Robert Christgau

Xgau Sez: February, 2026 Some health notes, Bird: still lives, the live Dead, the A shelves explained, reissues not reevaluated, and some faves.

Bird lives, the Dead come alive, and Xgau Sez is back—all this and more at And It Don't Stop.
robertchristgau.substack.com/p/xgau-sez-f...

Xgau Sez: February, 2026 Some health notes, Bird: still lives, the live Dead, the A shelves explained, reissues not reevaluated, and some faves.

Bird lives, the Dead come alive, and Xgau Sez is back—all this and more at And It Don't Stop.
robertchristgau.substack.com/p/xgau-sez-f...

Consumer Guide: February, 2026 One of the great interpretive singers of our epoch takes on Lou Reed, abstract and impressive amapiano, the most explicitly leftist album in far too long, and a reliable Nashvillian with 11 winners

Thomas Anderson, Armand Hammer, Zach Bryan, Dry Cleaning, Al Green, Husker Du, Nandipha808, Grant Peeples, and Tommy Womack all get the full treatment at the latest Consumer Guide at my And It Don't Stop Substack robertchristgau.substack.com/p/consumer-g...

Consisently reliable product that, as they say, that I'll be looking for. Keep it up. You're needed.

Consumer Guide: February, 2026 One of the great interpretive singers of our epoch takes on Lou Reed, abstract and impressive amapiano, the most explicitly leftist album in far too long, and a reliable Nashvillian with 11 winners

Thomas Anderson, Armand Hammer, Zach Bryan, Dry Cleaning, Al Green, Husker Du, Nandipha808, Grant Peeples, and Tommy Womack all get the full treatment at the latest Consumer Guide at my And It Don't Stop Substack robertchristgau.substack.com/p/consumer-g...

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

As I hope you already know, there's a new Springsteen song called "Streets of Minneapolis." I'm going on my fifth listen myself. If it's your first, you may well be saddened but you won't be sorry.

youtu.be/wWKSoxG1K7w?...

A Documentary about Robert Christgau The official website for "The Last Critic," a documentary about Robert Christgau, the most beloved and most loathed of all music critics, who is still grading new albums in his Consumer Guide at age 8...

As the kids say, some news:
www.thelastcriticfilm.com

A rave review not about an album praises the Langone emergency room at 30th Street, which beset by 80-something urinary difficulties I dared visit on a mobbed Saturday night, where many cordial, gifted, efficient MDs spent hours fixing me up. Home around 230, slept well all night. Thanks so much.

Xgau Sez: December, 2025 Favorite instruments, Xgau at the radar station, classical colleagues, Phish still fishy, heavy reading, and wanker's delight.

FKA Twigs vs. Madonna, Phish as feh, hail to Joe Boyd, editing classical, and wanking is better than nothing in the Xmas 2025 Xgau Sez robertchristgau.substack.com/p/xgau-sez-d...

Xgau Sez: December, 2025 Favorite instruments, Xgau at the radar station, classical colleagues, Phish still fishy, heavy reading, and wanker's delight.

FKA Twigs vs. Madonna, Phish as feh, hail to Joe Boyd, editing classical, and wanking is better than nothing in the Xmas 2025 Xgau Sez robertchristgau.substack.com/p/xgau-sez-d...

Consumer Guide: December, 2025 Detailed and complicated songs of martial strife, super rhyming over a panopoly of speedy beats, an A+ Thelonius Monk compilation, and an ancient Ugandan instrument provides brand new kicks.

I admit it—the big kahuna in the Xmas 2025 edition of the Consumer Guide came out circa 1990. So don't put off a quick read.
robertchristgau.substack.com/p/consumer-g...

Several readers have written wondering how they might perhaps obtain the new Moby Grape album I just Consumer Guided with the band's Facebook page I recommended insufficient. I hope Alice Langdon, who suggested this path, won't mind if I provide her email address: Laluna43@hotmail.com

Consumer Guide: December, 2025 Detailed and complicated songs of martial strife, super rhyming over a panopoly of speedy beats, an A+ Thelonius Monk compilation, and an ancient Ugandan instrument provides brand new kicks.

I admit it—the big kahuna in the Xmas 2025 edition of the Consumer Guide came out circa 1990. So don't put off a quick read.
robertchristgau.substack.com/p/consumer-g...

Xgau Sez: November, 2025 What's in a name, live vs. recorded, tuneful vs. melodic, Pulnoc at P.S. 122, a lost Clash cassette, and a half-century-plus of delightful rhetoric.

A curious Christgau, a futile cassette dig, live versus recorded, tuneful versus melodic, remembering Pulnoc, and the lineaments of delight are all addressed in the Thanksgiving edition of Xgau Sez at my irrepressible Substack And It Don't Stop. robertchristgau.substack.com/p/xgau-sez-n...

Xgau Sez: November, 2025 What's in a name, live vs. recorded, tuneful vs. melodic, Pulnoc at P.S. 122, a lost Clash cassette, and a half-century-plus of delightful rhetoric.

A curious Christgau, a futile cassette dig, live versus recorded, tuneful versus melodic, remembering Pulnoc, and the lineaments of delight are all addressed in the Thanksgiving edition of Xgau Sez at my irrepressible Substack And It Don't Stop. robertchristgau.substack.com/p/xgau-sez-n...

A Todd Snider lyric: You got to admit it ain't the despair that gets you / It's the hope."

robertchristgau.substack.com/p/the-big-lo...

The Big Lookback: Todd Snider "Preaching Agnosticism (With Laugh Lines)," from "The Barnes & Noble Review," April 30, 2012

The outpouring of mourning for the great and hilarious "alt-country" genius Todd Snider seemed an excellent reason to devote this month's Big Lookback to a Barnes & Noble Review appreciation I wrote about Snider more than a decade ago. robertchristgau.substack.com/p/the-big-lo...

The Big Lookback: Todd Snider "Preaching Agnosticism (With Laugh Lines)," from "The Barnes & Noble Review," April 30, 2012

The outpouring of mourning for the great and hilarious "alt-country" genius Todd Snider seemed an excellent reason to devote this month's Big Lookback to a Barnes & Noble Review appreciation I wrote about Snider more than a decade ago. robertchristgau.substack.com/p/the-big-lo...

Have felt, since I read this piece in its moment that Christgau shares below, that he was the critic who really understood Todd Snider. (Or maybe it was just that I felt the same ways... )

A major writer of enduring consequence. I read last week that he was too sick to be on the road and too broke to be off it. Awful people indulge themselves in despicable rationalizations about life choices and lost highways, but it's murder most foul. I don't think I can take this business anymore.

Christgau captured the magic of Todd Snider well. RIP, Todd.

A great read on the late (I still can't believe it) Todd Snider.

I'm very sorry to report that the great alt-country singer-songwriter Todd Snider has died at 59 of undiagnosed walking pneumonia. I stick by what I wrote about him in 2012. www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bn/2012-0... Here's Rolling Stone's coverage. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

Consumer Guide: November, 2025 Shameless beauty track after track, an inspirational Afropop surprise, mood pieces suitable for the despondent historical moment, and a country album that fights the blues with more blues.

The November Consumer Guide now up on my Substack addresses this despondent political moment directly only once but I may cheer you up in otherways robertchristgau.substack.com/p/consumer-g...

Consumer Guide: November, 2025 Shameless beauty track after track, an inspirational Afropop surprise, mood pieces suitable for the despondent historical moment, and a country album that fights the blues with more blues.

The November Consumer Guide now up on my Substack addresses this despondent political moment directly only once but I may cheer you up in otherways robertchristgau.substack.com/p/consumer-g...

At Home With Peggy Seeger From her first solo album in 1955 at 19 to her Last Farewell tour earlier this year at 90, Peggy Seeger has sung with effervescence, power, and a feminist edge.

A well-timed way for someone of my religious beliefs to celebrate Mahmdani Day was provided by my sister Georgia, who devoted a UK sojourn to a portrait of Pete Seeger's younger sister Peggy in a nation where socialism is at least respectable. robertchristgau.substack.com/p/at-home-wi...

Union man Tom Smucker, my friend for 57 years and upstairs neighbor for pushing 50, read a lot of books about the 2024 election and then wrote 4000 words about them. A politically savvy overview you shouldn't skip. And he melded some music in there too. www.firstofthemonth.org/author/tom-s...

Good piece, part 1 about politics books I've not read and part 2 about music films I have.

Union man Tom Smucker, my friend for 57 years and upstairs neighbor for pushing 50, read a lot of books about the 2024 election and then wrote 4000 words about them. A politically savvy overview you shouldn't skip. And he melded some music in there too. www.firstofthemonth.org/author/tom-s...

Maria Riva, Dietrich Daughter Who Demystified the Legend, Dies at 100

Paging through the Times as I downed some coffee, I glanced casually at Penelope Green's obit of Marlene Dietrich's daughter Maria Riva, who just died at 100. Couldn't stop reading. Researched mostly in secondary sources, it proved an absolutely devastating reflection on the perversions of fame.