Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s

Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s
The cover of the book, showing half of a gramophone record in front of a yellow background; a red stripe is placed on its left. Information and details on the book are superimposed on the picture in different writing styles.
Author Robert Christgau
Country United States
Language English
Subject Albums, capsule review, discography, music journalism, popular music, rock music
Published 1990 by Pantheon Books
Media type Print
Pages 514
ISBN 0-679-73015-X
Preceded by Rock Albums of the Seventies
Followed by Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s

Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s is a music reference book authored by American music journalist Robert Christgau and published in October 1990 by Pantheon Books. It is a follow-up to Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). The book compiles approximately 3,000 capsule album reviews, most of which were originally written by Christgau for his monthly "Consumer Guide" column in The Village Voice throughout the 1980s. It covers a variety of genres and musical developments from the decade, which are given an overview in his introductory essays.

The book was generally well received by critics, who praised Christgau's sensibility and the quality of his writing. It was succeeded in 2000 by Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s, forming a three-volume series of "Consumer Guide" collections.

Content and scope

Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s is the second in a series of books—beginning with 1981's Rock Albums of the Seventies—to compile, revise, and expand on Christgau's capsule album reviews, which were originally written for his monthly "Consumer Guide" column in The Village Voice throughout the decade specific to each volume.[1]

This book collects approximately 3,000 such reviews which range individually from 50 to 150 words—accompanied by a letter grade—and are arranged as entries, ordered alphabetically by the name of the album's recording artist, and annotated with year of release and record label.[2] The styles of music covered throughout the collection include rock, pop, country, blues, jazz, hip hop, metal, and a variety of world musics, such as reggae and African genres.[3]

The book also includes introductory essays about musical developments and trends during the 1980s. In one essay, Christgau identifies the fusion of post-punk and post-disco sounds as one of the decade's major developments while coining the term "dance-oriented rock" to describe their synthesis.[4] An appendix lists artists overlooked in the reviews and a "core collection" of albums before 1980, including out of print records categorized as "Gone But Not Forgotten".[5]

Publication and reception

Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s was first published in October 1990 by Pantheon Books and was reprinted in 1994 by Da Capo Press.[6] The book received a rave review from Robert Hilburn in the Los Angeles Times. He believed the collection of capsule reviews reinforced a number of qualities about Christgau: how his interest extends beyond individual recording artists and into "the state of rock and in the richness of its culture"; how he "constantly challenges artists, fans and other critics to demand more of themselves and their favorites"; and "why he nurtures new and significant developments, however uncommercial or controversial." Hilburn questioned his "grouchy dismissal" of U2's 1980 debut Boy while noting a partiality for third-world music records and an impenetrability as a writer, citing the review of the 1987 X album See How We Are as an example of the latter. Nonetheless, he still regarded him as the premier reference for popular music, and the journalistic equivalent of Bob Dylan or Neil Young: "Quite simply, Christgau writes with the same reckless independence and ferocious eccentricity that fuels our most valuable pop artists."[7] John Lawson of the School Library Journal said, while the book covers only one decade, it "works well not only by itself, but also as an update" of The New Rolling Stone Record Guide (1983) and The New Trouser Press Record Guide (1989).[8]

A more critical appraisal was given by Library Journal reviewer Barry Miller. He praised the book's broad-based coverage of music but found the writing glib and unctuous: "Christgau's catholic tastes provide a wonderful cornucopia, but the cumulative effect of his terminally hip prose and gymnastic verbal constructions ('boho Americanism,' 'antipunk discowave,' 'postprog art-rock,' 'mucho pusho,' etc.) is vacuous." Miller recommended The New Trouser Press Record Guide as an alternative of superior "depth and information".[2]

Legacy

"The entries covering a decade's work by a performer sometimes read like tiny novels, full of suspense, dramatic turnarounds, tragedy or farce. But what makes the book work is Christgau's endless capacity for surprise."

—Greil Marcus[9]

Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s was used by the Music Library Association as a reference to prepare select rock recordings for A Basic Music Library: Essential Scores and Sound Recordings (1997), published by the American Library Association as a guide for librarians and other collectors.[10] A follow-up to The '80s—Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s—was published in 2000, forming a three-volume series of "Consumer Guide" collections.[11]

According to M. Thomas Inge's The Greenwood Guide to American Popular Culture (2002), Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s was a precursor to more popular music guide series—such as All Music Guide, MusicHound, and Rough Guides—and has since "maintained a resourceful timelessness ... Christgau's judgments are incisive, knowledgeable, and amusing."[12] In ranking the entire series fifth on a 2006 list of the 17 most essential popular music books, The A.V. Club singled out The '80s as the best of the three; an accompanying blurb said it covered a decade "when Top 40 and college radio were equally compelling, and Christgau could apply his naturally skeptical eye to artists who either bore the scrutiny, or shrunk away to nothing."[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Wolk 2010.
  2. 1 2 Miller 1990, p. 78.
  3. ↑ Christgau 1990, back cover; Lawson 1991, p. 136.
  4. ↑ Miller 1990, p. 78; Campbell 2012, pp. 335, 394.
  5. ↑ Miller 1990, p. 78; Lawson 1991, p. 136.
  6. ↑ Miller 1990, p. 78; Davis et al. 1997, p. 576.
  7. ↑ Hilburn 1990.
  8. ↑ Lawson 1991, p. 136.
  9. ↑ Christgau 1990, back cover.
  10. ↑ Davis et al. 1997, pp. xi, 576.
  11. ↑ Robins 2016, p. 277; Wolk 2010.
  12. ↑ Inge & Hall 2002, p. 1125.
  13. ↑ Murray et al. 2006.

Bibliography

  • Campbell, Michael (2012). Popular Music in America: The Beat Goes On (4th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN 1133712606.
  • Christgau, Robert (1990). Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-679-73015-X.
  • Davis, Elizabeth A.; Bristah, Pamela; Gottlieb, Jane; Underwood, Kent David; Anderson, William E., eds. (1997). A Basic Music Library: Essential Scores and Sound Recordings. American Library Association. ISBN 0838934617.
  • Hilburn, Robert (October 28, 1990). "A Guide, Gossip, a Glimpse of Glory". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 27, 2018.
  • Inge, M. Thomas; Hall, Dennis, eds. (2002). The Greenwood Guide to American Popular Culture. 3. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313308780.
  • Lawson, John (June 1991). "Christgau's Record Guide". School Library Journal. 37.
  • Miller, Barry (October 15, 1990). "Christgau's Record Guide". Library Journal. 115.
  • Murray, Noel; Phipps, Keith; Ryan, Kyle; Modell, Josh (October 6, 2006). "Inventory: 17 Essential Books About Popular Music". The A.V. Club. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  • Robins, Wayne (2016). A Brief History of Rock, Off the Record. Routledge. ISBN 1135923469.
  • Wolk, Douglas (July 9, 2010). "Music's Time Capsules: 41 Years of Christgau's 'Consumer Guide'". Vulture. Retrieved April 15, 2017.

Further reading

  • Weisbard, Eric (March–June 2018). "Old Books for New Ceremonies". Journal of Popular Music Studies. 30 (1–2): 27–44.
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