Chris Richards

'Newscaster' Soledad O'Brien Shushed Crowd at Lefty Earth Day Concert
By Tim Graham | April 20, 2015 | 2:41 PM EDT

Washington Post music critic Chris Richards wrote up Saturday’s Earth Day festivities on the national Mall on the front of Monday’s Style section. The headline was “At Earth Day rally, it was the message that needed saving.”

Richards liked the music, but didn’t like the talking. For example: “The event’s hosts, newscaster Soledad O’Brien and Black Eyed Peas bandleader Will.I.Am, appeared to have a rough time of it. O’Brien, either frustrated by glitchy teleprompters or perhaps not clear on how a concert works, actually shushed the crowd at one point.”

WashPost Music Critic Finds 'Treasure' in Kanye West's Grammy Stunts
By Tim Graham | February 13, 2015 | 9:01 AM EST

Over the years, the hip music critics have easily mocked the Grammy Awards for rewarding kitschy music. See: Milli Vanilli, Best New Artist. Oops. But that doesn’t mean Kanye West gets to declare himself the new dean of the rock critics like Robert Christgau.

Kanye threatened to storm on stage and take the Album of the Year award away from Beck and give it to Beyonce. Washington Post music critic Chris Richards actually applauded West’s antics on Thursday. His trash talk is apparently a treasure.

'Resonant Rocker' Graham Nash Hailed by WashPost for Opposing 'Military Madness' -- But Donated to Obama
By Tim Graham | September 17, 2013 | 9:02 AM EDT

Graham Nash donated almost $4,000 to Barack Obama in 2008. But you'd never know it from Washington Post music writer Chris Richards, who penned a mouth-breathing valentine to Nash in Tuesday's paper titled "Resonant Rocker." The story begins "While America mulls over a foreign war," and Nash is preparing for a concert and dragging out a 42-year-old hippie peace anthem about "Military Madness."

Richards makes it obvious on Tuesday that he deeply loves hippie musician Graham Nash, who he says sings with an “incredibly handsome instrument” and  “over the decades, his songbook has struck a rare and brilliant balance between the personal and the political, each lending more gravity to the other.” But the name Obama never comes up in the article. With Obama's wars and NSA spying scoops, it becomes especially ridiculous as Richards discusses 2006 concert by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young that included the song "Let's Impeach the President": 

Story on Rappers of 'Chiraq' Leaves Out Chicago's Rahm and Barack
By Tim Graham | August 3, 2013 | 8:20 AM EDT

Washington Post music writer Chris Richards has a political edge. Who can forget his gooey tribute to Obama press secretary Jay Carney’s musical taste for the band Guided By Voices? He can also leave out Obama when it’s convenient.

On Thursday, Richards wrote a story dominating the front of the Style section on “The Firing Lines of Chiraq,” as Chicago's rappers respond to the “epidemic of gun violence,” but names like Barack Obama or Mayor Rahm Emanuel never surfaced:

Cheer Up, Jay Carney: WashPost Prints Big, Fluffy Story on His Fandom for a Rock Band
By Tim Graham | May 24, 2013 | 8:11 AM EDT

The Washington Post carried a huge, almost life-size picture of Jay Carney’s head in the Style section on Friday. But it was designed as a pick-me-up for the embattled Obama spinner. It was a story about...Carney and his favorite rock band.

“Benghazi and the IRS have kept Carney scrambling, and he hasn’t had much time to listen to ‘English Little League,’ the latest album from the Ohio indie-rock band [Guided by Voices] he has affectionately name-dropped in more than one news briefing.” Critics want Carney canned, but the Post wants him to feel happy about the “beer-soaked brilliance” of his favorite rockers:

On Dixie Chicks, NPR and WashPost Slam 'Cowardice' of Country-Music Industry, Backward Fans
By Tim Graham | May 11, 2013 | 6:40 AM EDT

The new Natalie Maines record is continuing to spur music writers to slam the "cowardice" of the country-music industry and the stuffiness of the country-music audience in the aftermath of Maines trashing President Bush at a London concert on the eve of the Iraq war. 

On the NPR show "Fresh Air" on Wednesday, music critic Ken Tucker insisted Maines was just ahead of where the majority would arrive on Bush's wrong-headedness:

WaPo Music Critic: Playing 'Lyin' A** B*tch' to Intro Bachmann Shows The Roots Are 'Artists'
By Ken Shepherd | December 6, 2011 | 11:16 AM EST

In a glowing review of The Roots' new album "undun," Washington Post music critic Chris Richards lamented it was "too bad" that the band's choice of Fishbone's "Lyin' A** B*tch" to introduce Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on the November 21 Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will likely be "the one song" that the band will "be remembered for" most in 2011.

"The band considered it a joke. Certain corners of the media considered it an outrage," Richards noted (emphasis mine):