Quotes from Robert Christgau

I love collections. I got into journalism with the idea that I'd be doing them.

I've always been a jazz fan, but I don't write much about jazz, because I don't have the chops. But it's really, really hard to write about improvised instrumental music when you don't have a good knowledge of harmony and can't identify rhythm signatures very easily either.

Rock & roll fan that I am, Thelonious Monk is probably my favorite musical artist.

My wife is more important to me than anything in the world - including music. She's a great editor and companion for all of my work and she's a great writer herself. If you live with somebody who's smart, they'll affect your thinking more than anything.

Bonnie Raitt and Lynyrd Skynyrd were two people I went on the road with.

Every once in a while there's a day or two when I say, 'Gee, electric guitars, what an ugly sound.' But I'm a very enthusiastic person. For sure I'm an excitable, fun-loving person. I enjoy life.

Ultimately, to insist that rock criticism be political is first to insist that the humans who make and enjoy music are embroiled in politics whether they like it or not - and whether they know it or not.

I'm not a musician, I can't read music, but I came from a family of music fans. Not mad music fans, but people who like music. Both of my parents can play the piano. They were very good dancers, which I am not.

I don't believe in pulling punches or being judicious, as the standard in literary criticism or academic musicology.

One meaningful distinction between high and popular culture, is that there's way more good popular culture - because its standards of quality are more forgiving, because sobriety isn't its default mode, because there's so damn much of it.

Prince Rogers Nelson was the most gifted artist of the rock era. Not the greatest genius - just the most musical in the broadest sense.

Subject is very important. If you're going to write non-fiction the style means nothing or very little. The content justifies the effort you need to put into the writing itself.

Believe me, I think if I stopped writing when I left The Voice I would have quite a legacy. But the fact of the matter was, it never occurred to me to stop.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a canonizing institution. Jann Wenner has worked to make Rolling Stone the keeper of the canon since 1970. I don't like that, because he uses institutional power and he uses economic power to enforce those standards.

My personal experience has been that in my free bohemian subculture, I'm not unique.

Prince had always told us he just wanted to get through this thing called life. But now that his own physical life has ended, his artistic life will continue.

I actually think I learned to write concisely working for an encyclopedia company in Chicago.

Even when I was working at The Village Voice, I only put in about 20 hours at the office.

As the editor at the Village Voice, I always tried to find writers of colour.

What helps change bad writing into mediocre writing is editing. Editing is in bad shape in print journalism, and is in virtually nonexistent shape in online journalism.