Chuck Klosterman on Rock: A Collection of Previously Published Essays

by Chuck Klosterman

From Fargo Rock City; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs ; Chuck Klosterman IV ; and Eating the Dinosaur , these essays are now available in this ebook collection for fans of Klosterman’s writing on rock music.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, Pop Culture, Contemporary, Sociology, Ebooks, Social

186 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 11, 2010

About the author

Charles John Klosterman is an American author and essayist whose work focuses on American popular culture. He has been a columnist for Esquire and ESPN.com and wrote "The Ethicist" column for The New York Times Magazine. Klosterman is the author of twelve books, including two novels and the essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. He was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor award for music criticism in 2002.

Reviews

[Michelle Bacon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chuck Klosterman writes essays for newspapers and magazines and this book is a collection of essays he has written about different musicians that may/may not fall under the category of popular music.
Chuck lets us know right away that he is a big fan of Billy Joel and goes on to tell us of the things he observes through Joel's music and his conversations with the musician. Other artists that Chuck covers in this collection range from Abba to U2 to Weezer and Garth Brooks. He makes mention of Garth Brooks filling in where Bruce Springsteen left off in which I had to argue that point. I can't help but be critical of some of the views Chuck has of some of these artists.
I am not a fan of Bruce Springsteen in any way, shape, or form and in these essays it appears as tho Chuck places "The Boss"(a title I use very lightly)on a pedestal. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and mine is not favorable for Bruce at all.
I am a huge fan of Duran Duran and in one of his essays he states that the band is underrated in which we both agree there. Thank you for pointing that out to some of the doubters out there!
For any fan of popular music, this is a fun little read (The Beatles, great writers?? No!) and you may find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with the author. Then you may also run across some names of artists that you are not familiar with and want to check out their work (I did with a British rapper called The Streets). Great stuff.

[Rachel C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading "Love is a Mix Tape" made me want to listen to a bunch of music, which in turn made me want to read another music book. So I dug this one out. It's not as cohesive (obviously) or generally applicable, but Klosterman has a great voice - it's sort of like Bourdain's.

Note to self: Need to bone up on Led Zeppelin.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good to read these again - still think his viewpoint on Billy Joel is ludicrous, but hey...that's part of what makes it great reading. Some sharp pop profiles here. Some great writing.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

A smattering of essays from journalist Klosterman, mainly from his time writing for the music magazine Spin. The articles range from a review and social commentary around Nirvana’s album In Utero combined with the Branch Davidean tragedy, a couple about tribute bands, a defense of hair metal (in which, I think, he doth protest too much), and the penultimate essay on taking a cruise (the ultimate being, as he notes, David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”). I like Klosterman’s style, which is both immediately personal and informative. Even when it seems he might be at odds with his subject (the non-creative tribute bands, for example), he comes across sympathetic and not snarky (well, not always snarky). The interview he conducts with Robert Plant, in which he tries to bolster his theory that all heavy metal began with Zeppelin (and some Sabbath), is a masterpiece of letting your interview subject destroy you, while also being a good sport about it. Based on this compilation, I expect to be reading a lot more by Klosterman in the future.

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining collection of Klosterman commentaries, lists, interviews, and musings of rock music history.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agradable colección de artículos.

[Aldrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the Essay about Nirvana.

[Rachel C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

On a bit of a music reading binge. I liked this one better than the rock compilation because I'm way more familiar with the subjects (Billy Joel, U2, Britney Spears, ABBA, etc.)

I would not like to get into an argument with Chuck Klosterman - and I say that as a member of a profession trained to argue. He would talk circles around you, then insult you in some very specific and devastating way. I refer you to the below, and note that I *do* listen to country music:

You can't really learn much about a person based on what kind of music they happen to like. As a personality test, it doesn't work even half the time. However, there is at least one thing you can learn: the most wretched people in the world are those who tell you they like every kind of music "except country." People who say that are boorish and pretentious at the same time. All it means is that they've managed to figure out the most rudimentary rule of pop sociology; they know that hipsters gauge the coolness of others by their espoused taste in sound, and they know that hipsters hate modern country music. And they hate it because it speaks to normal people in a tangible, rational manner. Hipsters hate it because they hate Midwesterners, and they hate Southerners, and they hate people with real jobs.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Chuck Klosterman. Even though he analyzes things to smithereens, I dig all of his books. It's his balls-to-the-wall, clusterf*** style that appeal to me. I would recommend him to anyone who has given serious, intellectual thought to "Saved By the Bell", or the works of Billy Joel. So...maybe just me?

[Aldrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahora veo y escucho de diferente manera ciertos grupos de rock/pop
Tiene mucho sentido lo de Morrisey(y en realidad creo que pasa mucho con la mayoría del el britpop en latinoamerica)
Sus ensayos sobre Radiohead, Billy Joel, U2 me dieron un poco de risa y ahora veo muy diferente a Jeff Tweedy de Wilco. Interesante la vida de Tweedy.

Conocí un poco de música nueva gracias a este libro.

[Parksy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary of a bunch of his published work from various sources... Good but not great.
Probably suffers from the fact that it is limited to articles about music, and doesn't have his meandering pop culture filtered non-sequitur thoughts on life/culture.

Good but my least favourite of his works.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I don't share Klosterman's love of hair metal bands, I do love his essays.

[Ray Charbonneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Repackaged stuff I've read before, but I still likes it when I'm in a lazy re-readin' mood.

[Subu · Rating 3 out of 5]

not spectacularly eye opening but a decent read...
liked the write ups on the cover bands..specially the guns n roses one

[Muhamed Ahmed]

The only

[Paschalis]

elibrary

[Verge Noir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inasmuch...