The Accidental Evolution Of Rock'n'roll: A Misguided Tour Through Popular Music [Paperback]

Chuck Eddy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 22, 1997

History, jokebook, buying guide, book of lists, and treatise all rolled into one, The Accidental Evolution of Rock'n'Roll is most of all a joyride through the wildest music ever made. Whether discussing Def Leppard or Nirvana, Vanilla Ice or Public Enemy, Donna Summer or Bob Dylan, Chuck Eddy is an unparalleled master at deciphering unknown tongues and disentangling musical accidents. In this lavishly and hilariously illustrated book, he reveals the roots of rap, disco, power ballads, bubblegum, suburban country, and noise-rock; why selling out is good and honesty is never what it seems; the similarities between disco and garage rock and between reggae and heavy metal; whether songs can ever really "mean" anything; what math rock has in common with amputation rock and orgasm rock; and much, much more. By eventually encompassing the whole wacky world of popular music, this book is destined to change it forever.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Why accidental? Rock music, as Chuck Eddy sees it, goes straight downhill the minute it aspires to art (or even intelligence). Its monuments tend to be one-offs, afterthoughts, B-sides--in short, accidents. As the author puts it: "Rock seems to work best when greedy kids on the make, ones who don't mind looking like they're on the make, contemptible bastards who'll serve up any tossed-off perfunctory garbage their audience will swallow, inadvertently let their humanness leak out." This is probably the most realistic book of rock aesthetics you'll ever encounter. Also the most unsystematic, and the funniest, right down to the photo captions. (Personal favorite: "Eldra DeBarge and Bo Diddley: plaid to the (herring?) bone." It's better with the picture in front of you, though.)

About the Author

Chuck Eddy has been called the "heir apparent to the great '70s rock writers Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, and Robert Christgau." Author of Stairway to Hell, he has also written thousands of popular music reviews, interviews, columns, and essays for dozens of books and magazines. He lives in Philadelphia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 438 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (March 22, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306807416
• ISBN-13: 978-0306807411
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,948,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Carducci's antithesis, January 3, 2001

By 

Aaron Margosian (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Accidental Evolution Of Rock'n'roll: A Misguided Tour Through Popular Music (Paperback)

Reading the other reviews on this page, one might well be confused: Some complain about Chuck Eddy's weak grasp of his subject matter, others delight in the obscurity of his numerous references. So what is it?

Well, all of these reviews are accurate. Chuck slings names all over the place, and shows laudable contempt for genre classification (sure, he spends a lot of time on Debbie Gibson, but not everyone would compare her to, say, Von Lmo). But if you're actually going to him for information, you'll be disappointed, as there seem to be very few albums Chuck has actually LISTENED to. References abound, but are restricted to trite observations about song titles; in fact, he doesn't even make observations so much as group songs by some common word in their names. He doesn't seem to have any grasp of his subject matter because he doesn't seem to have grasped the notion that those plastic things inside album covers play music if you put them in a special machine.

Rock criticism has always been pretty grim, being dominated by hacks who prefer to deconstruct song lyrics than listen to the music. (Just look at the praise lavished on Bob Dylan's "poetics" over the years, qualified by blushing "admissions" that "he's really not a great singer": If only these people realized that Dylan's VOICE epitomizes the rock aesthetic, his stoner ramblings being mere frills!) Chuck Eddy, while relatively unpretentious, represents the absolute lowest form of this tendency.

This book is truly abysmal.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time..., February 2, 2005

By 

Sean Tanner (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Accidental Evolution Of Rock'n'roll: A Misguided Tour Through Popular Music (Paperback)

The other negative reviews pretty much spell it out, why did I not listen to them. There are some critics that create heated debates as to the weight of their opinion (Bangs, Marcus, etc), but this guy is just bad. I think this book is made for teenagers who can't read more than a page or two without getting bored. I traded it in for a good book on Marvin Gaye, so the experience wasn't all bad.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Chaotic and opinionated, but enjoyable and witty., October 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Accidental Evolution Of Rock'n'roll: A Misguided Tour Through Popular Music (Paperback)

Chuck Eddy is a Shakespearean Fool, a Court Jester, whose witticisms, stream-of-consciousness critiques and anally-retentive lists sit side by side with a thorough knowledge of musical and cultural history. Not a book for the faint-hearted and the musically or culturally illiterate - he's too savvy for that. The reader might be overwhelmed by his tidal wave of facts, opinions and critical barbs - but dipping into the mind of Chuck Eddy is fun and stimulating.