Rating: 
Summary: A guide to Christgau, not the 90s
Review: I can see how someone buying this as their first Christgau book would feel ripped-off. It is less comprehensive, shorter, and more confusing than his previous two similar books. Luckily, I have had his eighties book since it came out, and I realize that these books are entertaining as insights into the mind of a unique, frustrating critic, and not as an encyclopedia of the decade's music. The fun in many cases is trying to understand just what he's saying! And I loved how a previous reviewer calls one of his symbols a "ham"! It is actually a "prime cut", indicating a good song or two on an otherwise poor album. If nothing else, reading this book made me dig out my copy of Pylon's "Chain" from purgatory, and give it another chance. I have also dog-eared at least three reviews in order to investigate artists that I have overlooked until now.
Rating: 
Summary: losing focus but still the best
Review: I challenge anyone out there to outdo Christgau. (Please don't bring me pretentious Greil Marcus, who is not really writing in the same genre anymore.) At this stage of the game he can afford to be less focused (hell, his subject - rock music - is hardly a focused genre anymore) ... I'm just glad he keeps going and keeps honest. I do wish someone out there, someone younger, could write such great criticism. I admit it's a pity to still depend on Christgau. I constantly search in vain for the heirs to Bangs and Christgau...still waiting. Many people have pointed out, quite correctly, that this is not a great intro to 1990s music - a little too obscure in places, assuming a little too much previous knowledge. This is a failing...and I agree that the 70s book is still the best. But, who says great popular art has to be easily digestible?
Speaking of not so easily digestible, how about Radiohead, U2's "Achtung Baby", and other "undisputably great" icons of the 1990s? thank you Bob, yet again.
Rating: 
Summary: I waited ten years for this?!?!?
Review: I devoured the Consumer Guides for the '70s and '80s and had been looking forward to this for, seriously, the '90s. What a huge disappointment. Christgau's arrogance at abandoning the pithy but comprehensive reviews and understandable letter grades of the past books is his own take on a cliche he obviously became too close to--the bloated, creatively bankrupt but ever-greedy wasted rock diva. Don't indulge him.
Rating: 
Summary: Three Words: In-Sight-Ful
Review: I dig Christgau becuase he knows that Pavement's way better than Springsteen. People are always afraid to say stuff like this, but not Bob. On the other hand, I wish he would've just stayed with the straight "A" to "F" grading system of his 70s and 80s books and stayed away from Turkeys and Hams and stuff. Grrr....
Rating:
Summary: Christgau's Lost Decade
Review: I dunno, at this point I think Christgau should just quit. I found some good records from this one--Spring Heel Jack, they're all right--and I found some good ones from the '70s book. Back when I needed the kind of guidance only Bob can give. He's a New Yorker so he gives acts like Television, New York Dolls and the Ramones a lotta A-plus grades. OK, he does the same for some out-of-towners like Randy Newman so it all balances out. I'm probably too old at this point to really get into some of the new sounds the kids are laying down, although when I see Bob Dole in that Pepsi TV ad with B. Spears ("Madonna next door" says Bob C. on page 292 of the volume under review), I have fresh hope.
Rating:
Summary: How can a 59-year old rock critic keep up the pace...
Review: I guess it's not too surprising that many readers of this book are disappointed in some of the changes Robert Christgau has initiated, first in his "Consumer Guide" column, and now in this end-of-decade compilation. Christgau has shifted his focus from music that most knowledgeable rock fans had at least heard of, to more obscure sub-genres, to hip hop and to World Music. Trying to expand the musical horizons of his readers is a worthy enough goal, of course, but Christgau, as others have pointed out and he readily admits, is unable or unwilling to go back to square one, two or three for the sake of the reader. He's in medias res way too deep and leaves a lot of us neophytes behind. Which may be deliberate. There has always been a dangerously smug and smart-alecky side to Christgau. In recent years, he seems to have given in to these tendencies more and more. It's worse than a "hipper than thou" stance: it's more of a leaving- you-and-the-rest-of-the-musical-illiterates in the dust stance. But then again, I've never really felt that Christgau's "Consumer Guides" were really about the consumer anyway. I suspect that Christgau suffers from some weird compulsion to pronounce judgment on as much product as possible and this capsule review format allows him to achieve that sick end. Which is not to say that I never agree with him (when I know what the hell he's talking about), but I never get the impression that he's listening to music 24 hours a day for my (or any other reader's) benefit. Which brings up another point, Christgau's experience as a rock critic of the obsessive variety is fundamentally different from yours and mine. Gee, sometimes he goes back and listens to something for a third or fourth time before rating it once and for all. Generous. But basically, music is flying by him at warp speed. Most of us, by contrast, plod along contentedly in our musically limited little worlds. It may not be as exciting: it's not as exhausting either. BTW most of these capsule reviews are available on the self-described Dean of Rock Critics website. (That would be robertchristgau.com).
Rating:
Summary: Irresistible for browsing but don't take it too seriously
Review: I have Christgau to thank for turning me on to quite a few great records over the years. His guides are fun to read and interesting. However, he can be come off as very pompous at times and, occasionally, his writing sacrifices clarity in its struggle to impress. Ultimately, he's just a very smart guy with opinions that you'll sometimes agree with and sometimes not. If he turns you onto a few things you wouldn't have heard about otherwise, then this book is worth the purchase. And it's nice to see Freedy Johnston's "Can You Fly" and Iris Dement's "My Life" get "A-plus" grades. They deserve it!
Rating:
Summary: Half the joy
Review: I kept wondering when Christgau would collapse under the weight of all those cds that were piling up, each screaming, "Grade me!" Looks like it was the '90s that did the dean in. His third consumer guide is frustratingly scattershot, a strange mix of informative reviews and pointless listings. (Honestly, Bob, we didn't need you to tell us that the latest offerings from Bill Clinton's brother, Susanna Hoffs or Sheila E sucked.) This is not to say that his pithy perfection doesn't rise from time to time in some reviews. However, since he now only expounds on stuff he likes (or doesn't like but finds significant), we don't get those brilliant zingers (although I'm sure Carly Simon and Lou Reed are breathing easier!). He does retain his penchant for missing some of the big ones while paying homage to artists who have out-lived their shelf dates. I'm still shaking my head over the fact that he doesn't even list one of the decade's best moments and defining albums - Everything But the Girl's Walking Wounded - and then actually praises Prince's Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic! But then, Christgau always was confounding, and that's half the joy. But half the joy is all we seem to get in the '90s Guide.
Rating:
Summary: Recommeded for the Adventuresome Music Buyer
Review: I'm confounded by Christgau's characterization of today's popular music as a "democratic cornucopia". So the much too often vapid music of genres like Nu Metal, Rap-rock, Dance/r&b, Teen Pop/rock, Gangsta rap etal that most people actually purchase from are cause for celebration?! In fairness Christgau reviews artists and CDs from a myriad number of sources and affirms that the most exhilarating music of the past decade originated in subcultures of music existent prior to their ascendancy in the mainstream (eg. Nirvana from the indie rock of the eighties and some hip hop from old school rap), but he might evince some more nerve and say confidently that much of popular music at the turn of the new millenium is simply awful! His scorn for "elitism" bars him from pronouncing on what for many thoughtful persons is patently obvious. Regarding the structure of his rating system and the content of his reviews, I'd concur with some of the other reviews of this book that they're, respectively, unnecessarily complicated (for example, the 'Honorable Mentions' categories are flatly redundant and he bases them on his vaunted objective of "pluralistic" representations; put differently, an album like the American Music Club's "Everclear" in actuality receives a 'lower B plus' grade but to confound matters is acknowledged to hold a maybe "valuble" status among those with an 'aesthetic'predilection for the variation of popular music and/or 'artistic vision' embraced, though through this stupefying categorization he still manages to "enjoy" this CD; how about us?!!)...frustratingly oblique, and occasionally even outright vituperative (his Jeff Buckley review is an excellent case in point). Really the main selling point of this book is you'll find, based upon his exemplary grading of these, otherwise obscure artists and CDs (like the Communist rappers the Coup and the British alternative band Tiger) to risk a chance on if you're so predisposed to trying unfamilar music. Often times, at least in my view, he seems to have a keen eye for quality still.
Rating:
Summary: essential but frustrating
Review: I've been reading Christgau for 30 years. He's a smart and amusing writer, and is willing to go against the grain. He's famous in critical circles for having dismissed Jimi Hendrix as a mere showboat after The Monterey Pop Festival - an error (which he later admitted), but an understandable one. I can usually count on him to ferret out the hokey stuff so that I don't have to. I share his views exactly on Elvis Costello, for instance ("fatally self-conscious"), and I'll never forget what he once said about Waylon Jennings ("Reminds us that he has balls by singing as though someone were squeezing them"). I wish he weren't such a sucker for world music, much of which, in my opinion, would be dismissed as pablum if it weren't for the exotic veneer. But no one's perfect. Anyway, the point is not so much whether I agree with his reviews (although that helps), but whether this book works as a consumer guide, which it purports to be. I think that if you're seriously into popular music, Christgau is an essential read, but I've downgraded this particular book because, for one thing, the rating system is far too complicated. It's not that I can't decipher it - it's that I shouldn't have to. It's supposed to be a consumer guide, not a flight manual. His previous guides were more straightforward, and better for it. Second, like that of his colleague Greil Marcus, Christgau's writing has become increasingly obtuse. It's partly a result of the fact that the better rock critics have joined (or want to join) the ranks of the literary elite and want everyone to know that they can do more than just review Kiss albums. That's a fine thing, they have much to contribute, but it's no excuse for obtuseness, especially in what purports to be a consumer guide, a reference book. When even a literate reader can't make heads or tails of an entry, things have gotten out of hand. It only happens occasionally, but taken together with the overly-complicated rating system, it can be frustrating. Those criticisms aside, Christgau is, like I said, essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in popular music. Frustrating at times, but never merely bland. Deduct 2 stars for form, but credit 1 back because it's important to keep Christgau's brand of crankiness alive. Four stars.
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