“Robert Christgau: Rock n’ Roll Animal”

I stumbled across a fun half-hour 1999 documentary on legendary music critic Robert Christgau the other day (videos below), and thanks to YouTube, was able to watch it in four segments over the course of four days. Consider it snacking rather than bingeing.  

As the documentary suggests, Christgau can be an acquired taste, although the extreme hatred from Russ Smith, publisher of The New York Press seems extreme. I first discovered Christgau in the 1980s, not from reading Village Voice, where he worked for decades, but from his Christgau Record Guides, once-a-decade overviews of popular music.

Above all, the man has enormous passion for his work, and effectively balanced quality with voluminous production. Remarkably, 15 years after this documentary, Christgau is still going strong, feeding his personal website, a seemingly endless trove of remarkable work. 

Amen for that. 

Oasis: A Side and B Side

2014 marks the 20th anniversary of Oasis debuting to the world, and as is often the case with such round anniversaries, we're seeing a stream of 

Two examples worth watching: 

1) "Oasis: Definitely Maybe The Documentary," an hourlong look at one of the great debut albums in rock history, a Beatles-inspired masterpiece powered by two antagonistic brothers, Noel and Liam Gallagher. As is the case with many celebratory documentaries, there's an A Side polish that puts the band in a positive light.

Click to read more ...

Where's Geoff Tate?

Here's an interesting graphic I stumbled across from something called Concert Hotels that graphs famous singers and their vocal range.

The Vocal Ranges of the Greatest Singers (via ConcertHotels.com; click on graphic for dynamic version that highlights songs on the low and high ends for each singer).

I'm not a singer so I can't speak to the accuracy of the list, although I'm shocked to learn Axl's range is so wide. But i do wonder where Geoff Tate, of Queensryche fame, might have landed. I've read of his seven-octave range, and this fan video below highlights that diversity.

What other dynamic vocalists do you wish were measured on the Concert Hotel list?