany @elvis @hernandoshideawaymemphis @thetrashapp @robertchristgau @tootsies_orchid_lounge @officialcmhof @tylermahancoe @stevienickscocaine @palominoclub @jerryleesonbeale (at The Palomino Club in N .hollywood) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_kUG54Fpxn/?igshid=cg18vcw3vxp1

[jestoon425-blog]

Just another reason to love Ellen Willis. Can you believe this was written in 1967? I can't either.... #ellenwillis #objectification #feminism #beachculture #robertchristgau

[minstrel75itg]

Album Number Fifty-Seven As I skip over their part with Bob Dylan on “Planet Waves”, “Before the Flood” and “Basement Tapes” in 1974 and 1975, “Northern Lights – Southern Cross” is the sixth studio album by #theband , released in 1975. It was the first album to be recorded at their new California studio, Shangri-La, and the first album of all new material since 1971's Cahoots. All eight songs are credited as compositions of guitarist #robbierobertson My copy is on #capitolrecords - ST-11440. This was recorded using a 24-track tape recorder, which allowed #garthhudson to include multiple layers of keyboards on several tracks. The album was well-received critically: #rollingstonemagazine declared that The Band had kicked "a field goal", and, while he was put off by the sentimentality of the lyrics, #robertchristgau wrote "the pure comeliness of every melody on this album led to an immediate infatuation." #rockandroll #theseventies #levonhelm #rickdanko #richardmanuel https://www.instagram.com/p/CQd46YgLcPb/?utm_medium=tumblr

[pointer8708]

#quadrophenia #thewho #keithmoon #petetownshend #rogerdaltrey #chrisstainton #joncurrie #kitlambert #chrisstamp #glynjohns #petekameron photography #ethanarussell one of my fave bands - quite possibly one of the best records of the 70’s Seriously one of the best live bands ever!!! I have had the pleasure of seeing this beautiful entity since 1972 and yes did see the Quadrophenia Tours in both 1973 and in 1996 and in 2008 I got to spend quality time with #petetownshend at #thetroubadour with his partner #rachelfuller - Pete remembered everything about his #silverdome appearance- this was in 74 and he knew how the roof was held up by air - this guy is such a genius - like his whole band - this album showcases that remarkable talent that each band member has! From this album begat the movie - I so love #robertchristgau wrote “ how 1973’s best records-fail to reward casual attention. They demand concentration, just like museum and textbook art.” This is most likely my brother’s Pearce fave record Enjoy! (at Hollywood Hills) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKAc2LWlWEL/?igshid=sqz6esussw9y

[themollygolightly-blog]

4 years ago today was easily the single most inspiring day of my life. I shared amazing discussions about music, gender, and identity with music writers that i have admired for years. I talked to Rob Sheffield about Robert Christgau being a larger than life concept, not a person and wanting to be Ann Powers "when i grow up". I got literally 10 books autpgraphed. And Kathleen Hannah stole my seat. I still think that's cool. #ellenwillis #robsheffield #robertchristgau #annpowers

[byblacks]

“…a classy affair that demonstrates her impressive musical range.” – The Guardian Afropop superstar #FatoumataDiawara has built a modern global career from her traditional West African roots. Village Voice music critic #RobertChristgau calls her the “subtlest of desert divas.” Nominated in 2019 for two awards (Best World Music Album for Fenfo, and Best Dance Recording for her vocals) the Malian musician stands out in any crowd. Over the past decade Diawara has crisscrossed the world several times performing her music – a modern Afropop rooted in Wassoulou cultural traditions. Diawara’s remarkable album, Fenfo, extends her reach into both modern Afropop and traditional themes. Click the link for tickets to her February 28th performance! https://flatomarkhamtheatre.ca/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=EE8BF51E-0112-4DAB-BACC-AA7475AAC0AE