Дэйв Марш: Влиятельный и противоречивый музыкальный критик

American music critic

Dave Marsh (born ) is an American music critic and radio talk show host. He was an early editor of Creem magazine, has written for various publications such as Newsday, The Village Voice, and Rolling Stone, and has published numerous books about music and musicians, mostly focused on rock music. He is also a committee member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Marsh grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, and graduated from Waterford Kettering High School in Waterford, Michigan. He attended Wayne State University in Detroit before dropping out in 1969 to write for Creem magazine.

Marsh began his career as a rock critic and editor at Creem, which he helped start. He has written extensively about his favorite artists, including Marvin Gaye, whose song "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" he chose as the number one single of all time in his book The Heart of Rock and Soul: the 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, and Sly Stone, whom he called "one of the greatest musical adventurers rock has ever known." Along with Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner, Marsh has been involved in organizing and maintaining the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Marsh has at times courted controversy with his style of maintaining selections. Marsh has championed the work of many rock and roll artists of the Fifties and early Sixties, including doo wop and soul artists and girl groups, in his books and Rolling Stone contributions. Marsh also published four books about Bruce Springsteen, including the bestsellers Born to Run and Glory Days. Marsh has edited and contributed to Rock and Roll Confidential, a newsletter about rock music and social issues.

Marsh has been characterised as a "grumpy rock and roll journalist" due to his acerbic comments on popular musicians whom he dislikes. In 1976, he wrote that Led Zeppelin had an "insurmountable flaw" in drummer John Bonham (who has frequently been named as one of the greatest rock drummers of all time), whom he saw as "something like clinically incompetent" and responsible for marring every Zeppelin album to date. C

Marsh wrote in 1978: "Queen isn't here just to entertain. This group has come to make it clear exactly who is superior and who is inferior. Its anthem, 'We Will Rock You', is a marching order: you will not rock us, we will rock you. Indeed, Queen may be the first truly fascist rock band [I] wonder why anyone would indulge these creeps and their polluting ideas." Marsh had previously described Queen frontman Freddie Mercury – who is regarded as one of the best rock singers of all time – as possessing a "passable pop voice". Marsh described Bob Seger's 1980 album Against the Wind as "absolutely cowardly". He was much more supportive of Seger's earlier work. In the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide, Marsh called Journey "a dead end for San Francisco area rock", and their music "calculated". He awarded every single Journey album released up to that point – seven studio albums, a compilation album and a live album – the minimum possible score of 1/5 stars. Also in the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide, Marsh described Air Supply as "The most calculated and soulless pseudo group of its kind, which is saying something". In 1989, Marsh referred to the Grateful Dead as the "worst band in creation". Kiss were ultimately inducted in 2014; in the lead up, Marsh said: "I was done with them before I ever turned the first album over to the second side all that mediocrity was harmless enough until the boastful bassist decided to turn it into a propaganda machine for the only two things he's ever loved: Gene Simmons and money." Lead singer Paul Stanley described Marsh as "pompous", and pointed to his derision of Led Zeppelin and Queen as evidence that he had "no clue" about music. In the March 13, 1975 edition of Rolling Stone, Marsh was one of a number of critics asked about Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks. Marsh wrote: "The long songs, particularly, suffer from flat, tangled imagery, and the music, with all its hints at the old glory, is often incompetently performed. I suppose it's all a matter of what you're willing to settle for."

Dave Marsh hosts three Sirius XM Radio shows, one called Live from E Street Nation, airing on E Street Radio and the second Kick Out the Jams, airing Sundays on music talk channel Volume. The title references the MC5 album Kick Out the Jams. Marsh's third Sirius program, the political talk show Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams, airs Sunday afternoons on Sirius Left, channel 146 and America Left, channel 167 on XM Satellite Radio.

Marsh is a co founder and trustee of the Kristen Ann Carr Fund, created in memory of his step daughter who died in 1993 from sarcoma, a form of cancer. The fund is dedicated to supporting research in the treatment and cure of sarcoma, as well as improving the lives of young adult cancer patients and their families. Marsh is also a member of the National Advisory Board of PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children.