Just making sure everyone is aware that Robert Christgau, the "dean of American rock critics," has returned. His "Consumer Guide," in which he reviews albums with letter grades and sometimes astonishingly clever capsule reviews, started in 1969 as a column for the
Village Voice and has been going strong, in one place or another, more or less ever since. In the last 40 years he has reviewed nearly every album you can think of. If there's nothing important you need to do in the next few hours, visit his
website and see for yourself. His opinions are often startlingly unorthodox, and he defends them passionately—see, for instance, what he has to say about the Black Eyed Peas' latest album. Although I cannot endorse his views on Radiohead, and will never forgive him for calling
Kid A "dinner music" even if he deigned to give it an A-, he is still surely the toughest, most hype-resistant, most
objective rock writer out there.
It looked like it would be the end of the CG when MSN, which picked Christgau up after the
Voice came under new management in 2006 and liquidated their old guard, discontinued it this summer. I was very sad when I heard the news, and was then overjoyed when I learned in November that he would be carrying on after all in a twice-weekly
blog entitled "Expert Witness." By now he has already thrown in his two cents on most of the key albums of the latter months of 2010. Anyone who cares enough about music to read our blog should bookmark his and check it often.
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