# What were the biggest critical reappraisals? (All media) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 12, 2019, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324 "2019-11-12T12:16:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/81 "2019-11-15T18:05:39Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Jack Kerouac’s _On The Road_ was initially dismissed as “beatnik drivel.” In his initial Annotated Alice, Martin Gardner referred to it as “Jack Kerouac’s Forgettable novel.” > > So forgetable people still talk about it 70 years later. Initial reviews had it right, IMHO. I remember that book being highly touted in the early 90s and I couldn’t get past the first twenty or thirty pages. And I otherwise liked a lot f stuff from that generation. The one for me that comes to mind is ABBA going from “guilty pleasure” to solid pop band music aficionados can admit to loving without any sort of qualifier. ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/82 "2019-11-15T18:15:16Z")
Composer Gustav Mahler’s works weren’t very popular for a long time after his death in 1910. (Performances of his stuff was even banned by Germany during their fascist years.) After 1945 he was discovered by a whole new generation of listeners and became really popular worldwide. He’s still very widely appreciated today. Here’s an adequate citation: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav\_Mahler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mahler) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/83 "2019-11-15T20:13:19Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can argue that it’s true, because it is. As I said it’s true because it’s so general it’s impossible to falsify. Counter examples could always be hand-waved away depending on the definition of “mainstream,” “reviled,” “branded,” etc. Most artists have been criticized at some point in their careers. Commercially successful artists, especially ones who engage in marketing themselves, will be criticized on ideological grounds simply for that commercialization. And highly successful artists will be a particular target of critics who want to distinguish themselves by being iconoclasts. But this has little to do with the actual quality of their art. As you recognize: > [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > One has to resort to generalities about critics because they make their bones by denouncing the opinions of everyone who preceded them. > [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > I still find your insistence that Warhol was successful both with critics and the public from the beginning to be baffling. I find your statement that Warhol was “reviled throughout his career” equally baffling. (As I said, it’s extremely misleading without qualifiers.) However, since you’ve once again brought up the public reception of his art and challenged me to justify my remarks, I’m going to address that. Perhaps you’re nitpicking about the meaning of the “beginning of his career.” Warhol’s first serious show at which he gained a lot of attention was in July 1962. Yes, initially he was widely ridiculed, and the first show was not commercially successful. His set of 32 Campbell soup cans, originally priced at $100 each, sold for $1000 for the lot. But, per journalist [Sara McCorquodale](https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/the-story-of-andy-warhols-campbells-soup-cans), “Before the end of the year Campbell’s Soup Cans was so on-trend that Manhattan socialites were wearing soup can-printed dresses to high-society events.” By the time of the show known as _The American Supermarket_ opened in October 1964 he was selling individual soup cans paintings for $1,500 each (equivalent to $12,000 today). As I already mentioned, he was commissioned by _Time_ magazine to do a cover on “today’s teenagers” for the Jan 29, 1965 issue, and you don’t get any more mainstream than that. (And his work wasn’t featured to poke fun at some wacky artist, it was selected as an apt style to signify the cultural disruptions that were taking place in the early 1960s.) So no, he wasn’t immediately accepted the day after the opening of his first show. But within 18 months he was both commercially successful and very widely recognized and popular with the trendier members of the public. I would call that a pretty meteoric rise. Let’s say he was highly successful “from near the beginning of his career” in Pop Art. (He had been a successful commercial artist in the 1950s.) ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/84 "2019-11-15T21:05:57Z")
This Warhol debate is puzzling. He had become quite well known and respected by the early 60s. (_Soup Cans_ was exhibited in 62.) Before that he was merely not well known. By the late 60s he was really quite famous and his works sold for notable amounts. There was never a point in time when a significant number of critics dismissed his works. As he got older the quality of his later works weren’t considered so leading edge and all that. But that’s new appraisals of new works. Not a reappraisal of his old stuff. He was the single most famous modern artist in America for a long period of time. ---
**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/85 "2019-11-15T21:48:11Z")
Kubrick’s The Shining didn’t get good reviews at the time, and initial reviews of the original Omen weren’t so hot either. Carpenter’s The Thing was mentioned in the OP… this seems to happen a lot with horror, it’s not exactly a darling genre among typical movie critics. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/86 "2019-11-15T22:30:01Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > This Warhol debate is puzzling. He had become quite well known and respected by the early 60s. **Exapno** seems to be looking through newspapers rather than reviews in art magazines. A bit of Googling turned up a few reviews and references such as this one from [Michael Fried](https://books.google.com.pa/books?id=RxwtHGHbiFcC&pg=PA287&lpg=PA287&dq=Michael+Fried,+%E2%80%9CNew+York+Letter:+Warhol,%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=bd7iiKD1Mc&sig=ACfU3U31XjALxEOi9S5G72sKxLrroT0-xg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiv-8ehmO3lAhWLuVkKHbt7AmUQ6AEwAHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Michael%20Fried%2C%20%E2%80%9CNew%20York%20Letter%3A%20Warhol%2C%E2%80%9D&f=false) in 1962, which was in general positive about Warhol, though with some criticism, and certainly not “reviling” him. From [here:](https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/andy-warhol-in-artforum-magazine-the-highs-and-lows-of-the-pop-master) > [@](#): > > Warhol received his first Artforum review in the September 1962 issue for his now-legendary show at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. In a brief assessment, Henry T Hopkins, who would later become the director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, acknowledged the artist’s prowess, though appreciated it with a certain skepticism. “Warhol obviously doesn’t want to give us much to cling to in the way of sweet handling,” he wrote, “preferring instead the hard commercial surface of his philosophical cronies. But then house fetishes rarely compete with Rembrandt in esthetic significance” (September 1962 issue). If it took Hopkins time to understand Warhol’s impact, others instantly recognized what he’d achieved. In the following month’s Artforum, installation artist Ed Keinholz articulated what the political detonation of Warhol’s brand of Pop meant to him: “…Andy Warhol’s show is social protest, the Campbell’s Soup show. It has to do with the extreme commercialism around and of everybody being fed up with it. Individually, they are all looking for something that is theirs, something that they can grab ahold of and say, “This is me!” They are pushed by all the pressures of today into their search, and they go a certain way and it becomes social protest” (October 1962 issue). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/87 "2019-11-16T03:49:42Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > **Exapno** seems to be looking through newspapers rather than reviews in art magazines. Yes. Because \*\*you \*\*were the one who said he was popular with the public. So I checked what sources were available to me to research that. It was a direct response to **you**. So. When I talk about critics you introduce the public. Then when I check the public response you tell me I should be talking about critics. Only Leonardo da Vinci could draw circles as perfect as that. Maybe we should be apprising your art. In any case, there’s a 30-car pileup in ATMB. You should be busy in the mod loop wading through the debris. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/88 "2019-11-16T08:09:10Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > The one for me that comes to mind is ABBA going from “guilty pleasure” to solid pop band music aficionados can admit to loving without any sort of qualifier. When was that “guilty pleasure” phase? Because ABBA were _immensely_ popular (outside the US) when they were actually making music. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/89 "2019-11-16T08:59:21Z")
> [@journeyman\_southpaw](#): > > Kubrick’s The Shining didn’t get good reviews at the time … this seems to happen a lot with horror, it’s not exactly a darling genre among typical movie critics. In the case of **The Shining** , the fact it was a horror film was only part of it – it was also a Kubrick movie. A lot of people forget that Kubrick was a very divisive director during much of his career. Aside maybe for **Dr. Strangelove** , I don’t think one movie he did during his “auteur” phase (i.e., those from **Lolita** onward) was met with universal critical acclaim. A common complaint was Kubrick’s movies were too chilly and detached. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/90 "2019-11-16T17:35:49Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Yes. Because \*\*you \*\*were the one who said he was popular with the public. So I checked what sources were available to me to research that. It was a direct response to **you**. > > So. When I talk about critics you introduce the public. Then when I check the public response you tell me I should be talking about critics. Only Leonardo da Vinci could draw circles as perfect as that. Maybe we should be apprising your art. > > In any case, there’s a 30-car pileup in ATMB. You should be busy in the mod loop wading through the debris. 😛 As I said, if you believed the public response was irrelevant and you didn’t want to talk about, you should have said so in the first place. I’ve discussed it _because you choose to dispute it_. And the real reason you’re complaining now is that I demonstrated that your contention that he wasn’t initially popular with the public was quite wrong. You can’t request me to defend a statement and then decide it’s completely irrelevant when I show it’s correct. But I’ve also demonstrated, with cites, that at least some critics weren’t “reviling” Warhol at the beginning of his career. You’ve ignored these. The best you could do was to say you found few “serious critics” from the period 1962 to 1964 in a scan of newspapers. General circulation newspapers, it should be obvious, are not the best place to look for serous art criticism. Even if they have an art section, the critics are likely to be writing for the general public, not people serious interested in art. They are generally going to be on the conservative side, and not receptive to the avant-garde. There may be exceptions, but reviews by serious critics are more likely to be found in, guess what, magazines devoted to the arts. The art world is made up not only of critics, but other artists, gallery owners, collectors, and other cognoscenti. An artist’s reception can’t be gauged by critics alone, but whether gallery owners choose to display his works and whether collectors will pay for them. The commercial success of an avant garde artist is in large part part due to critics assuring gallery owners and collectors that their works are important and valuable. So the fact that Warhol’s work was selling for fifty times more in 1963 than it was in 1962 is an indicator that at least some influential critics had seen value in it. (I’ll concede this may not be true of conventional artists like, say, Thomas Kincade, but they are marketing directly to the general public rather than the art world.) I think the only way to directly assess the “serious” response to Warhol between 1962-1964 would be to look at reviews in “serious” art publications of the time. However, it appears that these resources are not available on line. I can say, though, that the available evidence doesn’t support the contention that Warhol was generally “reviled” even at the start of his career, either by critics or the public. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/91 "2019-11-16T19:14:21Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > When was that “guilty pleasure” phase? Because ABBA were _immensely_ popular (outside the US) when they were actually making music. ABBA were reasonably popular here as well (one #1, four Top 10s, and twenty songs on the Hot 100) , but they were seen mostly as mindless disposable pop when I was growing up. I don’t remember anyone my age growing up admitting to like them (I’m 44.) It wasn’t really until _ABBA Gold_ in the early-to-mid-90s did I see the feelings turn from liking them as a “guilty pleasure” to just straight-up enjoying their melodies, harmonies, and pop sensibilities as something more than just “mere pop.” Perhaps elsewhere the music geeks always lauded them for their brilliance, but that certainly wasn’t the case here in my experience. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/92 "2019-11-16T19:31:14Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > ABBA were reasonably popular here as well (one #1, four Top 10s, and twenty songs on the Hot 100) , but they were seen mostly as mindless disposable pop when I was growing up. I don’t remember anyone my age growing up admitting to like them (I’m 44.) It wasn’t really until _ABBA Gold_ in the early-to-mid-90s did I see the feelings turn from liking them as a “guilty pleasure” to just straight-up enjoying their melodies, harmonies, and pop sensibilities as something more than just “mere pop.” Perhaps elsewhere the music geeks always lauded them for their brilliance, but that certainly wasn’t the case here in my experience. I agree. In the seventies, I recall, although ABBA was popular, they were considered just this side of bubble-gum music. Nobody hip would admit to listening to them. Even in 1994, in [_Muriel’s Wedding_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel%27s_Wedding) Muriel’s enthusiasm for ABBA was used to indicate how un-hip she was. Ironically, that movie and others helped re-ignite interest in them. I have their “Greatest Hits” album, but when I first got it it was definitely a guilty pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/93 "2019-11-16T20:47:40Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > What about the genre of rock music. You know, that “devil’s music” that was a “fad that would fade in two years”? > > Now it’s considered a classic genre of music that will live forever. People were right when they said that about disco, and lots of people (myself included) said that about rap. Not so much that it’s the devil’s music as that it would fade in two years. IMNSHO, rap’s ongoing popularity is in large part because every day, we have a new crop of 12-year-olds who think they’re the first group of kids ever to deliberately annoy and piss off their parents. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/94 "2019-11-16T21:07:10Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Queen’s \*image \*may have been knowing self-parody, but they always took their actual music very seriously. Oh agreed 100%, with Freddie at the helm they couldn’t be anything else but flamboyant and OTT but yep, they were always a serious (and seriously considered) rock band and stadium-fillers. ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/95 "2019-11-16T21:09:13Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > “The Searchers” is now a major critical darling; it is often cited as the greatest Western of all time, and one of the best movies ever. > > Absolutely no one thought this when it came out. It was not regarded as an especially good movie by anyone. It was only after a few years when a few French auteurs, primarily Jean Luc Godard, claimed it was great a deep, and American critics who had dismissed it just a few years before rushed to agree and started appending interpretations and nuance to it that anyone suggested it was great. Wikipedia paints a more favorable picture of its initial critical reception: > **[The Searchers | Reception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Searchers#Reception)** > > Upon the film's release, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it a "ripsnorting Western" (in spite of the "excessive language in its ads"); he credits Ford's "familiar corps of actors, writers, etc., \[who help\] to give the gusto to this film. From Frank S. Nugent, whose screenplay from the novel of Alan LeMay is a pungent thing, right on through the cast and technicians, it is the honest achievement of a well-knit team." Crowther noted "two faults of minor moment": > 1."Episode is piled up... ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/96 "2019-11-16T21:49:01Z")
Facebook ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/97 "2019-11-17T08:44:23Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > People were right when they said that about disco, and lots of people (myself included) said that about rap. Not so much that it’s the devil’s music as that it would fade in two years. Wait, am I reading this right - you think disco \*faded \*after 2 years? > [@](#): > > IMNSHO, rap’s ongoing popularity is in large part because every day, we have a new crop of 12-year-olds who think they’re the first group of kids ever to deliberately annoy and piss off their parents. That just displays an ignorance of rap and who listens to it. Rap is mainstream, and global, and its audience has matured along with it. ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/98 "2019-11-17T08:58:06Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > ABBA were reasonably popular here as well (one #1, four Top 10s, and twenty songs on the Hot 100) , but they were seen mostly as mindless disposable pop when I was growing up. I don’t remember anyone my age growing up admitting to like them (I’m 44.) It wasn’t really until _ABBA Gold_ in the early-to-mid-90s did I see the feelings turn from liking them as a “guilty pleasure” to just straight-up enjoying their melodies, harmonies, and pop sensibilities as something more than just “mere pop.” Perhaps elsewhere the music geeks always lauded them for their brilliance, but that certainly wasn’t the case here in my experience. My experience exactly. Maybe the Bee Gees fall into a similar category. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/99 "2019-11-17T12:16:37Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > they were seen mostly as mindless disposable pop when I was growing up. I don’t remember anyone my age growing up admitting to like them (I’m 44.) So, you were growing up after their active period, is what I’m getting. I mean, you were what, _7_ when they broke up? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2019, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324/100 "2019-11-17T13:19:58Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > IMNSHO, rap’s ongoing popularity is in large part because every day, we have a new crop of 12-year-olds who think they’re the first group of kids ever to deliberately annoy and piss off their parents. And that’s different than 70 years of rock and roll how, exactly? To quote noted music commentator Weird Al Yankovic - covering Nirvana - > [@](#): > > We’re so loud and incoherent > Boy this oughta bug your parents A great deal of all youth culture is how it pushes back against the culture that kids get from their parents. That’s exactly how it should be. Whether it’s rap or metal, grunge or sweet 70s soul, making your thing in contrast to those older than you is something that needs to occur. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-biggest-critical-reappraisals-all-media/843324.md?page=6)