I'm going to try to write this without making it sound like Bob Christgau has died, because he hasn't. Rather, he was merely -- and inexplicably -- fired from his long-held position as a senior editor of the Village Voice, a victim of Michael Lacey and the New Times specifically and a flimsy print-media economy generally. He'll find work, no sweat; he's always been a prolific freelancer, and I look forward to reading him in the Nation and the Believer and wherever else will pay him. But this fact remains: Christgau's reliable biweekly byline will no longer be appearing in the Voice. It feels like a massive loss.
Christgau's influence on the field of rock criticism is incalculable; his influence on me has been similarly huge, although I wasn't exposed to him until I reached high school. I'd been reading music stuff in the usual boring places (Rolling Stone, Spin) ever since I initially got into music, in 1994 (Green Day's Dookie was the first album I ever owned that bore no trace of my mom's musical taste, which was basically limited to white singer-songwriters from the '70s). Spin and RS, then as now, mostly sucked, only I didn't know that yet. I kept reading that mostly shitty writing, falsely believing that the term "music criticism" was defined as and limited to content-free record reviews and 3,000-word PR missives disguised as profiles.
Then in early 2000, the Voice's website posted the results of the 1999 Pazz and Jop poll. When I got around to reading the meaty, 3,700-word essay Christgau had written for the occasion, which summed up the year in music/politics/the economy, didn't kiss celebrity ass, was actually funny, and began "Rock critics are nerds. We like it that way" -- well, I freaked out a little bit. This was what music writing was supposed to be: provocative, stylish, rigorous, passionate, wide-ranging in scope. I didn't catch all the references in that essay; I was only 16. But I was so turned on I don't think I've purchased a copy of Rolling Stone since.
I read Christgau faithfully after that, and I credit him with pointing me toward artists who, left to my own devices, I likely never would have given a chance. But far more important than what to listen to, he's taught me how to hear music properly. The two most resonant lessons I'll take away from him: "The fact that objectivity only comes naturally in math doesn't mean it can't be approximated in art," and "The most important duty of a critic is knowing what you like and why you like it." Anyone who considers himself or herself a music writer -- and there's been a goddamn infestation of those in the last few years -- should consider those two statements every time they sit down at the computer to type up a review or feature or blog post or whatever. (Those statements in mind, I was gratified to see that Christgau's printed opinion of the Beirut album -- he deemed it good-not-great -- was pretty much in line with my own, published weeks before his. For whatever that's worth.)
In the interest of fairness and balance (neither of which are actually in play here, but let's pretend), I've disagreed with Christgau plenty about specific albums, artists and ideas. But he's clearly achieved a higher success rate in judging albums and artists than any other critic going (a consequence of both his methodology and completism). And while we're on the subject of balance, maybe now's a good time to mention the one potential upside of his firing. In 1987, Christgau won a Guggenheim fellowship to study -- and eventually write about -- the history of popular music, from the ancient Greeks to hip-hop. "It's never been done before," he told me when I interviewed in him 2003, "and it's probably impossible." Maybe now he'll find the time to make a dent in that dream project. (P.S. Dear Guggenheim people, give the man more money please, you've got the cash, it's the least you could do.)