Friday, September 01, 2006

Wow.

Robert Christgau fired from the Village Voice

It is now official--Village Voice Media fired me today, "for
taste," which means (among other things) slightly sweeter
severance. This despite the support of new music editor RobHarvilla, who I like as a person and a writer. We both believed I
had won myself some kind of niche as gray eminence. So I was
surprised Tuesday when I was among the eight Voice employees
(five editorial, three art) who were instructed to bring their
union reps to a meeting with upper management today. But I
certainly wasn't shocked--my approach to music coverage has never
been much like that of the New Times papers,

Bless the union, my severance is substantial enough to give me
time to figure out what I'm doing next. In fact, having finished
all my freelance reviews yesterday, I don't have a single
assignment pending. So, since I have no intention of giving up
rock criticism, all reasonable offers entertained; my phone
number is in the book, as they used to say when there were books.


Just wow. Christgau has been a staple of rock criticism for as long as I can remember, one of those writers whose words buzz through my head on a regular basis.

Any thoughts on what this means?

4 comments:

The Kenosha Kid said...

Sounds cold, but it probably should have been done long ago. His relevance level has really slipped.

Anonymous said...

like you really care what i say.

i've never heard of the guy.

but steve seemed to say good riddance.

i hate to see people getting fired. except maybe that seigal guy. he seems like a real jackass.

emerson said...

I guess nobody wanted anymore to read the scribblings of a hippie- beatnik on acid. Hunter S. Thompson was a variant of the same theme. I guess we're left now with the 1-5 star rating system. Attention spans aren't what they used to be.

I barely made it through five pages of Dennis Perrin's book on Michael O'Donoghue because it was going to be little more than 429 pages of the writer's hipster jiving.

Anonymous said...

Yikes this is a shock. I have no idea what happened or what it means, or how he lost his relevance, (!) I just know I love reading him, and he's influenced my tastes and interests for over 2 decades.