Twilight of the gods A journey to the end of classic rock

Steven Hyden, 1977-

Book - 2018

By mixing personal memoir, criticism, and journalism, Hyden explores the ways that classic rock changed the culture -- how it established the album as music's answer to the novel, and rock concerts as the secular equivalent to church -- and asks whether any of these signposts can endure. He investigates the rise and fall of classic rock radio and determines whether the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is telling the right version of Rock history. He revisits favorite live bootlegs, rereads all the great tell-all rock biographies, and excavates deep down into the liner notes of rock's greatest masterpieces to explain what we can all learn from rock gods and their music.

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Subjects
Published
New York : Dey St., an imprint of William Morrow [2018]
Language
English
Main Author
Steven Hyden, 1977- (author)
Edition
First edition
Item Description
Includes index.
Physical Description
305 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9780062657121
  • Side 1. "The Hero Is Born and Learns About the World..."
  • Track 1. "The Song is Over"
  • Track 2. "Welcome to the Machine"
  • Track 3. "Rock and Roll"
  • Track 4. "I Know There's an Answer"
  • Side 2. "The Hero Meets the Spirit Guides Who Will Point Him Toward Greatness..."
  • Track 5. "Bob Dylan's Dream"
  • Track 6. "Hello There"(Live at Budokan)
  • Track 7. "My Love Will Not Let You Down"
  • Track 8. "Turn the Page"
  • Track 9. "Draw the Line"
  • Side 3. "The Hero Is Corrupted ...
  • Track 10. "Mr. Crowley"
  • Track 11. "So Bad"
  • Track 12. "Dog Eat Dog"
  • Track 13. "Keep on Loving You"
  • Track 14. "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
  • Track 15. "Rock Is Dead"
  • Side 4. "The Hero Discovers the Meaning of Life, Transcending Death, and Finding God ...
  • Track 16. "You Enjoy Myself"
  • Track 17. "Junior Dad"
  • Track 18. "Pressing On"'
  • Track 19. "Death Don't Have No Mercy"
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index
Review by New York Times Review

twilight of the gods By Steven Hyden. (Dey Street, $25.99.) As the rock icons of the 20th century become increasingly geriatric, Hyden explores the history and significance of groups like the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles - and how their music changed the culture. sh?tshow By Charlie LeDuff. (Penguin Press, $27.) LeDuff, a journalist often given the moniker "gonzo," traveled the country seeking out real Americans, putting him on the front lines of what he calls the decline of the United States, facts and fears By James R. Clapper with Trey Brown. (Viking, $30.) Clapper's memoir covers his eventful years as director of national intelligence, a period that spanned the raid on Osama bin Laden, the Benghazi attack, the leaks of Edward Snowden and - most consequentially - Russia's interference in the last presidential election, the summer i met jack By Michelle Gable. (St. Martin's, $27.99.) This novel is based on the real story of Alicia Darr, a postwar refugee who worked in the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass. Prom there some imagination takes over as Gable recounts this unlikely love story of a future president's romance with the European maid. Harvey milk By Lillian Faderman. (Yale, $25.) The first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States, Harvey Milk was a San Francisco city supervisor until his assassination in 1978. Faderman puts Milk's story into context, describing how, being both Jewish and gay, he felt himself to be a double outsider. "My favorite sort of novel is the one that seems at first a genteel tale of family life, then cracks open to illuminate the world. The so-called domestic (an epithet we almost only apply to books by women) story that ends up being about something bigger than one family's life. Shirley Hazzard's the transit of venus is the best example of such I've read since slogging through Henry James. Hazzard is better, actually, because her book isn't an endurance test but rather sheer exhilaration. The sentences are flawless, the story (of two orphaned Australian sisters making their way in the world) riveting. Describing a bedroom, Hazzard writes, 'Even a mildewed snapshot of an English cottage, if it was labelled 1915, was smirched and spattered with a brown consciousness of the trenches.' That's the book in a nutshell: a canny and moving examination of how the two world wars affected everything that came thereafter." - RUMAAN ALAM, SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR, BOOKS, ON WHAT HE'S READING.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Music critic Hyden (Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me) explores the evolution of classic rock in this sharp collection of essays. Hyden looks back at bands such as Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, whose mythical status drew him in as a teenager, and traces their legacy to contemporary acts such as Japandroids, a Canadian guitar-and-drums stadium rock duo. Classic rock began, Hyden maintains, with the Beatles' 1967 release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "where the Beatles officially stopped being lovable mop-topped pop stars and became serious rock intellectuals." Hyden's critiques are consistently on target and humorous: according to Hyden, the Eagles were not popular because they were particularly good as a band, but because they were "craven capitalists" who "were cool like the captain of the high school baseball team was cool." Hyden is also acutely aware of the overwhelming straight white maleness of the classic rock canon, dissecting his own teenage listening experience through a socially aware lens ("On the classic-rock station-with the exception of Jimi Hendrix and Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy-there were no black artists"). Hyden has created a hilariously opinionated personal history of classic rock that should resonate with his fellow genre enthusiasts. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Review by Library Journal Review

In 2016, rock stars were dying at an alarming rate. David Bowie, Prince, Glenn Frey, George Michael-it seemed like half of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was being buried. While each death seemed to bring an ever greater sense of shock, the simple facts are: rock is old, and the people who play it are old. Facing this reality, how will the music be consumed and interpreted in the future? Will these legends live on, or will their music die with them? These and other questions are at the heart of this title. Music critic Hyden (Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me) draws most of his musical taste formation from the classic rock stations of his youth. Understanding that coming generations won't view bands such as Pink Floyd or The Who the way he does, he explores how their music will live on (or won't). VERDICT Even though the book sprawls into areas such as Phish fandom, it mostly maintains its focus with tight chapters and a clever LP track organization scheme. Fans of the website Pitchfork will find lots to love. [See Prepub Alert, 11/27/17; "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/1/18.]-Brett Rohlwing, Milwaukee P.L. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.