Gossip is the new pornography

Via Idolator, Pheonix New Times music editor Martin Cizmar:

The [Pazz & Jop] poll was founded by former Voice music editor Robert Christgau, who is the worst music critic ever, in my humble opinion. I almost didn’t want to vote just to avoid furthering, in any way, his legacy of shitty writing.

Robert Christgau in Slate at the end of 2008:

When I was doing Pazz & Jop, more than 1,500 albums a year made some crappy critic’s top 10 or other. I dip into something like 2,500 albums a year, and the 300-plus I write about pass through my earholes in their entirety three, five, 10 times—good or recalcitrant ones even more.

Cizmar on his work ethicfavorite records of 2008:

Albums I didn’t even listen to:

Bob Dylan, Tell Tale Signs:The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
Coldplay, Viva la Vida
John Mellencamp, Life, Death, Love and Freedom
Foals, Antidotes
Portishead, Third
Drive-By Truckers, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark