Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics [Paperback]

Jim DeRogatis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2004

The evil step child of Stranded (Knopf's original book of rock criticism), Kill Your Idols is a collection of 35 essays about allegedly great rock albums that this new generation of critics loathe.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Roly-poly Chicago Sun Times' rock reviewer DeRogatis coedits this collective rebuttal to the canon of great rock albums established by the graying likes of Greil Marcus ("self-appointed Dean of the Rock-Crit Academy West Coast"), Robert Christgau ("self-appointed Dean of the Rock-Crit Academy East Coast"), and Rolling Stone best-album features over the years. The book's merry band of younger reviewers finds much fault with its predecessors' picks. There's too much drugs and sex in the MC5's "revolutionary" Kick Out the Jams, says Nine Inch Nails and Pet Shop Boys connoisseur Andy Wang as he questions the group's political bona fides; that free love and free drugs were part and parcel of revolution in the MC5's heyday seems to elude him. Keith Richards' druggy aura taints Exile on Main Street for Keith Moerer, who otherwise favors psychedelic music. Sir Paul and the late Linda overemphasized sex on the gentle Ram, it is maintained. (Do you wonder at all what DeRogatis and "dyed-in-the-wool punk-rock chick" Lorraine Ali say about The Best of the Doors?) The Sex Pistols are slammed as a cheap commercial stunt (wasn't that the point?), though Dave Chamberlain scores some points about Bob Marley's diminished intensity on Time's album of the century, Exodus. In rock crit, bombast can be as important as defensibility, and snot-nosed stridency can be a good hook. This book probably won't change aging rockers' regard for the albums they love (after all, these guys even make fun of Sgt. Pepper), but it will broaden most libraries' range in rock criticism. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Barricade Books (July 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569802769
• ISBN-13: 978-1569802762
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,235,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

92 of 101 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Self-indulgent; doesn't deliver what it promises July 12, 2004

By Center Man

Format:Paperback

"Kill Your Idols" is a brief in an academic dispute. The sort of fight that erupts when a bunch of college professors get together. Chairs are thrown and bottles are broken because two people with PhDs don't interpret a text the same way. The hatred the matter generates is inversely proportional to its importance.

In this brouhaha, Jim DeRogatis and his fellow critics attack canonical rock albums, from Sgt. Pepper to Nevermind. The recordings considered essential, they argue, aren't good, or particularly enduring. Their conception of a canon is off base, for starters: A canon allows one to understand contemporary art by tracing its influences. Essential works may not endure, but they shape artists' ideas of what they can do. Jazz critics think little of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, but it would be foolish to ignore this derivative group, since they strongly influenced Bix Beiderdeicke.

Ditto an album like Sgt. Pepper. Jim DeRogatis certainly doesn't care for it, as he makes clear in the opening paragraphs of his review. Well, no, wait -- first he says he doesn't like it, then he presents an autobiographical sketch about his childhood and whines that he doesn't understand the 60s. Returning to the record, DeRogatis makes the comatose argument that Sgt. Pepper isn't a concept album (gosh, never heard that before, Jim). Then he drags the reader through each track, saying again and again that Sgt. Pepper is not a rock record. Heck, "Revolver" isn't really a rock album, either, but musicians were listening to that record in 1966 and "Sgt. Pepper" in 1967, and it influenced the music of the late 60s, for better or worse.

Most of the writers don't even bother to question the received wisdom of their predecessors, indulging instead in "your favorite band stinks" criticism. Nasty music reviews can be fun to read, but a collection of them gets tiring after page 20, especially when you're attacking albums most people don't own. And even then, the choices are strange -- "Double Fantasy" instead of "Plastic Ono Band?" "Ram" instead of "Band on the Run?" The assertions are old (Paul McCartney released a lot of saccharine albums? You're kidding!) and the reviews circle the drain of self-adoration. An essay on Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" barely touches on the album; the writer instead composes a fantasy of gunning down the band. DeRogatis and Lorraine Ali have a conversation on the Doors that's ten percent "The Doors were more pop than blues" and 90 percent "Doors fans torment me so." Many contributors take shots at Rolling Stone, and one too many critics light incense at the great and holy altar of Lester Bangs. That editor DeRogatis wrote a book about the latter and was fired by the former is coincidence, no doubt.

When the writer stops looking in the mirror and listens to the music, "Kill Your Idols" has its moments. Jim Testa's essay on the Sex Pistols is provocative without being twee, and he makes a number of good arguments about the roots of punk. A piece on "It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" does an excellent job tracing the origins of Public Enemy's soundscape.

Those are the exceptions. Skip this book, unless you're really, really angry about Patti Smith's reputation -- and has anyone besides a music critic ever bought one of her albums? DeRogatis and his buddies wish that good music would always be essential. But what's influential isn't always timeless, and you don't need to shell out $16 to know that.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars GOOD IDEA, HORRIBLE EXECUTION August 14, 2004

By Eric Firebird

Format:Paperback

There's very little wrong with the idea behind this book -- questioning the canon is a valid exercise and one that's been going on in music, literature, painting, sculpture, etc. since the dawn of time. The problem with this book is that (barring a couple of exceptions) the writing is so damn bad, it obscures the point. If you're going to say you hate something, you'd better give some insightful, defensible statements to that end, and there is precious little of that here. It's like you learn in your first college writing course: you can start from any thesis statement you want, but if you base your paper on poor logic, cliches, and general banality, you not only fail in the exercise but are certain to lose the reader a few paragraphs in. Which is what nearly all of these essays do. Sorry.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars It's fun, until it's not October 6, 2006

By trainreader

Format:Paperback

In "Kill Your Idols," Jim DeRogatis finds fellow rock critics to contribute scathing reviews of rock albums, most of which are widely considered to be classics. At first, this makes for some fun reading, unless it's an album that you particularly like that's being raked over the coals, often by one who doesn't seem to be terribly knowledgable about that artist or album in the first place. Right away, you can tell that the reviews are not really all that interesting or insightful, just exceptionally negative. And some of the reviews are simply absurd, such as, to name one of many examples, referring to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," as a bad album. Not over-rated mind you, just plain bad. A complicated album that didn't have one single, yet managed to stay on the charts for 14 years and influence countless artists, well I guess all those people and favorable critics who believed it to be one of the greatest of all time were just plain deluded.

Some of the reviews are more amusing than anything else. I liked, for instance, Adrien Brijbassi's description of his agony when he attempted to slow dance at his prom with a girl he liked to "Stairway to Heaven." He then ruins his review though, by making the outrageous claim that "Led Zeppelin 4" is too derivative to be considered classic. Other reviews can only be characterized as mean-spirited. In his review of "Rumours," Jim Walsh seemed to find it funny to "fantasize" about sneaking into a Fleetwood Mac concert with a sniper rifle. Sure, a record like "Born to Run" is full of bombast as David Sprague suggests, but in the end, the songs are wonderful. By the way Steve Knopper: Roger Daltry belts out the chorus of "I'm Free" in the movie version of "Tommy," not the superior studio version. Before you tell us how bad a classic album is, at least get your facts straight.

Many of these reviewers, who incidentally, list their top ten albums in an appendix (which often include albums lambasted by another in the book), regurgitate a particular theme of rock-and-roll that I can't stand, namely that "black" music (the blues) is somehow more "genuine" than "white" music (rock). Besides being borderline racist, the fact is that most of the great rock bands, whether black, white or other, played blues-based music, as well as music that has been variously characterised as psychedelia, art rock, progressive rock, etc. One is not better than the other, just different. Another particular theme, just as misguided, is that a rock song or album has merit only if the lyrics are rebellous against society.

In the end, "Kill Your Idols," contains mostly uninspired critiques of mostly great albums that tell us more about that particular reviewer than it does about the album being discussed. Some of it's fun, but about two-thirds of the way through, the mostly undeserved negativism started bumming me out, and I wanted to lash out at the writer about how pretentious and presumptuous he/she was being by attempting to "kill" one album or another adored by so many fans and other, more thoughtful, rock critics.