On Robert Christgau’s “Is It Still Good to Ya?”

If Greil Marcus is the academic and Lester Bangs the demagogue, then Robert Christgau constitutes the everyman. That flattens all their strengths and weaknesses, naturally, but if you want it put simply, “The Dean of American Rock Critics” is a fan. And he says as much. Christgau has never professed to be a technical demonstrateur, opting instead for an obsessive collection of music that spans the twentieth and twenty-first century to exhaustion. As a music writer, everything me and my ilk do is indebted in some way to “The Dean” for better or worse. And in a time when music criticism is skewered, ridiculed, invalidated, and unloved, Christgau’s 50-year archive of essays Is It Still Good To Ya? is a reminder that sticking to your guns is a timeless value.