Christgau does not often follow the received critical opinion and, in fact, seems to delight in arguing with it from time to time. Page through the book and catch his disdain for '90s releases by Radiohead, Son Volt, the Flaming Lips, Snoop Dogg, Nas and Elvis Costello, all of which received their share of praise in the press. At the same time, you'll notice rave reviews for works by Collective Soul, Kris Kross, PM Dawn, Garth Brooks, the Bottle Rockets, the Prodigy, Chuck D, Shania Twain, the Backstreet Boys and a host of African artists, all of which were either ignored or roundly dismissed by other critics. If you don't have fun, you're not doing the job. That's a contradiction, and there's no point in acting as if it's easily resolved.
Many critics never figure out what they actually like.
That's one of the signs of a bad critic. They figure out what they're supposed to like instead. One of the challenges in reading Christgau is figuring out what he means. Christgau writes long, complicated sentences, full of clauses within clauses and loaded with allusions to things that may or may not be common knowledge. He makes jokes both obvious and personal.