DEAN OF ROCK CRITICS TACKLES HIS SUBJECT FROM CULTURAL STANDPOINT
CLEA SIMON THE BOSTON GLOBE
* 01/13/99
REVIEW COLUMN
(Copyright 1999)
Forget the Hall of Fame. The proof that rock 'n' roll has come of
age is that serious criticism has arisen around it, schools of
thought and discussion that weigh its popular appeal against its
artistic merit, its influences, and its international range.
"It's got a beat, and you can dance to it," the famous Dick Clark
line, may still represent the primary criterion in some forums, but
in many others, rock as art has become the rule of the day.
Therefore, if anyone is looking for "Grown Up All Wrong," Robert
Christgau's compendium of critical essays, to be a fun, light read -
a pop single of a book - that reader should turn the page.
Hailed by many as the dean of American rock criticism, Christgau,
senior music critic of The Village Voice, is arguably the person most
responsible for making such criticism a serious discipline. And
after 27 years at that paper, the operative word is "arguably,"
because for all his brilliance, Christgau has always approached the
music with as much brain as heart, as much outrage as fandom, and as
much downright orneriness as love.
Unlike Greil Marcus, a writer who has long been more poet than
critic, Christgau lays out clear tracks for his cerebral, history-
laden trains of thought; unlike the late Lester Bangs and his gonzo
descendants, he makes it seem that the gray matter between the ears
counts for as much as the ears themselves.
It is as a cultural critic, therefore, rather than as a "rock
writer," that Christgau tackles popular music. Although "Grown Up
All Wrong" is a series of essays (culled from throughout his career)
ostensibly about artists from George Gershwin through KRS-One, it is
also about our times. Eschewing the standard line that rock was born
* from a union of blues and country music, Christgau looks to more
mainstream traditions of popular music, and reflects on Nat King Cole
and blackface vaudevillian Emmett Miller to find the reasons for our
contemporary tastes. Poking behind the myths (that Janis Joplin's
recordings never matched her live shows, or even the long-discounted
line that the Rolling Stones were working class), he seeks to
decipher why we love this music - or why we ought to.
Discussing contemporary acts, he sets out to explain context as
much as sound. And while that can get a tad too philosophical (when
he chews over the concept of a young band learning to invent itself
in his essay on Sleater-Kinney), he also lovingly depicts scenes to
which fans of any sound can relate.
In doing so, the author often takes a godlike stance, proclaiming
that an artist is brilliant, or that a fellow critic is not.
He also likes to put himself into the artist's head, writing,
"Pete Townshend didn't really think `Tommy' was an opera, he was just
having his little joke," and declaring that the intentionally
ambiguous artist Prince's " `Purple Rain' is about what to do with .
. . maturity."
But as these fairly straightforward sentences indicate, he has a
clear (if sometimes vicious) prose style. Technical terms (such as
timbre) are not defined, but in context are easily understandable.
Therefore, when he pushes the reader past established boundaries (he
is, after all, the founder of the Voice's cross-genre "Pazz and Jop
Poll"), he takes us with him. Of course, riding along with the
crotchety old dean may not be everyone's idea of fun. But for them,
as Christgau himself says, "When all else fails, there is always
jazz."
