Kill
Your Idols abandons nostalgia
Originally
published July 15, 2004
by
Jedd
Beaudoin
jbeaudoin@f5wichita.com
|
ecently,
a friend shot me an especially maudlin e-mail, closing it with "Do you know how
it feels when someone pees all over the music you love?" Sure. We all do. And it
never felt better than it does in Kill Your Idols, a collection of 34
essays, each one a reconsideration of a classic, hyped-to-the-hypest album such
as The Who's Tommy, Nirvana's Nevermind and Fleetwood Mac's
Rumours. (All of them albums I don't hate.)
Edited by Jim DeRogatis and Carmél Carrillo, the collection asks some of
rock criticism's best minds to explain why, exactly, they hate the albums that
Rolling Stone magazine shoves down our throats about every six months or
so. (And yet we still subscribe!) DeRogatis, a former RS writer,
points out that the magazine's shifting priorities and tragic nostalgia for
flower power and music industry mechanizations have blinded it from the truth —
Hootie ain't no Dylan but Dylan ain't no Cobain, either. At times, the magazine
can barely see beyond Christina Aguilera's bellybutton nor can it resist the
temptation to genuflect whenever some rock 'n' roll Hall of Fame inductee breaks
wind.
So what's that got to do with the albums that get dissed here? Well, one
could argue that Rolling Stone created the hype that surrounds most of
them. After all, no other magazine has established itself as the kind of
authority that Rolling Stone has. Creem folded long ago (despite
its current online incarnation), Spin has become a fashion rag and others
have become increasingly genre specific. (Harp, to which DeRogatis
contributes may offer some hope, though it seems to be aimed primarily at aging
X-ers such as myself.)
Could it be that DeRogatis harbors some resentment toward his former
employer? Maybe. But the real reason for this book is to allow writers to
express their disdain for the things we've been told since our teen years that
we should love with all our might. (As an English major, I listened to
innumerable conversations where people worked themselves to the brink of an
orgasm at the mere mention of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Me?
I hate that fuckin' thing. And still I read it about once a year just to see if
I can figure out what the hell I've been missing all this time.)
Many writers claim that penning pans gives them much more amusement than
crafting raves and the group that DeRogatis and Carrillo have assembled here is
certainly no exception. Tom Phalen tears into Paul and Linda McCartney's Ram
(Who the fuck died and made that album classic? Shit.) with an unbridled
ferocity that not only provides great arguments against the splattered platter
but is an entertaining-as-hell read. Allison Stewart states the obvious with her
take on John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy (C'mon! People've been
calling this Single Fantasy for years.) but pulls it off with style. And
the vitriolic vitriol that David Sprague spews over Bruce Springsteen's Born
To Run is as fun as getting a sponge bath from five supermodels during an
ecstasy binge. (And I don't mind that album.)
But the best of the hardcore disses comes from Jim Walsh, who delivers a
painstakingly detailed and delicious account of Fleetwood Mac's assassination at
his own hand. It's not only hilarious, it's written with a punch and clarity
that in ideal world would make hotshot fiction writers such as David Foster
Wallace and Rick Moody hand their ball-point crowns to him. Leanne Potts
delivers a take on Lynyrd Skynyrd's Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd that
leaves you wanting to read as much of her work as you can. And while there are
out-and-out attacks, writers such as Arsenio Orteza (he takes on Public Enemy's
It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back) provide thoughtful
accounts of the work in question, raising compelling points that may or may not
sway you. (Orteza's sees racist rhetoric in Public Enemy's racism and its
history of anti-Semitism proves unsettling.)
And just as you're likely to find filler on a Mick Jagger solo album,
there's some, albeit very little, here, namely Chrissie Dickinson's ripping of
Gram Parsons GP/Grievous Angel. Like a freshman composition student
trying desperately to reach a 750 word count, Dickinson stretches and stretches
for something to say but ultimately emerges with a piece that's as painful to
the reader's eyes as Dickinson says Parsons is to her ears.
For those who've always hated Born In The U.S.A. or OK Computer,
this anthology should provide far more entertainment than much of what's at the
top of the pops this summer (or on the silver screen). Those who love Pet
Sounds, Blood On The Tracks and Fresh Fruit for Rotting
Vegetables, will probably be less amused. Love it or hate it, Kill Your
Idols is the greatest gift you can give the rock fan (and Rolling Stone
subscriber) in your life.