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Is It Still Good to Ya?
Fifty Years of Rock Criticism 1967-2017
Hardcover, [October 28] 2018, Duke University Press, 456 pages, $109.95.
Paperback, [October 28] 2018, Duke University Press, 456 pages, $24.95.
Selected as a finalist for the
National Book Critics Circle Award
in Criticism.
Description
Is It Still Good to Ya? sums up the career of longtime
Village Voice stalwart Robert Christgau, who for half a century has
been America's most widely respected rock critic, honoring a music he
argues is only more enduring because it's sometimes simple or
silly. While compiling historical overviews going back to Dionysus and
the gramophone along with artist analyses that range from Louis
Armstrong to M.I.A., this definitive collection also explores pop's
African roots, response to 9/11, and evolution from the teen music of
the '50s to an art form compelled to confront mortality as its heroes
pass on. A final section combines searching obituaries of David Bowie,
Prince, and Leonard Cohen with awed farewells to Bob Marley and
Ornette Coleman.
Endorsements
"Christgau is the last true-blue record critic on earth. That's
pretty much who I make my records for. He's like the last of that
whole Lester Bangs generations of record reviewers, and I still heed
his words." -- Ahmir Questlove Thompson
"All these years later, Robert Christgau is not just rock
criticism's "Dean," he's its most rabid defender and most withering
internal vetter. His prose is still brilliant, offering as much
pleasure, sentence by sentence, as anyone's. This book nearly always
excited me, and the writing buoyed me along even when the ideas made
me want to hurl it across the room. I'm glad I didn't: this is a book
to be treasured." -- Jody Rosen
"Robert Christgau is music writing's great omnivore, and his
appetite hasn't diminished in the sixth and seventh decades of his
life. The twenty-first century has been a tumultuous one in popular
music and Christgau brings his gimlet-eyed wit, deep knowledge, and
inimitable heart to this era with the same verve he had as a
countercultural kid. Long may the Dean live; as this collection proves
with ease, we still need him." -- Ann Powers
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Robert Christgau's Greatest Hits: Volume III
- Prologue: Good to Ya, Not for Ya: Rock Criticism vs. the Guilty Pleasure
- I. History in the Making
- II. A Great Tradition
- III. Millennium
- IV. From Which All Blessings Flow
- V. Postmodern Times
- VI. Got to Be Driftin' Along
- Index
Publisher Info
Interviews
Sorted by date (most recent first):
Reviews
Sorted by date (most recent first). Bold ones most recommended:
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Allen Barra: Review: Reading Robert Christgau, One of the Greatest Rock
Critics of All Time (The National Book Review, Apr. 5, 2021?)
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David Cantwell: Robert Christgau's Big-Hearted Theory of Pop (New Yorker, May 22, 2019)
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Mark Athitakis on Robert Christgau's 'Is It Still Good to Ya?' (National Book Critics Circle, Feb. 15, 2019)
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Henry Carrigan: The Reading Room: Christgau Collection Shows How Music Is
Still Good to Ya (No Depression, Jan. 17, 2019)
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Mark Reynolds: Robert Christgau's 'Is It Still Good to Ya?' (PopMatters, Dec. 11, 2018)
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Steve Futterman: Music Books 2018-2019 (Publishers Weekly, Sept. 7, 2018)
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Kirkus Review (Kirkus, July 30, 2018)
Other Notices
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