Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island

by Greil Marcus (Editor), Robert Christgau (Foreword)

In 1978, Greil Marcus asked twenty other writers on rock -- including Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs, Nick Tosches, Ellen Willis, Simon Frith, and Robert Christgau -- a What one rock and roll album would you take to a desert island? The resulting essays were collected in Stranded, twenty passionate declarations that, appropriately, affirmed the solitary and obsessive activity that rock listening had become. Here are salutes, elegies, thank-you notes, and love letters to records such as the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet , the Ramones' Rocket to Russia, Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, Something Else By the Kinks, and out-of-print classics by the Ronettes, Little Willie John, and Huey 'Piano' Smith; the whole is supplemented with Marcus's own invaluable annotated fifty-page discography, a "Treasure Island" of rock and roll. Stranded remains a classic of rock and roll literature, and perhaps the best possible answer to the What one rock and roll book would you take to a desert island?

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Essays, Criticism, Pop Culture, Rock N Roll

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. In recent years he has taught at Berkeley, Princeton, Minnesota, NYU, and the New School in New York. He lives in Oakland, California.

Reviews

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a simple but brilliant idea for a book. Greil Marcus asked a number of the top music writers to pick one album that he or she would take to a desert island and write a little piece on it. The result is this compelling collection. It would be churlish to argue right off with the selections (What? No Blonde on Blonde? No White Album?)because these essays are almost all beautifully written even when they are about artists you don't care about (for me, The Eagles, and The New York Dolls) and some of them are downright inspiring. I especially loved Janet Maslin on Something Else by the Kinks, Kit Rachlis on Decade by Neil Young, and Lester Bangs on Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. And I learned about some artists I am now going to seek out: Little Willie John, Huey "Piano" Smith, The "5" Royales.

[flannery · Rating 4 out of 5]

got this for the lester bangs essay on astral weeks:

"But in the condition I was in, it assumed at the time the quality of a beacon, a light on the far shores of the murk; what's more, it was proof that there was something left to express artistically besides nihilism and destruction. It sounded like the man who made Astral Weeks was in terrible pain, pain most of Van Morrison's previous works had only suggested; but like the later albums by the Velvet Underground, there was a redemptive element in the blackness, ultimate compassion for the suffering of others, and a swath of pure beauty and mystical awe that cut right through the heart of the work."

...

"What Astral Weeks deals in are not facts but truths. Astral Weeks, insofar as it can be pinned down, is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend. It is a precious and terrible gift, born of a terrible truth, because what they see is both infinitely beautiful and terminally horrifying: the unlimited human ability to create or destroy, according to whim. It's no Eastern mystic or psychedelic vision of the emerald beyond, nor is it some Baudelairean perception of the beauty of sleaze and grotesquerie. Maybe what it boiled down to is one moment's knowledge of the miracle of life, with its inevitable concomitant, a vertiginous glimpse of the capacity to be hurt, and the capacity to inflict that hurt."

[Michael Lindgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lifetime in publishing and bookselling combined with the limited space of a city apartment-dweller means that I am forced to get rid of most of the thousands of books that have passed through my hands and mind, the exceptions being volumes that somehow have accumulated totemic emotional importance. Somewhere in my parents' house is a battered copy of the 1979 Knopf paperback edition of Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island, in which Rolling Stone writer Greil Marcus asks a Murderer's Row of rock writers -- Lester Bangs, Ellen Willis, John Rockwell, Dave Marsh -- the ultimate parlor game question, and then supplies his own annotated and highly idiosyncratic discography, a kind of ur-canon for the rock genre. As a teenager in a small town with only one pallid Top Forty radio station to keep me company, I felt stranded myself; the book was a lifeline, an education, a statement of solidarity, an expression of faith. It taught me how to think and write about music, and therefore about life; in some small way, everything I have done since is an attempt to imitate the voices -- sardonic, knowing, passionate -- that I first heard in Stranded. From the NBCC blog "Critical Mass," December 6 2012.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just joined Goodreads earlier this month I’ve been adding books to my “read” shelf as I recall them. The list is at about 385 books as of today though that number is only a fraction of what I’ve read in my life. Perusing my bookshelves the other day in order to add to the list I came across this book, which I bought when it was first released back in 1979 and I was 21 years old. The book consists of twenty rock and roll writers essays answering the question: what rock and roll record would you take to a desert island? Marcus adds a final chapter entitled “Treasure Island” in which he answers a different question: were a Martian to land on earth and ask you the meaning of rock and roll, what would you play to explain. Marcus uses the question to craft a commented discography is which he outlines the best rock and roll has to offer, at least up to that time.

It’s a fun book with some surprising entries and it got me thinking. When I purchased the book thirty years ago my answer to the desert island question would have been unequivocal: Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. (I’ve blogged about Van and Astral Weeks previously here and put together sort of my own rock and roll discography here, here and here.) I have loved Astral Weeks since the first time I put it on the record player when I was in my mid-teens. I had no idea at the time that it was considered by the rock cognoscenti such as Marcus and Lester Bangs (who chooses Astral Weeks as his desert island record in the book) as one of rock and roll’s masterpieces. I simply knew that I loved it. It got to me in a way that no other record ever had. And no one else knew about it! It was my own little treasure. And it would be tucked under my arm when I landed on that desert island.

Would it still be? If the desert island question were presented to me today would I still choose as I did as a 21 year old? A 51 year old has different needs than a 21 year old, after all. Would the me of today need or want to ride Astral Weeks’ emotional roller coaster in his desert island existence? Plus, my musical tastes have…what? I was about to say my musical tastes have changed, but that’s not true. The rock and roll I loved thirty and forty years ago I still love. Better to say my musical horizons have widened. These days I listen to classical, jazz, and golden-age standards as much as I listen to rock and roll, probably more. After all, I’ve heard the rock and roll thousands of time by now. There is nothing new there, while there is still plenty of new music to explore in those other areas. Anyhow, I digress. Probably because I am avoiding the question. What record am I tucking under my arm as the ship that dropped me off sails away into the distance?

I could cop out like Marcus and simply say, well, I’ll take my IPod with me along with the twenty-five hundred songs I have on it. That’ll do. No, you say? I must choose a single record or CD? Can I least put together a compilation? No? No.

And the answer to the question is: I don’t know. Or, at least, it depends on the day. Today I might still choose Astral Weeks, tomorrow some other Van Morrison record, like Tupelo Honey, or Saint Dominic’s Preview, or Veedon Fleece. Would I choose any other rock and roll? No. The older I get the more I am convinced that Van Morrison is the greatest rock and roller of them all (i.e. my favorite). I listen to his music far more than anyone else, including Dylan. Pack me off to the island with just Van’s oeuvre and I’d be satisfied.

But there are other contenders now. Today I might choose some Bach violin concertos, which I adore. Keeping oneself from falling into the depths of despair would be a central concern of a desert island existance and I know of no music more joyous than these Bach concertos. Tomorrow I’d perhaps choose Beethoven’s Archduke Piano Trio whose jaunty, bouncy second movement would keep one’s spirits up and whose first movement would add a dose of pure beauty to go along with it. If you deem that large doses of beauty are the most important need on the island, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet might do the trick. It’s a tough choice, as you can see.

Perhaps a Jo Stafford collection, or Helen Merrill’s debut album, or Frank Sinatra Only The Lonely would fit the bill. Jo Stafford’s full, rich voice could see you through a lot, and, to my taste, when she sang the standards no one did it better. The Merrill and Sinatra records might be dangerous though. You might want them in order to wallow in your despair but listen to them too much on your desert island and suicide may be your only way out. As much as I love them, best they be left back on the mainland.

Or maybe I’d bring along Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens, perhaps the seminal jazz recordings. The music is consistently great and I could listen to it forever without tiring of it. It has the added benefit of including ninety songs. That’d last you awhile. And whose spirits would not be lifted while listening to Louis Armstrong sing and blow his horn?

Clearly this review has devolved into an excuse for listing some of my favorite music. So sue me. Marcus used an entire book to list his.

There is more but time is short so I’ll end. Today, if forced to choose, I’d still go with Van Morrison. But I’d take one of his later records, Magic Time, because you’d need a dose of magic if you’re all alone forever on a desert island. And what song would be more appropriate to your existence than its opening track? It would be the story of your life.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last time I read this was six years ago, making my way across England in trains and buses, and that was a pretty interesting reading experience, considering this is such an Americentric book. A couple Stones albums, a couple Van Morrisons, and a Kinks record represent the entirety of the UK contingent, but you'll hear no quibbles from me.

Anyway, I came back to this off and on for well over a month and then bulldozed through the last two thirds of it in the past few days, and I'm surprised at how little I remembered from the first go-round. Certainly Lester Bangs' piece on Astral Weeks is one of the single greatest essays I've ever encountered, and even if there's nothing else that rises quite to that level, Paul Nelson's essay on Jackson Browne, Ed Ward's tribute to the 5 Royales, Tom Smucker on a gospel collection (to which I'm listening as I type), and Ariel Swartley's take on Bruce Springsteen are all wonderful. (And of course Greil Marcus' patented long discography at the end of the book, "Treasure Island," is as credible a canon as you'll find.)

I was probably most surprised by John Rockwell's much-maligned (and, at 30 pages, oppressively, disproportionately long) essay on Linda Ronstadt's Living in the USA. I'll admit I very nearly stopped reading the book when I realized that piece was next on tap, so little did I want to slog through it again. But I pressed on, and am glad I did. I've had occasion to listen to all of Linda Ronstadt's '70s work over the past year -- some of it, especially Heart Like a Wheel, with great pleasure -- and Rockwell's overall take on her strengths and weaknesses seems consistent with what I've been thinking. So the first two thirds of the essay wound up being more engaging than I remembered. But his reason for choosing this album (it was her most recent at the time and he was into it), and his enthusiasm for her work in general, wind up blinding him to its inferiority. Living in the USA just isn't a very good album, and it's the most preposterous desert island disc in the book.

Ultimately there's not really a dud amongst the essays, even if a few of them aren't all that memorable. The good certainly outweigh the rest, and it doesn't hurt that most of the work under discussion remains highly regarded 35 years after the book was first published. Even if the premise of the book has become a cliche, I suppose it endures for a reason.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rock n Roll as myth is one of the key themes that runs through these critics’ contributions. While this is surely unintentional, it’s also logical given editor Greil Marcus’ ongoing fascination with pop-as-myth. Marcus’ enduring insight is that pop, by definition a disposable commercial product and myth, nevertheless sometimes succeeds in transcending itself into becoming true.

In that spirit, the best pieces are those in which the writers step out of their typical role as critics and into the role of fans; while still acknowledging rock n roll as artifice, they are still vulnerable to share their undying love for an album, band, or artist, in ways that music rings true to them personally.

As John Rockwell succinctly puts it: “Pop music has always been about emotional release, about passionate responses to artists who might not rank at the very top of our rational hierarchies” (190).

That’s not to say that they are less critical or analytical. One of the best pieces is Simon Frith’s critical fandom of the Rolling Stones.

Less successful are the pieces in which the writers maintain their critics’ cool and never let their guard down, as in Langdon Winner’s too-cool-for-school homage to Trout Mask Replica, and Dave Marsh’s joke playlist.

Then there are those that fall in-between, like John Rockwell’s writing on Linda Ronstadt, who wrings his hands by filling his fandom with so many qualifiers and admissions that it ultimately renders his piece as sort of limp and pathetic.

The passages below are the insights that gave me better understanding of some music, magnified my zeal for music I already love, and caused me to appreciate other’s zeal for the music they love:

** Langdon Winner’s inspiring take on Captain Beefheart’s “Trout Mask Replica”
“…the vision of Trout Mask Replica is fundamentally that of an American primitive surrealist. The land he asks us to visit is one we already know very well. It is not, as many of his fans have supposed, outer space or the realm of late 1960s hippie, psychedelic weirdness for weirdness’ sake. To accompany Captain Beefheart on this journey is to re-experience the nature and artifice of the American continent through a vast project of surrealistic reclamation” (61).

** Here is Tom Carson’s right-on take on The Ramones, in his piece on their “Rocket to Russia” album:
“…the band set the attitude: a comic resentment toward the rest of the world, a defiant pleasure in trashiness, and the tawdry excesses of urban lowlife. Punks, in the original sense of the word, were the sort of people who were such hopeless losers that they couldn’t even be convincing as outlaws; far from romanticizing that status, the Ramones glorified their own inadequacy. Their leather jackets land strung-out, streetwise pose weren’t so much an imitation of Brando in The Wild One as a very self-conscious parody—they knew how phony it was for them to take on those tough-guy trappings, and that incongruousness was exactly what made the pose so funny and true. And yet they were genuinely sexy, too; in spite of everything, they were cool. American myths are never so immediately recognizable, and irresistible, as when they’re turned into a joke” (108).

“They were raised on the pop-culture religion; they believed in the Top 40 as the melting pot of the teenage American dream, where clichés and junkiness and triviality take on the epic sweep of a myth and the depth of a common unconscious. But they themselves were minority artists, working far outside the mainstream, and that, paradoxically, gave them the freedom to live out everyone’s private fantasy that the Top 40 really told the truth, instead of being the shoddy compromise it always actually was; they were also sophisticated modern ironists, working with all the alienation and distance that implied. Rocket to Russia isn’t imitation Top 40; it’s a fan’s vision of what the Top 40 ought to be” (109).

** I thank Simon Frith for finally settling the question of the Rolling Stones for me.
“I’ve always heard them as petit bourgeois jesters, who’ve taken delight in standing morality on its head but retained a touchy egotism, a contempt for the masses that they share with any respectable small shopkeeper. Their rebellion has been a grand gesture, an aesthetic style without a social core. It is a politically ambiguous position and the Stones’ sharp worldliness has always been confused by childishness, sexism, a surly individualism. The British punk point—“No more Stones in ’77!”—rests on the angry argument that however excitingly the Stones say it, they have nothing socially significant to say. I share the instincts of this argument, but then I listen to Beggars Banquet again and know that the punks have got it all wrong. The Stones’ best music remains the source of rock’s greatest energy an joy, and even for the punks—especially for the punks—the Stones’ remain the greatest symbol of rock and roll possibility. …Don’t the grace and power and dignity of Beggars Banquet depend on its social detachment?” (37-38).

** It was more inspiring reading about Bruce Springsteen than listening to his music. Ariel Swartley on Springsteen’s “The Wild, The Innocent…”
“He hasn’t only learned from masters. But it’s not the knee-jerk nostalgia of teen-scene verité he’s after in his authentic dialogue and his blasts from a past that never seems so bright except in retrospect. He treats rock and roll history as our common language, our shared mythology, and thereby reinforces rock and roll’s promise of community. Spectoral echo (James) Brownian motion, Dion-ysian brawl—he triggers memories like you were a jukebox and he was the man with all the quarters; plays it like a slot machine and wins. Hell yes, he exploits rock and roll’s past, just like he exploits the language itself—turning it inside out, digging for the metaphors under the surface of conversation” (52).
“Yeah, it sounds hokey, but faith in these songs isn’t just some smarmy, self-help estuary. It’s noting more or less than an act of imagination (like the songs themselves)….So buy the vision. Believe the lady’s sawed in half. Be willing to be made a fool” (57).

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A grab bag by nature, but there are unmissable essays here from Nick Tosches, Lester Bangs, Ellen Willis, Simon Frith, and Ed Ward. And damn good ones from Robert Christgau, Tom Carson, M. Mark, Dave Marsh, and Langdon Winner. Only a few duds overall and they're mercifully brief. Best of all is Greil Marcus's "Treasure Island" discography which ends the book. It's pithy and insightful selection of essential rock and R&B and has led me to many wonderful albums and songs I had somehow overlooked.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not gonna lie; I'm not sure I've read this book. What I HAVE read, which I know this book contains, is Lester Bangs' review of Astral Weeks, which pretty much sums up how I feel about Astral Weeks, which is that it changed my life forever. Do yourself a favor and read the review (you can find it free all over the interweb), and then read the other collections of Bangs' material. Or skip all that and just listen to Astral Weeks.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheltered-in-place was the perfect oppportunity to read Stranded, which has been sitting on my shelf for some time. Music is a proverbially hard thing to write about - you know, dancing about architecture and all that - and I find it's a hard thing to read about as well. If I don't happen to know the record that is under review, I find most writer's attempts at synesthetically conveying the experience of listening to a piece of music to be misleading. When I finally get a chance to listen to the song I read about, it doesn't sound anything like what I imagined. YouTube has vastly improved my experience of reading music criticism. If I'd read this book when it came out, to really get something out of reading Stranded, I would have had to buy all twenty records, which would've been impossible since several of them were identified in the essays as bargain-bin rescues. Now, just about any record I can think of is a few keystrokes away. All of this is to say that, stranded here in my cushy, urban desert isle, while I haven't used the time to learn a language or how to play my guitar, I have been able to give more attention than is my custom to a bunch of records, some old favorites and some new (to me) discoveries.

I enjoyed this even more than I expected. A broad range of vernacular music is covered, mostly rock, some rock-adjacent, but there was no attempt to be comprehensive or even balanced. Marcus just picked the writers and they picked the records, so the desert island haul is distributed in odd ways across the musical spetcrum: a rather unexpected bunch of essays about records by Jackson Browne, The Eagles, and Linda Ronstadt (surprised and delighted to read critics this late in the seventies still championing these soon-to-be-reviled, California-mellow dinosaurs); not-surprising-at-all essays about perennial darlings The Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls, and the Ramones, and, natch, a bunch of de rigeur white hipster tributes to the African-American tradition that are largely, but not entirely, very, very pleased with their own crate-digging deepcutitude.

I liked all but one of the essays at least a little, some of them a whole lot : an essay about gospel titan Thomas Dorsey that reflects on the bitter loss of culture on a desert island in a way that felt very poignant just now , Grace Lichtenstein's love letter to the Eagles' Desperado, and Tom Carson's right-on piece about Rocket to Russia. The writing varied widely in approach. The essay about Linda Ronstadt's Living in the USA, by New York Times classical music critic John Rockwell, was a particular treat to me because I heard a lot of her music when I was growing up so I knew the records well (he doesn't limit himself strictly to the ostensible topic album) and because it was musically technical but not in an obscure way - written for laypeople but by someone with command of a precise vocabulary to express the way the music evokes feeling, so, none of the free-wheeling Bangs-y impressionism that, I find, can wear so thin so fast. I like Bangs, I liked his blessedly brief piece about Astral Weeks in this book, but a little of that druggy, free-jazz prose goes a long way.

Marcus breaks his own condition at the end and, rather than try to distill his feelings about the form to a meditation on one Platonic LP, he supplies a fifty-page annotated discography that will keep this castaway busy for some time.

[Jeanine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book for the first time back in 1980 when I was discovering my musical tastes. Between this and "California Rock, California Sound" by Anthony Fawcett I discovered the folk rock group of musicians coming out of Southern California, including Jackson Browne. In this book there is a chapter on The Pretender, which Jackson put out in 1976. Reading about the album and what happened during it is what made me listen to The Pretender as a new high school girl. I fell in love with the album before I heard it, and when I heard it the first time I was stunned at how great it could be. It is the most complicated album musically and lyrically that he ever did, and is still a masterpiece to this day.

I had forgotten the books title but some google digging allowed me to find it again, and I am so grateful.

[Timothy Swartout · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally released in 1979, this edition was released in 1996 with a new forward. It contains essays written by leading rock critics of the 1970’s regarding what album they would prefer to be stuck on a desert island with. It’s a fun read and nowhere near the albums I would pick. I actually think it might be just an excuse for its editor, Greil Marcus, to end the book by including a 44 page list of records that he considers the best rock music released up to the time of the book’s original release, and that’s ok because his opinions are a pleasure to read, even if I don’t always agree with them.

[Jonny Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reprinted in 1996 to complement a newer set of essays (Marooned), it's even more fun in 2024 to look back on hot rock choices from contemporary critics. Van Morrison comes off well, and there's a good essay on Desperado by the Eagles. Greil Marcus's anthology at the back of the book is typical of the scribe, offering a guide to rock'n'roll for an imagined Martian.

[Du · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some great albums listed here, and there are some real head shakers. That said, the writing is great and each author brings around characteristics and style. The selections definitely are dated, and I'd love to see what this would look like today.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

just a great idea rather favorite album what album do you have to have

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not age well.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“He triggers memories like you were a jukebox and he was the man with all the quarters.”

This quote comes from an amazing book that I have just rediscovered…Stranded: Rock & Roll for a Desert Island by Greil Marcus.

Sometime in the 70′s, Marcus decided that it would be really cool to ask music critics and performers what music they would absolutely have to have if they were stranded on a desert island. This book is a compilation of those answers, and it contains some brilliant essays on rock and roll and the people who made it part of the fabric of our lives. Most notable is the astonishing essay by Ariel Swartley, “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle.” She dissects Springsteen and his band at a time when they were at their most raw. This was before The River and Born in the U.S.A., back when Bruce and the boys were still those grungy “boy-prophets” from the streets of New Jersey….before Bruce married and divorced a super-model, before he had kids and moved to Beverly Hills, before he became, well, unimportant.

The whole book is filled with essays like Swartley’s, and it is a psychadelic memory romp that includes music as diverse as the Ronettes and the New York Dolls. If you were alive and listening in the 70′s, you need to read this book. It will make you remember what it was like to feel the music you listened to.

It’s believed that certain smells can trigger strong memories. I believe the same is true for certain songs. There are songs that always take me back to a certain time, place or person. For instance, Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain takes me back to the parking lot of Grants on Jefferson Road, Rochester, NY oh, maybe 1973. It was the first time I heard a song that made me want to stay in the car and listen instead of heading inside with my mother. Then there’s Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill, which transports me to 1983, and the Journey’s End bar in Canton, NY with Tom Wanamaker, Jeni Armeson, Mike Collins, and Alan Haberstock. And of course, Genesis’ Follow You, Follow Me always puts me in 1985 at the bar of the Holiday Inn at the Airport in Rochester, with my husband Very likely the night we fell in love.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading this book tonight, I had to admit that a number of the essays capture the sincerity and seriously loony juvenile excitement of rock writing at its best. I like that Greil Marcus treats the "Discography" at the book's close as an occasion for self-parody, and fantasy, as well as real criticism: "Dylan's tone [in Blonde on Blonde] is sardonic, scared, threatening, as if he'd been awakened after paying all his debts to find that nothing was settled." That's brilliant, and I assume it's self-parody that all the bad "Let's Get It Together and Make a Revolution"-type songs from the 1967-1969 period are canonized (for example, Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air," so bad it's great) as if to permanently throw into question the dippiest ideas of the rock era's first hours. The essays I recommend are by Ellen Willis, Paul Nelson, Robert Christgau, Lester Bangs, John Rockwell and Ed Ward. On this basis, rock writing had nothing to be ashamed of as a minor literary historical genre.

[Ian Mathers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess at this point Stranded is worth reading as much for historical curiosity as anything else... Yes, Bangs' essay on Astral Weeks is just as good as it's reputed to be (better, maybe), but most of the rest of this collection is more interesting for the snapshot of the aesthetic mores and debates of the time than it's able to move or convince you. It's an interesting idea for a book, and one students of pop culture, rock music, or criticism ought to find worth their time, but not exactly deathless.

[Shenanitims · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another scary book of music criticism. You'll read it, and suddenly find yourself reassessing all those Elton John records in the store. Was the review right? Would this be the record for you on a desert island? Very interesting, and makes for a more rounded discussion than the usual critic fav, 'Top xx Songs of All-Time.'

[Jeffrey Thiessen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that got me into rock n roll journalism four years ago. A lot of writers contribute impassioned entries on what album they would take to a desert island and why. The prose alone will get you high, but it's the fire in their bellies that will make you remember Stranded as a book to hold onto for a long time.

[Blair · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great concept - the records you'd want to be stranded on a desert island with - but despite the great writers, most of the choices reflect a generational gap that left me uninspired. I recommend Our Band Could Be Your Life instead.

[Kenneth Uzoma Uche]

Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

That's the average and it is partially boosted by the fact that the Lester Bangs essay on Astral Weeks gets six stars.