BOOKS
Rock's gods made mortal
 
By Casey Dolan, Times Staff Writer
 

Sometimes incisive, occasionally enraged and other times infuriatingly muddle-headed, "Kill Your Idols" will promote screaming, either in agreement or disagreement.

 

Have you ever felt cheated by the lumbering mastodon of rock 'n' roll? It promises so much — catharsis, redemption, you name it — and is supposed to be America's great contribution to 20th century culture.

But one day you're singing in the shower, something about "tangerine trees and marmalade skies," and you wonder what John Lennon was thinking. It's a shock to realize the Bard of Liverpool could also write dimwitted tripe.

Suddenly there's the creeping fear that your childhood adulation of Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Patti Smith — pick your deity — may have been misplaced. (And really, didn't you always suspect Led Zeppelin's fourth album was a slag-heap of blues rip-offs led by a prancing ninny who had supped too long at the well of J.R.R. Tolkien?)

Now you can pick up "Kill Your Idols" (Barricade Books, $16) and confirm your worst fears. This collection of essays edited by Jim DeRogatis and Carmél Carrillo demythologizes "classic" rock albums, including Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" ("slapped together by a gaggle of Ethel Merman-mad drama queens," says David Sprague) and Nirvana's "Nevermind" ("a good excuse for bullies … to inflict pain," according to Anders Smith Lindall).

Sometimes incisive, occasionally enraged and other times infuriatingly muddle-headed, the book will promote screaming, either in agreement or disagreement. It is as much about the critics themselves as it is about the albums they deconstruct. Each offers a 10-best list that should leave readers howling. Where is Suzy Snotrag and the Zone Mummies? That was a great band.

But it's only rock 'n' roll, right? You bought the albums. Now destroy the thing you love.
 

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