A History of Rock Criticism

A History of Rock Criticism By Robert Christgau When do we say television becomes a better writers Ian Dove and John dailies in their lowest-common-denom- cultural reality? Around 1948, right? Rockwell until Rockwell came on staff inator caution resisted more recalci- And when did The New York Times in 1974. trantly than the upmarket slicks. But I radio columnist Jack Gould begin his By then—beginning with Richard believe the third reason was most move to TV coverage? November 16, Goldstein of The Village Voice, whose important. Rock and roll was supposed 1947, with a review of the Theatre Guild Pop Eye column began in 1965—rock to be for kids. production of a play called John criticism was epidemic. It was a staple Well, right. In the ’50s, rock and roll Flaherty. Nor was Gould alone. John of the nascent alternative-weekly busi- was for kids. But even then that meant Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune ness, de rigueur in short-lived lifestyle older kids, which is to say teenagers— was only the most prominent of count- incipient adults. You’d think some jour- less TV critics scattered at dailies It was, of course, the nalistic visionary would have tried to nationwide by the early ’50s. instill the newspaper habit in this When do we say rock and roll ’60s. The New demographic. Any failure to do so cer- becomes a cultural reality? Around tainly rests more with such factors as 1955, right? And the first rock critic at a Journalism was in the the demon television and the imminent daily paper? The locally beloved, air, along with loose talk demise of Western civilization than rock nationally obscure Jane Scott, who was criticism or the lack thereof. Still, some 45 on September 15, 1964, when she of freedom, revolution alert, thoughtful, entertaining music reviewed a Beatles concert, commenc- reviewing might have made a differ- ing a long, effusive career at the and astrology. ence. Yet neither arts editors, with their Cleveland Plain Dealer. Nationally, middlebrow prejudices, nor general edi- however, this meant nothing. I’m aware monthlies like Eye and Cheetah, raison tors, with their hardboiled ones, seem to of two generalists—downtown colum- d’etre in such fanzines-going-commer- have considered it. nist Al Aronowitz of the New York Post cial as Paul Williams’ seminal Thus rock criticism underwent a and, crucially, jazz critic Ralph J. Crawdaddy, Robert Somma’s cerebral journey rather different from that of Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, Fusion and Dave Marsh’s gonzo Creem. film (which was helped along, as TV later gray eminence at Rolling Stone— You could read it in Life (Albert criticism was later, by the movies’ links who wrote about pop music occasional- Goldman), The New Yorker (Ellen to theater and hence literature). Strictly ly. No doubt there were others, as well Willis), Saturday Review (Ellen speaking, film criticism had a prehistory as classical dabblers (one was Robert Sander), and Esquire (myself). And of in the trades, as did rock criticism, with Micklin, who ceded Newsday’s rock beat course, rock criticism was the backbone rhythm-and-blues proponent Paul to me in March 1972). But dedicated of the most successful magazine startup Ackerman of Billboard the key name. critics? In the dailies? In the ’60s? Not of the late ’60s, Rolling Stone. Movie fan magazines began with bloody likely. Stringer-turned-major- So why were the dailies so slow to Photoplay in 1911; date their musical domo Robert Hilburn wasn’t hired to catch up? Beyond the home truth that, counterparts to the swing magazines of replace forgotten stringer Pete Johnson artswise, the dailies are always slow, the ’30s or 1943’s Hit Parader. But by at the Los Angeles Times until 1970. The there were three reasons. First, the spe- 1920, with the 1915 release of Birth of a insufficiently legendary Lillian Roxon, a cial hold of classical music on the high- Nation a benchmark, the dailies had a hip and sharp-tongued version of Scott brow sensibility should never be under- lock on the critical appraisal of cinema till her death in 1973, was a pop special- estimated. Since opera and symphony in America, where the traditional news- ist at Australia’s Sydney Morning seem the embodiment of genteel cul- paper standards that defined it as movie Herald for years before she joined New ture, popular music of every kind, jazz reviewing predominated. York’s Daily News in 1971. The New York included, has always gotten short shrift At the new music mags and alterna- Times relegated its occasional daily rock critically. Second, rock criticism’s ’60s tive weeklies, no such standards were in coverage to the dreadful freelancer Mike strongholds were mostly underground place. It was, of course, the ’60s. The Jahn until 1972, then shared it between or counterculture, a formation the New Journalism was in the air, along 140 REPORTING THE ARTS II with loose talk of freedom, revolution Maslin never wrote about music and however. Multiplatinum demigod and and astrology. None of us was getting Holden is now a film and theater critic punk godmother both resisted singer- paid much, and few had actual jobs or who occasionally deigns to praise adult songwriter gentility and arena-rock believed we needed them. There was a pop and/or dismiss anything pomp with rebel poses, terse song forms world of necessity out there, and before liked by kids. and hard beats, and got hosannas in long it would step on our necks; in the Countering Rolling Stone at a lower both Stone and Creem as a result. meantime, however, rock criticism was level of profitability was Creem, which Different as they were, both magazines a literary haven. Even at Rolling Stone, soon lured Lester Bangs from California valued idealistic cunning and formal where former daily reporter John Burks to Detroit, where he set a wildly irrever- courage in not just the music they was charged with imposing order, the ent tone many others there emulated. praised but the writing they published— first reviews editor was only hired in Creem was born to be brash—even now auteurist gravitas had no more place in June 1969. Greil Marcus wouldn’t aban- Dave Marsh writes with a chip on his the straight press than gonzo nose- don his doctoral studies for a full-time shoulder in the self-published, outspo- thumbing. career as an intellectual gadfly until kenly left-wing Rock & Rap My aim when I took over the Village 1972, and his standards were plentiful Confidential. But it got truly crazy once Voice Riffs section in 1974 was a synthe- and stringent. He wasn’t above rewriting Bangs started spouting copy and charis- sis—Meltzer meets Maslin, Holden submissions with no consultation (and ma. Except for Richard Meltzer, who meets Bangs. I also wanted more poli- little complaint). But when he was first appeared in Crawdaddy and was tics, more women writers and, please brought onboard to oversee a section Bangs’ only acknowledged rock-critical God, a few blacks and some salsa cover- that had previously come together ad age—as well as more ways of seeing hoc, he set himself against Stone’s black music, as the word “disco” became already entrenched culture of reverence. Rock’s commercial the latest way to imply that African- Marcus wanted fans who expected juggernaut became American pop wasn’t “artistic” enough. records to change their lives and got mad And though I didn’t succeed to the when they didn’t. He wanted, he says, impossible to ignore, as extent I’d hoped, the attempt proved “betrayal and outrage and enthusiasm.” prophetic in the weeklies and, by osmo- Standards established, he left in did the actually existing sis, the dailies as rock criticism grew up. early 1970, and before the end of the musical interests of The Voice’s Pazz & Jop Critics’ Poll, year the job had passed to columnist which became official with a mailing to Jon Landau, the straightest of the old working journalists 24 close colleagues in 1974—and which Crawdaddy crew. A sometime record in its 2002 edition canvassed some producer, Landau by 1977 was manag- whose hair kept getting 1,500 critics and tallied ballots from 695 ing Bruce Springsteen, an artist he had longer and whose of them—provided an excellent way to famously dubbed “rock and roll future” gauge this growth. in Boston’s Real Paper before their busi- mean birth date kept Hand wringing is always a tempta- ness relationship began. Relying heavily tion in retrospectives like this, and I’ll on writers from the Boston alt weeklies getting later. indulge before I’m through. Rock criti- as well as the Bay Area, Landau profes- cism was certainly more fun in the old sionalized Stone’s section while promot- inspiration, no colleague at Creem (or days, no matter how cool the tyros opin- ing an auteur theory derived from anywhere else) approached Bangs’ par- ing for chump change in netzines like Andrew Sarris. This turn from the pre- ticular brilliance. Unfazed by fame, yet PopMatters and Pitchfork think it is vailing Kaelism—an unsystematic so drunk on his own élan vital that his now. But let me accentuate the positive. responsiveness that valued lively writing attempts at cynicism were often endear- How did we get from a Beatlemania above all else—had the commonsensical ing, he wrote from an emotional, explic- that went without significant critical effect of insisting that the artist with his itly subjective laff-a-minute vantage consideration in the daily press to an or her name on the cover was express- that still offends prigs who consider the embattled megabusiness that attracts ing a vision traceable from album to first person a sin.

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