Paperback, 320 pages
Published March 19, 2019 by Dey Street Books.
Please, sir, may I have more stars?
A fantastic deconstruction and dissection of classic rock that blends elements of personal memoir and rock musicology. Excellent, informative, and very funny.
All of the negative reviews here are of the “Get off my lawn” variety. OK, Boomers.
I inhabit a shadowland when it comes to classic rock - far too young to remember the summer of love or Woodstock, but old enough to remember Dark Side of the Moon and Rumours being released. So although like the author I grew up hearing this stuff, much of what was already history to him was part of my own experience. As a result, I can sympathise with some of the criticisms levelled in other reviews of the book (which mainly amount to ‘It’s our music! He doesn’t get it!’), but for the most part his post-seventies perspective did not grate on me.
With that out of the way, I must say I truly enjoyed this. It is well written, and the author had some interesting insights about the limitations of genre categories. I also appreciated his defence of the record album -- he points out that the modern practice …
I inhabit a shadowland when it comes to classic rock - far too young to remember the summer of love or Woodstock, but old enough to remember Dark Side of the Moon and Rumours being released. So although like the author I grew up hearing this stuff, much of what was already history to him was part of my own experience. As a result, I can sympathise with some of the criticisms levelled in other reviews of the book (which mainly amount to ‘It’s our music! He doesn’t get it!’), but for the most part his post-seventies perspective did not grate on me.
With that out of the way, I must say I truly enjoyed this. It is well written, and the author had some interesting insights about the limitations of genre categories. I also appreciated his defence of the record album -- he points out that the modern practice of downloading individual songs rather than listening to albums actually changes the way music is made, rendering old-style record albums commercially disastrous for today's artists. Still, much of my enjoyment of the book is due to the fact that, young as I was, this was my music. It was the biggest part of my identity from about the age of 6 to 30. My world is different now, and sometimes I feel like this part of me is lost. Hyden's book briefly gave it back.
