Consumer Guide Columns

The Consumer Guide has been written as a monthly (more or less) column going back to the original column in 1969. The reviews from the Consumer Guide columns have been collected (with revisions) in books and now in the CG database.

Columns are identified by publication date below.

Caveats

Some columns are still missing, including much of the Newsday period (1972-1974), when the Consumer Guide reviews were printed as "capsules" instead of being collected into columns. Some of these appear as they were collected in monthly installments in Creem, and some of those have recently been added here: look for unabbreviated months in 1972-74.

An early implementation pulled some of the Consumer Guide reviews in columns from 1983-1988 from the database, so they reflect subsequent changes. We later decided that wasn't such a good idea, and the original reviews have been restored in most [all?] cases.

Columns from 1988-2001 were derived from word processor source files, and have not necessarily been checked against actual printed copies. In some cases these reviews have been updated to match the subsequent books; in some cases these have been reverted to their original form.

Some columns have been reconstructed from photocopies that have clipped margins or other defects. In cases that could not be fully reconstructed, we have some guesses or ellipses in red.

In 2007 Christgau edited a bunch of non-CG reviews and turned them over to Rhapsody to post alongside an earlier dump of CG reviews. Most of these reviews are ungraded. They have been archived here, and integrated (where appropriate) with the CG database.

The CG database also includes reviews of some 1967 albums from a 1977 column, Consumer Guide to 1967.

An index of the annual Turkey Shoot columns (1984, 1988-2005) is here.