The first half of 'Book Reports' deals with the history of popular music and rock criticism. When I hooked all those historical pieces together, building on the minstrelsy piece, it became my history of popular music. — Robert Christgau Copy Share Image
I think Theodore Adorno was profoundly ignorant. I think even Adorno's fans think he was bad at understanding popular music. He thought it was all jazz. — 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, except maybe Al Green. That's taste, yours to do with as you please, critical deployment included. By comparison, judgment requires serious psychological calisthenics. But the fact that objectivity only comes naturally in math doesn't mean it… — Robert Christgau Copy Share
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
