The first documentary feature about Robert Christgau, “The Dean of American Rock Critics.” Christgau, who helped invent the form nearly sixty years ago, is by some margin the most prolific, influential, and polarizing Pop music critic of all time. Best known for his “Consumer Guide”—seventeen thousand letter-grade, capsule reviews, dating back to 1969 and continuing to the present—he has written for Rolling Stone, Creem, Spin, The New York Times, and, most famously, The Village Voice.

During his thirty-plus year run with the Voice, Christgau led a historic cadre of writers, including Greg Tate, Colson Whitehead, Ann Powers, Joe Levy, Chuck Eddy, Nelson George, and Eric Weisbard, among many others. In addition to his reviews and features, he has published eight books—seven anthologies plus his memoir, Going Into the City. Now in his eighties, Bob is still at it—amazingly with the same vigor, concision and craft that has defined his expansive career. Today he publishes the Consumer Guide through Substack, where subscribers eagerly await his weekly considerations on the merits of recorded music. From Thelonius Monk to James Brown, from Randy Newman to Al Green, from The Ramones to Sleater-Kinney, from Aretha Franklin to Olivia Rodrigo, from Second Avenue to Soweto, no writer has considered Pop music with the force and flair as Christgau.