I tapped into rock critic Robert Christgau’s Web site this morning and promptly immersed myself in a wealth of music opinion.
This site is a discerning music fan’s nirvana: more than 11,000 reviews, all of them short, many of them cranky, some admitting to an artist’s talent and charm, but not without a hint of surprise. Taken as a unit, they expose Christgau in full: this is a man who’s listened to far too much music and become jaded by his own abundance, yet he eagerly awaits the next time the music captivates him. Quietly, I long for his aural excess.
I read a handful of reviews and gleefully propelled myself into his space. Now I am drowning in the delight of my own internal jukebox, replaying my favorite songs in my head, while jumping from artist to artist on Christgau’s site, looking for the moments where his opinions match mine and we have fallen in love with the same album.
I am reminded of the true joy of music criticism: In the past tense, it serves as a stamp of approval, a chance to validate the odd purchases and personal pleasures. I’ve never gotten my friends to bebop along with Taj Mahal’s “Cakewalk into Town,” but when a critic writes exactly what I feel, I can say, Yeah, Christgau, man, you get it. For a music fan’s ultimate, unspoken yearning, beyond the pleasures of the music itself, is the affirmation of smart selection.