Xgau Sez: December, 2025

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

Dear Mr. Christgau, What’s your favorite instrument? — David, Montclair, New Jersey

It depends, right? So say “rock,” as it’s called: electric guitar. Jazz: saxophone. Funk, etc.: drum kit. “Rock and roll”: human voice. Folk: “human voice.” Jazz: also piano. Trumpet doesn’t fit anywhere despite Satchmo.

Hi, Robert. I noticed that you didn’t rate FKA Twigs’ Eusexua. Did it slip your radar, or did you just not think much of it? Some of it was inspired by the Prague club scene, and the record is a big success here. To me, it compares pretty favorably with Madonna’s Erotica. — Mario, Prague

She didn’t slip under my radar. But while I’ve found her interesting as an artist, she’s never seemed quite compelling. Just played the new one and thought it sounded like a B plus. (Also thought the Erotica comparison an overstatement.) That said, I’d need to listen more before it sinks in enough to finalize that informed conjecture.

Mr. Christgau, During your time at the VV, were you editing classical music critics Leighton Kerner, Greg Sandow, Tom Johnson, and Kyle Gann? Did you ever have the opportunity to write about classical music or “new” or modern classical music? Finally, do you read any classical critics today, and if so, who? — Steven Ward, Jackson, Mississippi

I edited all the critics you cite above and was fond of all of them as people—even Leighton, a sweet man who was inevitably late with his copy. Sandow and especially Johnson proved good friends and I always respected Gann. Moreover, John Rockwell—who started at the NYT as a classical guy before becoming the chief pop critic—is one of my closest pals; he and his wife were here for dinner a few nights ago. But with a few exceptions I’ve cited before—Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Beethoven’s C Sharp Minor Quartet—I have little active interest in “classical” music. Not a judgment, though I could transform it into one. My ears are very happy as they are—and by the way are in pretty good shape for 83.

Phish. They’re absolutely foundational to my understanding of how players pay attention to each other while making music—Rift blew my mind in high school and I legitimately loved the aural aesthetics of their records for a long time. However, as I’ve grown up, I’ve gradually started to hate them—like, really loathe them—and I can’t quite pin down why. Maybe it’s something about the not-quite-elegant poetry, or how the adept musical ideas seem detached from any significance, or how the whole endeavor has a whiff of defensive irony and cynicism that I can smell but can’t detail. These are only possibilities, though, and the full story eludes me. Please advise. The internet has not helped as much as I’d hoped. Your reviews are a good start but I’m hungry for more. — G., Damiriscotta, Maine

Seems like you’ve done a more than adequate job of pinning things down. Having always thought they were absolutely overrated—dud, C+, dud, B+, B-—I recommend you put this false step behind you and give, oh, Jefferson Airplane a visit.

Any thoughts on Joe Boyd’s recent world-music tome, And The Roots of Rhythm Remain? Whatever its flaws may be, I find it so much superior to White Bicycles (which I liked, but neither more nor less than I expected to) that I wonder if he wrote the earlier memoir just so someone might give him an advance (or at least an avenue) to publish this behemoth. — Mark Bradford, Brooklyn

I’m pretty sure I met Boyd on one U.K. venture or another, although I don’t recall the details. But I sure know his name and was so flattered when he called me and Carola up in NYC that we invited him and his wife over. They proved exceptionally interesting and sociable people, and I was quite flattered when he complimented me in the frontispiece to his book. Reading the book, however, is another matter for me, because I tend to read on my back in bed and have a bad left elbow that puts a 960-page tome like this one out of my range physically. Carola, however, has gotten into it. She’s impressed by his knowledge of various “folk” and international styles, and as a resident of London for much of the late ‘60s found Boyd’s knowledge of its bohemian variants accurate and evocative.

You are an absolute fucking wanker. — Tim A, Australia

From a limp-dick like you, that’s a compliment. Thanks for caring.