The end of EW and tributes to Robert Christgau

It's a sad and beautiful thing at once. A couple of weeks ago, news filtered through that MSN were cutting down on their original content, and in turn letting their writers go. Among the casualties would be Robert Christgau and his Expert Witness blog. EW has been an outlet for Christgau's music writing since 2010, after he was let go from the Village Voice – a paper he helped to shape into one of the finest places to read about music and culture – a few years earlier, and writing a short-lived version of his Consumer Guide for MSN in between. That one of music journalisms giants once again would lose an outlet is a crying shame, and an indication of how poorly culture journalism at large is treated these days.

Via the community that over the years has formed around the EW blog (hats off in particular to Cam Patterson and Jeffey Melnick), people have been invited to write a few words, a testimonial, in honor of Christgau and his work, a tribute to the blog and the rather unique place that is the comment section, a place which has been (almost entirely) refreshingly free of trolls and other internet evils, and instead a venue for discussions big and small about Christgau's writing, music, culture, politics and other topics of interest

Since the last reviews were posted this Friday, tributes have been pouring in from readers, music fans, fellow writers and critics, and musicians, Chuck Cleaver (of the Ass Ponys and Wussy) and Adam Weiner (Low Cut Connie) among them.

The testimonials have told stories of discovery, inspiration, personal encounters, and much, much more. All have been worthy reads, to various degrees touching, and inspirational themselves. I was trigger happy, and posted a few words a week early, and added some further thoughts on Friday. As an attempt at explaining what makes Christgau one of a kind, and why he's been such an inspiration, my words were inadequate. However, fellow critic and writer Joe Levy stepped up and with his lovely tribute, which I'll allow myself to qoute a few pertinent lines from, pretty much hits the nail on the head:

"The reading [of Christgau's writing] has opened up worlds of new music, of course, but also something else: new ways of thinking, of being in the world. Music is about these things. But so much writing about music is like talking about music. That is, it’s about matters of taste: I like this, you like that, and here’s why everyone who feels differently than we do is wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Bob’s writing is about something else. Many somethings else, in fact. Culture and politics, you bet, but also the whole panoply of experience summed up in that moment right at the start of the New York Dolls’ “Human Being,” when Johnny Thunders invents the Ramones and David Johansen restates the entirety of John Locke’s social contract with these words: “If I’m acting like a king, well, that’s 'cause I’m a human being.” And also a lot stuff about love, and about fighting for your right to party with the same person for as long as possible."

Xgau's Consumer Guide & Molde Jazz '10

The more observant of you may have noticed that I've put up a section on the right hand bar of this blog called "Subject to Change". The idea was (and is ) to post links to things that I find worth reading, but don't feel the need (or the time) to comment on myself.

At the top of that section as of now, is a link to Tom Hull's comments regarding the demise of Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide, which I do feel the need to say something about myself.

The influence of Christgau's CG can be felt on several planes. His great writing - joyful celebrations of the art form as well as acerbic put downs and the in-betweens - has inspired me and others to try to reach for a higher level of how to write and think about music, especially in how to convey those thoughts to others. And Christgau could unfold the essence of a record using fewer, but more telling, words than most. His immense appetite for music has meant that he has discovered more gems than most other critics, which has certainly also meant sifting through hours of crap. With the CG, he had an opportunity to cover more of that music in writing per month than any other critic.

Much of the above has been said by many commentators allready. But what has perhaps been his biggest influence on me has only been mentioned in passing or by extention by others.

Christgau crystalized the idea that music communicates - implicitly and/or explicitly - attitudes, values, ideas and emotions, and the question becomes not only what those qualities are, and if or how they resonate, but also how they are communicated. No one "genre" has the monopoly on the attitudes and ideas I find valuable (even if, at first glance, some may seem better equipped to convay them more than others, or certain "genres" seem to have more of one attitude or value than the next). That is the reason I more often than not have tended to agree with Christgau's accessments: because our world views are similar. Sure there have been disagreements, as there should be if you're an autonomous being, but these disagreements have just as often as not tended to regard how well or not I've thought the above mentioned qualities have been communicated more than what was valuable in the first place.

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On a different note, Molde Jazz 2010 kicks off today, and for the first time since setting up this blog I won't be in attendance. This is partly because of practical reasons, but also that barring Sonny Rollins and the Brötzmann/Kondo/Pupillo/Nilssen-Love project Hairy Bones, there really wasn't much that tickled my fancy. Instead, I hope to bring extended coverage of Oslo Jazz Festival in August, which has a great line up this year with Ornette Coleman, Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Charles Gayle and Archie Shepp among the highlights.

Music Crits too tolerant? What's Indie? Informed opinions? Target audiences?

A post by Mike Barthel on Idolator yesterday, which starts off asking why it is Metacritic's average scores for records is higher than they are for movies, then proceeds to guess it has something to do with a indie mentality: "The indie audience and the critics that spring from it have become so catholic in their tastes that they can see the good in almost anything that's not bad on a very basic technical level." (My highlights).

And the piece kind of sprawls from there, taking in questions of how one can write about music without knowing enough "to have an informed opinion" with an "audience for my review" that "would be people that are highly informed".

The comments are all over the place too, but I liked Matos' point: I'd rather read a critic who's actually made an effort to understand something and then dismissed it gleefully and with malice aforethought (...) than "are you kidding?" disdain for something the writer plainly isn't getting."

If I had more time, I'd join in on the debate, and there may be some points, either made by Mike or in the comments, that I'm missing here.

But if there was one thing I'd hope would come out of the poptimist/rockist debate, whichever side you were on, it was that people would stop having such hangups with genres. And they're back at it here. Broad taste is defined purely by genre, as one commenter says " But I see kids with everything from Modest Mouse to Jack Johnson to Ciara to Trace Adkins to Mastodon. There's a healthy mix (...)".

One who calls himself RaptorAvatar is on to something: "Even if you're like me and know that you're partial to a certain set of values that often crystallize most readily in indie rock, chances are that you have at least an ethos-level sense that you should maybe listen to "Year of The Gentleman (...)" (=Ne-Yo's latest, my comment).

Only I'd add to his "indie rock", jazz, rap, pop, r&b... See, what I've found over the years is that the values and expressions I seek and like - not only in music but in literature and films as well - are not confined to one genre specifically (though I may concur that some values, which RA touches on, are probably more likely to be found in one genre over another). Similarly, what I don't like in music can be found in alomost every genre as well. E.g. indie as a genre does not in and of itself express one coherent set of values, nor do indie bands and musicians express them equally well. The same goes for any other genre.

Before I'm labeled as a relativist here, let me just say in one respect, one can claim that my taste is actually very narrow in that I know exactly which kinds of values, expressions etc. I like and dislike - though music has a way of surprising you sometimes.

This, I maintain, is what gives me the right to have an opinion on almost anything I want to write about. What I take the time, and money, to write about is another matter all together.

(A belated and retro-influenced Songs of the Week will appear shortly).