ROBERT CHRISTGAU

'Robert Christgau' (born April 18, 1942), is an American essayist, music journalist, and the self-declared "Dean of American Rock Critics".^[1] In print, his name is sometimes abbreviated as ''Xgau''.

Contents

Career summary

Consumer Guide

Pazz & Jop

Style and tastes

Notes and references

External links

Career summary

Christgau grew up in New York City, where he says he became a rock and roll fan when disk jockey Alan Freed moved to the city in 1954. He left New York for four years to attend Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, graduating in 1962. While at college, Christgau's musical interests turned to jazz, but he quickly returned to rock and roll after moving back to New York.
He initially wrote short stories, before giving up on fiction in 1964 to become a sportswriter and, later, a police reporter for the ''Newark Star-Ledger''. Christgau became a freelance writer after a story he wrote about the death of a woman in New Jersey was published by ''New York'' magazine. He was asked to take over the dormant music column at ''Esquire'', which he began writing in early 1967. After ''Esquire'' discontinued the column, Christgau moved to the ''The Village Voice'' in 1969 and also worked as a college teacher.
In early 1972, he accepted a full-time job as music critic for ''Newsday''. Christgau returned to the ''Village Voice'' in 1974 as music editor. He remained there until August 2006 when he was fired "for taste" shortly after the paper's acquisition by New Times Media.^[2] Two months later, Christgau became a contributing editor at ''Rolling Stone''.
Christgau has also written frequently for ''Playboy'', ''Spin'', ''Creem'', and ''Blender''. As of 2005, he is also an adjunct professor in the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at New York University (NYU).

Consumer Guide

Christgau is perhaps best known for his ''Consumer Guide'' columns, which have been published on a more-or-less monthly basis since 1969, mostly in the ''Village Voice'' but for a brief period in the New York daily newspaper ''Newsday''. In December 2006, the column moved online to MSN Music, initially appearing every other month before switching to a monthly schedule in June 2007. In its original format, the ''Consumer Guide'' consisted of 18 to 20 single-paragraph album reviews, each of which was given a letter grade ranging from A+ to E-. "Christgau's blurbs," writes Jody Rosen, "are like no one else's—dense with ideas and allusions, first-person confessions and invective, highbrow references and slang."¹
In 1990, Christgau changed the format of the Consumer Guide in order to concentrate more on good albums at the expense of mediocre ones. The ''Consumer Guide'' now contains six to eight reviews graded upper-B+ or higher, one "Dud of the Month" review graded B or lower, and three lists: Honorable Mention (B+ albums deemed not worthy of full-paragraph reviews), Choice Cuts (excellent tracks on un-recommended albums), and Duds. For several years, there were two annual ''Consumer Guide'' columns which strayed from this format: The Turkey Shoot (typically published the week of Thanksgiving), which consisted entirely of reviews graded B- or lower, and a Christmas-season roundup of compilations and reissues, mostly graded A or A+. Both have been discontinued.

Pazz & Jop

In 1971, Christgau inaugurated the annual Pazz & Jop music poll. The results are published in the ''Village Voice'' every February, and compile "top ten" lists submitted by music critics across the nation. Throughout Christgau's career at the ''Voice'', every poll was accompanied by a lengthy Christgau essay analyzing the results, and pondering the year's overall musical output. The ''Voice'' has continued the feature despite Christgau's dismissal, and although he no longer oversees the poll, Christgau continues to vote in it.

Style and tastes

In music-critic circles, he was an early supporter of hip hop and the riot grrl movement, along with other music styles. In the 1980s Christgau was a fervent booster of Afro-pop, a stance that alienated him from some in the critical community, as he seemed insufficiently interested in American and British rock music. In the 1990s, however, Christgau's interest in indie rock seemed to increase.
He is well known for his opposition to violent and misogynistic material in many hip hop songs, particularly gangsta rap. Some examples include his dismissal of such well-known hip hop offerings as Ice Cube's ''Death Certificate'' and N.W.A.'s ''Straight Outta Compton'', despite their tremendous influence on the genre. However he has praised other rappers reputed to be equally misogynst, including Eminem.This is best understood in terms of Christgau's long-stated preference for humor and irony. Christgau calls Eminem's work a "satiric, cautionary fiction," entirely different from the humorlessness of much hip hop.
In December 1980, Christgau provoked angry responses from ''Voice'' readers when his column approvingly quoted his wife's reaction to the murder of John Lennon: "Why is it always John Lennon and John F. Kennedy? Why isn't it ever Paul McCartney and Richard Nixon?" Christgau later conceded that it was a poor decision to print this comment.
Jody Rosen describes Christgau's writing as "often maddening, always thought-provoking… With Pauline Kael, Christgau is arguably one of the two most important American mass-culture critics of the second half of the 20th century. … All rock critics working today, at least the ones who want to do more than rewrite PR copy, are in some sense Christgauians."¹

Notes and references

1. Jody Rosen, X-ed Out: The Village Voice fires a famous music critic, ''Slate'', September 5 2006. Retrieved on 15 October 2006.
2. Longtime Rock Critic, Christgau, Axed at 'Village Voice' in Latest Layoffs, ''Editor & Publisher'', August 31 2006 Retrieved on 20 October 2006.

External links

★ Official web site

★ Consumer Guide on MSN Music

★ Review critical of Christgau by Christina Rees, ''Dallas Observer''

★ Online exchange with Robert Christgau at rockcritics.com