Any Old Way You Choose It

1973, probably first paperback edition, from Penguin
Robert Christgau
Any Old Way You Choose It: Rock and Other Pop Music, 1967-1973
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-

As with Richard Schickel's movie reviews, there's a lot in here I'm probably never going to experience, such as Joy of Cooking and Bill Graham.  However, Christgau has a more interesting style, sometimes funny, sometimes thoughtful, occasionally both.  As the subtitle indicates, the reviews and short essays cover the late '60s and the early '70s, and I think this is the first book in the project to address how the '70s seem to be different than the previous decade.  Some of Christgau's guesses are wrong, but that's understandable. 

If I had to pick one sentence to represent the book, it would be "After the show I talked briefly to Country Joe [McDonald]-- he corrected my pronunciation of 'macho,' a task ordinarily performed by women-- and then drove in to hear Stevie Wonder at the Bitter End."  Christgau is a white man who loves soul music in a non-condescending way, and he supports feminism.  Yet he's not overbearingly p.c., he just seems concerned with fairness. 

And he's still out there, reviewing away at age 70, in magazines as of old, but also at robertchristgau.com .  (I looked up Katy Perry because that was the first "contemporary" singer I could think of.)