One of the many things I hate about Donald Trump is that he embodies a kind of very popular popular culture that, as near as I'm able to perceive and stomach, is of no quality whatsoever. — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
One meaningful distinction between high and popular culture, is that there's way more good popular culture - because its standards of quality are more forgiving, because sobriety isn't its default mode, because there's so damn much of it. — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
The idea with a collection is sort of to begin with a kind of bang. — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
People believe that criticism should be objective, whatever that means, but I really don't understand what people mean by that. I guess if you're… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
“One concept the non-old have trouble getting their minds around is the difference between taste and judgment. It's fine not to like almost anything,… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
You know, criticism began as the province of amateurs, of wealthy men who liked the arts. — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
I believe that writing on music is experienced inside your head, is not a physically present in the world, it has a different kind… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
Chuck Berry's 'Maybellene' hit the airwaves at about the time Alan Freed got to New York, and it was definitely a song I really… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
I don't think it's such a bad idea that people learn the same history in school. I think it tends to ground people and… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
My wife is more important to me than anything in the world - including music. She's a great editor and companion for all of… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
You can only adjust to so much history in your life. I still have trouble texting. — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
I've always been a jazz fan, but I don't write much about jazz, because I don't have the chops. But it's really, really hard… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
There's a musicologist named Peter van der Merwe whose theory is that the blues generates tune families, and that their similarity to each other… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
Anyway, you know, when Richard Meltzer said rock and roll died in '68, what he means is Jefferson Airplane were no longer his buddies,… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
I basically believe that all pop stars create personas and manipulate them. What we relate to are not their real selves; they are projections,… — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
My personal experience has been that in my free bohemian subculture, I'm not unique. — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
If you wanna write non-fiction you have to be interested in the world. — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
