"Kill Your Idols" -- new book

The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
— Jim DeRogatis

The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
— Jeff Nordstedt

The Beach Boys, Smile
— Dawn Eden

The Who, Tommy
— Steve Knopper

The MC5, Kick Out the Jams
— Andy Wang

The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo
— Steven Stolder

Captain Beefheart and & His Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica
— Jason Gross

Derek and the Dominos, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
— Marc Weingarten

Led Zeppelin, untitled (“IV”)
— Adrian Brijbassi

Neil Young, Harvest
— Fred Mills

The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
— Keith Moerer

The Eagles, Desperado
— Bobby Reed

Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd
— Leanne Potts

Gram Parsons, GP / Grievous Angel
— Chrissie Dickinson

The Doors, The Best of the Doors
— Lorraine Ali (with Jim DeRogatis)

Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon
— Burl Gilyard

Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
— Chris Martiniano

Patti Smith, Horses
— Melanie Haupt

Bob Marley & the Wailers, Exodus
— Dave Chamberlain

Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
— Jim Walsh

Paul & Linda McCartney, Ram
— Tom Phalen

John Lennon / Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy
— Allison Stewart

The Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks . . . Here’s the Sex Pistols
— Jim Testa

Dead Kennedys, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
— Marco Leavitt

Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run
— David Sprague

Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A.
— Rob O’Connor

Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Imperial Bedroom
— Michael Corcoran

Various artists, My Greatest Exes
— Carmél Carrillo

U2, The Joshua Tree
— Eric Waggoner and Bob Mehr

Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
— Arsenio Orteza

Nirvana, Nevermind
— Anders Smith Lindall

The Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
— Rick Reger

Radiohead, OK Computer
— David Menconi

Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
— Allison Augustyn

PLEASE DERO DON'T HURT 'EM!

*DeRogatis' incessant bitching in the intro about the old guard of boomer rockcrits getting in the way of the younger generation. DeRogatis is 40 years old.

*In the Sgt. Pepper essay, on "Getting Better," DeRogatis: "McCartney is telling us he used to be mean to his woman, he beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved. This guy's a freaking misogynist scumbag, and I don't buy for a minute that he's 'changing his scene.' Like Travis Bickle, he's just waiting for an excuse to explode. That insistent piano is like a nervous facial tick, the waltz-like tempo is barely keeping him restrained, and it's time to run and lock the door when the tune dissolves into a psychedelic breakdown with droning sitar and echoed tabla. Hey, the Hell's Angels took LSD, but they didn't automatically start loving everyone. Remember Atlamont?"

*The Pet Sounds essay complains that the music is really poppy, but the lyrics are morse, and that doesn't make any sense!

More when I regain the stomach for it.

I think they've pretty much covered it above, though, with the exception of Zen Arcade

and The Best of the Doors? wasn't that, like, 486th in that Rolling Stone top 500, behind three other Doors compilations?

I want to be somewhat fair-minded about this and cling to the possibility that there are individual essays in the book that aren't bad, but if I buy this (and I'd buy this used), it's going to be the same reason I bought Sonic Cool, and that's TO FEEL THE HATE. DeRo can pose himself as some kind of rebel dude, but an attack on "the rock canon" or individual albums is just gonna curdle into mere pose if you're still going to share many of the same standards of measuring "good" and "bad" music that a lot of the listmakers and the canonbuilders do.

Is this why in every literature class from 8th to 10th grade, the only thing we would read would be about poor Mexican families who learned the value of tradition by passing down grandma's quilt?

*From the Public Enemy chapter: "It's too bad there's never been--and given our hypersensitivity to that chimera "hate speech," may never be--an equally public debate about the validity of that notoriously dimwitted genre of aural graffiti known as rap, the artistic merits of which the music media, in its zeal to see young black radicals do well, has been over-hyping for two decades now. Don't get me wrong, rap can be great fun. At its early best, before it became overrun by gangstas, thugz, pimps, hoez, and other types you wouldn't want to bring home to your grandma (or your spelling teacher), rap was the closest thing to a revival of the loose goofiness of Lieber-Stoller-era Coasters...Since then many rap albums have had their meager merits exaggerated by the press."

*More from the Pet Sounds one: "The biggest problem, though, is this: A great rock album should scare your parents...The problem with Pet Sounds is that Brian WIlson is about as intimidating as an episode of Seventh Heaven, and the album hardly solicits a PMRC-style reaction from anyone."

Did anyone mention that there's an essay about Smile, a record that never came out? Good lord.

draw your own conclusions from that one.

They were never SCARED by the noise, just vaguely annoyed.

Great record, but it just seems to have sort of fallen off.

Clearly they needed something from the past seven years to include...and that was all they could think of.

Can I be Ethan for a second, please?

A great rock album should scare your parents...

KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL ARRRGGHHHFUCK

ned, remember when we used to take our best gals out to dance to the glen miller orchestra? now those were the days...

*which is still a very very very faint and thin sliver just a hint above apathy

Yeah, whatever happened to Amos & Andy?

1. Don't get me wrong, jazz can be great fun. At its early best, before it became overrun by gangstas, thugz, pimps, hoez, and other types you wouldn't want to bring home to your grandma (or your spelling teacher), jazz was the closest thing to a revival of the loose goofiness of Stone-Age-era caveman-racket...

2. That voice! Ugg! And I've driven on Highway 61 many times and I don't ever want to revist it, thank you.

3. All the songs sound the same.

christhamrin, make sure to end it "consider yourself smacked, bitch"

"It won't show up on William Bennett's list of leading cultural indicators, but the discrepancy in CD sales between Norah Jones, 24, and Ani DiFranco, 33, is one sign that, contemporary headlines to the contrary, the Left may not be winning the culture war after all. Although Miss DiFranco, a one-woman Beat Movement whose music is often as abrasively anarchistic as her politics, has managed to lodge eight albums on the Billboard Top 200 since 1989, only one of them has cracked the top 25, and nine haven't charted at all.

Miss Jones, on the other hand—an "Anti-Ani" in every noticeably significant way—has seen her debut album (2002's Come Away with Me) and its follow-up (the recently released Feels Like Home) become instant chart-toppers. If people vote with their feet, why may they also not vote with their ears? One thing's certain: Where Miss Jones and Miss DiFranco are concerned, people are voting with their money."

WTF?

Not that I'm a big Ani fan but ENOUGH WITH THE RETARDED, ARSENIO.

I'd probably write about WL/WH

*begins preperations for rage-filled letter*

If you like Mr. Show I can accept your completely wrong (subjectively of course!) take on White Light/White Heat. As it is I am settling for generic diet cola and Madvillain.

Then i would buy it.

Born to Run? More like Born to Rot, uh-huh!

Uh, excuse me. Sweetheart of the Rodeo ASSCLOWN more like it.

Uh, excuse me. Sweetheart of the Rodeo ASSCLOWN more like it.

More like the rodeo assclown's harelip sweetheart who has festering anal fissures.

(I'm at work, that's my excuse)

I don't get that one. Is it about Dark Side of the Moon?

"Sweetheart of the rodeo CLOWN, maybe"

One of those titles you just gotta visualize.

"Nevermind The Sex Pistols...What do these Bollocks sound like?"

*if man is still alive

If the statement can be applied to TMR, then what are some suggestions for albums that fit this description? What are some albums that could replace it as the token avant-rock pick? Preferably albums that are old enough to be considered part of the canon, but have long been overlooked..

I'm not saying they don't exist, i would just love to hear them!

Here is jason's essay (must've read that a couple of years ago), there's also a couple of other essays on TMR and reviews of all his recs (a similar tribute was made for The fall).

http://www.furious.com/perfect/beefheart/troutmaskreplica2.html

If somebody was to tackle TMR and its reputation, I'd hope they'd address the faintly condescending attitudes people have towards eccentrics and the clearly damaged, even when they come to praise them (this may include Zappa, arguably). Or the claims about Van Vliet's near-abuse of the Magic Band members.

Or maybe talk about Van Vliet's overweening arrogance and his disavowal of precendent and i*fluence in interviews -- which would dovetail nicely with Gross' claims that Beefheart's fans don't seem to give credit to those who those who came before him. Though does Gross *really* believe that "most" people who count Beefheart as a hero "never have heard of" Ornette Coleman? Is he serious?

Though to say that Beefheart's music seemed "new only because he took Coleman's idea to rearrange the ideas of what was supposed to be melody and rhythm into rock territory" wildly overestimates Ornette's example as a precedent (This reminds me -- is there any improvisation on TMR?)...hey, what about the blues? Howlin' Wolf, at the very least?

Oh yeah, then there's the pro-forma attacks on 70's radio...

DON'T FORGET THE HAND PUPPETS, NATE! THAT WOULD SERIOUSLY ROCK ON THE RADIO!

Is the every track on the record suppoosed to be an experiment?

'orange claw hammer' is a 'good experiment' but its just a poetry reading (one of three on the record, I'm thinking he wanted variety on the double LP). and how is the 'dust blows forward' an 'uninspired reading'? I kinda agree with 'veteran's day poppy' but in the context of the record I just found it funny how he seemed to play it straight in the last track. I thought 'china pig' could even be a comment on how you couldn't get a feeling for the Blues, that the time for that had passed, so you might as well recorded as cheaply as you could to try.

as far as I know there is NO improvisation in TMR, and, like mike seems to be saying, that is where the comparisons between beefheart and ornette kinda break down.

haha Mike you can change radio 4evah with that idea of yours.

I'd actually like to read ppl who really love their records trying to actually rip into them or their critical rep, that could make for a better read.

If the statement can be applied to TMR, then what are some suggestions for albums that fit this description? What are some albums that could replace it as the token avant-rock pick? Preferably albums that are old enough to be considered part of the canon, but have long been overlooked..

exactly. OTM. why aren't "a new generation of rock writers" telling us about something we might not have heard (of) a thousand times already ? the appeal of PerfectSoundForever at least is its dives at new angles. at least it helps with those parallel universes of music i haven't heard of and would like to think exist. at least it tries to help in the quest for new alien music forms, or doesn't troll through the past as though reciting a music industry catalog like Uncut or Mojo or The Wire at times (or worse, perpetuate the myth that new stuff with avant-garde trappings gets a pass and will be rewarding and enduring, that thing that The Wire does worst, in it's endless enthusiasm, particularly for those muzaky sub-genres it hypes and uses for bread and butter sales)

new experience please, like "new writers" consider established "classics" if you must, but how about discussing/dissing /whatever the so-called "classics" and then saying :
"and/but if you like/hate this, you'll love [complimentary album that i might actually not have heard (of even)]"

in other words, any quibble with Gross and his piece would be minor given the rest, the conservative back-to-the-future cd re-issue "canonisation" /re-invention of the wheel that is the bulk of albums listed here

and as i read down the top of this thread my heart sank, realising it wasn't "kill 'yr idols" as intended (ie never mind the sex pistols, here's something surprising or new or interesting and sexy), that (these) "new writers" (mostly) aren't sticking their necks out with new recommendations, just chewing fat on stuff everyone already has opinions/ arguments galore over -- it's like English professors considering opinion on another professor's opinion on "canonical" 100 year old literary classic -- this may as well be acknowledging "rock writing" as just like any other hack work, like it's professional pass-the-parcel -- surely we all hope that all "rock writing" isn't like that ?

What did the person say about it? It's not like it's that out of place on the album.

I really WANT to like Trout Mask Replica...

Ten "cannonical" albums that are closer to dud than classic.

Dubsky -- I don't know if there any good replacements to TMR on the canon, but on further thought there are a few other token avant-rock albums that appear on best-albums-ever lists, namely Zappa/Mothers' We're Only In It For the Money and Eno's Another Green World, with maybe Can, Bowie's Berlin trilogy, Bitches Brew, and Kraftwerk making their appearances every once in a while.

George -- lacking most of the actual essays themselves, it's hard to say whether the writers do nudge the reader into other possibilities, both musically and critically, but given the conservativism of the writers I'm familiar with, my suspicion is that the best we'll get might be something on the order of "Wilco Sux, Uncle Tupelo was sooo much better." I'd like to be proven wrong.

Anyway, I feel a little awkward judging a book I haven't read, but all the evidence I have of it drastically limits how good the book can ultimately be. Some of those quotes are just unforgiveable regardless of their context -- the "Lovely Rita" musings are arguably homophobic in their crudeness.

I don't get thinking that Doc at the Radar Station and Ice Cream for Crow are great and Trout Mask Replica stinks either. Isn't TMR just a little bit more extreme in terms of compositional density?

I don't think I agree. I don't think it's that much more extreme than Lick My Decals Off and I think the post-Shiny Beast music was a move back in that direction.

I just bring this up because of the price of the package. Maybe there are some affordable used copies. The booklet is cool.

Grow Fins is great. It's a must for any Don fan. One of the best things about it is the live videos - the one for "Electricity" is awesome. Some good interviews and a nice essay by John Corbett too.

Listening again, I'm reminded that i don't LOVE Trout Mask. I love the band and i can ignore any of the Zappa-isms cuz i'm really good at ignoring stuff like that so it doesn't ever really bug me too much. But listening to Lick My Decals right now I'm reminded how much i really do love that. And I could say the same thing about Safe As Milk and some of the others. I think it all boils down to the cover. Trout mask just had a really good cover. It had to be the masterpiece. Even if I do find the other records more pleasurable I do still think that TMR is goofy and entertaining as well. In that dude's essay he sez it's a good "idea" and all that and brings up Warhol's Empire as a good idea that you wouldn't want to sit through. I don't find it quite that torturous! Now some zappa records on the other hand...

The only numbers on the album I've ever seen are from a Byron Coley story where he wrote: "As to Trout Mask Replica, Reprise kept it in print as a two-LP set until the early ‘90s, by which time it had sold about 70,000 copies." Can we assume half that number bought CD copies in the last 12 years or so?

http://koszulki.win.pl/sklep_online/images/img_thumb/d563e8d9d15edadb57a61871ea837fb6.jpg

http://www.cosmik.com/aa-march01/pics/ev-elvis_costello.jpg

If it only sold 70,000 copies in 20+ years, it's probably safe to assume that Reprise's 1977 vinyl reissue of it lasted a long, long time and didn't need to be re-pressed all that often.

If the total sales by the '90's only got as high as 70,000, that's a measly 3,000-4,000 copies a year, which makes its continuous availability really puzzling

Until the Warner executives shake-ups of the mid-1990s, Warner Bros had a ridiculously artist growth friendly reputation, where they put music first. Perhaps that accounts for it's availablility?

His improvising on the sax seems to be even more far out on disc 5 of 'grow fins' and I'm specifically talking about the live version of 'when big joan sets up'. That disc is the best of the three discs I downloaded (CD 1 and 3 are the others). I've only given one listen to each disc so far and the TMR sessions (disc 3) were good, seemed to be better recorded too but not necessarily more enjoyable than the final version with don's voice.

x-post: come on strongo don't put yrself down like this.

Also, "jealous"--of what, the money? The introduction says the book's writers deferred their payments. And a lot of people on ILM are actually professional writers themselves.

otm. I can't do it so I just read it.

Not in this lifetime

X-post

I find it interesting that Ram is listed because I do not think any McCartney solo shit was universally accepted as a classic when released not even Band on the Run. Did not most of his records get awful reviews as underachieving ex-mop top bullshit even though they sold well?

I actually think McCartney's early solo music has aged rather well once the weight of the Beatles' myth faded (oh so slightly). Ram, McCartney and Wild Life have a ton of great home recorded pop.

Well, if so, Hotel California or Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 seem like more obvious subjects than Desperado. And there are plenty of mega-selling/crit-hated albums not covered in KYI that seem completely appropriate and ripe for abuse.

It's funny that I'm a huge Beatles fan, I bought Plastic Ono Band and All Things Must Pass and even Ringo but never a Macca solo or Wings album, not even a greatest hits package. I just never got around to it. I suppose I should rectify that one day.

Is he reviewing the book?

Is it a pseudonym for Matos or Frere-Jones?

Didn't say that there was, just asking out of curiosity.

Like somebody standing in a pig-sty proving with impeccable and undeniable logic that no pigs could possibly have shat there. Despite the saturating, obnoxious stink.

Thirty-five of the best rock writers of Generations X and Y each weigh in on an album that's universally considered "a classic"—-but which they think sucks.

I'm just bemused by the idea that DeRogatis considers himself part of Generation X!

Scott Seward should write something about Mellon Collie, somewhere.

Said writer once got into a blog war with me because I called said participants "morons" and "hate-filled." Said writer also exchanged several e-mails with me in the process, in which said writer came off as nice enough and all, but not too bright. Which would probably describe a great many people who would unironically participate in such a rally.

"Adrian Brijbassi's first novel, 50 Mission Cap (Trafford, 2001), was inspired by the music of the Tragically Hip..."

"Adrian Brijbassi's first novel, 50 Mission Cap (Trafford, 2001), was inspired by the music of the Tragically Hip..."

de gustibus non est disputandum. humor however. ;-)

I would say that is approximately OTM.

Not necessarily, especially given the rise of self-publishing. Who'd ever thought that a mini book about "Sign O the Times" would have a market? I'll bet an in-depth of Husker Du would push comparable numbers.

Blech.

"It's crap, sure, but let me pat this shitty book on its head in a kindly and condescending way by saying, you know, it really makes ya think, which of course is another way of saying it exercises your repetoire of knee-jerk responses, only a little quicker and sharper than usual. And that's a good thing, for some vague reason or another."

Is that online anywhere?

The worst mistake done by so many fans and critics alike throughtout rock history is the completely ridiculous idea express in this quote.

This thread displays a lot of anticipation for the book, but not much comment on the book itself. I read this when it came out, and decided to look at it again now that I've heard all the records discussed.
It was pretty dispiriting. Too many of the essays display a lot of snark but not much wit; I agree with the person on Goodreads who said, "there is not a choice paragraph or phrase one comes away with". It made me wonder if bad reviews should be epigrammatic, confined to a maximum length of a paragraph.
I'm always willing to read criticism, even of things that I enjoy, but there's something inert about a piece of writing designed to tell you why a record is bad, especially if the writer feels that the record violates some sort of First Principle of Rock; so Pet Sounds and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot fail because they don't scare your parents, while Kick Out the Jams and the Public Enemy albums fail because it's wrong to scare your parents.
There's also a disjunct between the writers who have picked an album they think is OK, but overrated, and those who hate the entire genre or the artist. The former group feel they have to puff up their "hate" to keep the reader's interest; the latter display the irrelevance of their point-of-view.
I'm looking over the table of contents, and despite having read the book twice, most recently in the past week, I can't remember a single thing about more than half of the chapters.
The worst essay is probably Jim Walsh on Rumours; although it contains a fantasy of assassinating the band, it's really more about the author's loathing of his job as a newspaper rock critic, which in 2021 is fortunately no longer a problem for him.
Best essays:
- Chris Martiniano on Blood on the Tracks - he makes a number of incisive observations on the point-of-view of the songs and the structure of the record, though he is obsessed with making all 10 songs describe a single real life relationship.
- Dave Chamberlain on Exodus - sees the record as an overrated lull in Marley's oeuvre, discusses it in relation to his biography, discography and the state of reggae in 1977.
- Marco Leavitt on Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables - a measured appraisal of the lyrical and musical flaws.

I prefer Kill All Your Darlings.