5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars

M.M. · April 8, 2016

First book on Rock and Roll. This man is beat through and through.

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece

". · August 22, 2002

Richard Meltzer has been going on for years about how he invented rock criticism. He probably did, but that's a bit like saying you invented prog-rock - I love prog-rock, or at any rate some of it, but I don't really care who invented it, cause so much of it is just plain awful. His genius is that he is a great WRITER, on a word-to-word basis. "The Aesthetics of Rock" was considered for years as some sort of prank; I once had a rubbishy hack book called "Atrocities of Rock & Roll", or something, which poked mindless fun at it for being unreadable and pretentious. It's no more unreadable than James Joyce. What Meltzer did was to treat rock, or pop, or whatever, as a field worthy of being looked at, if not always taken entirely seriously, and it mattered nothing to him whether the record under examination was by the Beatles or by the Standells - he was looking for whatever all this stuff had in common. (Personally I think Joe Carducci succeeded better in his wickedly funny "Rock and the Pop Narcotic", but then Carducci had a much wider field to write about, since his book came out in the 90s and Meltzer's book stops around about 1968.)To read Meltzer applying Heidegger to doo-wop is to have the structure of your brain rewired in new and interesting ways. His actual career as a paid-up rock critic was short and, well, sour, although he nobly championed the Minutemen in later years; but by then he had ceased to be on anyone's guest list. He is a great American writer and this is the opus that gave him, if not exactly fame and fortune, at least notoriety. You owe it to yourself to check it out, and also his wonderful anthology "A Whore Just Like The Rest", in which he savagely tears into Greil Marcus' patronising introduction. A Meltzer could never happen now, when rock writers (I won't dignify them with the name of "critic") have to be industry ... in order to get any work at all; but at least he's still alive, still sane, still as honest as anyone could hope for, and still writing.

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth the time and effort to read

J.K. · January 16, 2009

If you are going to read this book, be prepared for facing the question of whether the author is a brilliant satirist or a drug-addled lunatic. Truth of the matter is that there's a fine line between those two descriptions and author Meltzer manages to hop, skip and jump all around it. This book is going to come across as utterly wonderful to some folks and utterly incomprehensible to others. It requires a deep and abiding passion and commitment to rock `n' roll to absorb the references.In a perfect world, one would read this monologue from start to finish in one sitting because - by doing so - one would nearly duplicate the attitude and tone that many/most/all of us baby-boomers assumed when discussing "our music" during the 1960s and early 1970s. That most of us were achieving sensory distortion from ingestion of various and sundry legal and illegal items only heightened the importance and depth of what we were saying. (I can remember the joy I felt in finally understanding the hidden meanings in Jethro Tull's `Bungle in the Jungle' in just that way.)Make no mistake, it is a difficult read if only because of its stream of consciousness structure in combination with pages-long digressions and digressions within digressions. It's easy to lose track of the narrative flow - something obviously and deliberately exacerbated by the writing style. There aren't really any conclusions or great pronouncement with which the reader can agree or disgaree. As I said, it's a lot like a group of less-literate Nick Hornby-types sitting around talking music...just think of the characters in the book/movie High Fidelity and you'll get my meaning.Other reviewers have mentioned the author as the father of rock criticism, a statement that is undoubtedly true. While I mean and intend no disrespect whatsoever, the textual flow in this book appear to me to have been the driver behind Lester Bangs' style (read `Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung,' especially the James Taylor rant and you'll see what I mean)So, in the end, what you will hold in your hands - should you elect to purchase and read this book - is an opportunity to immerse yourself in rock `n' roll which in and of itself is not that important in the grand scheme but at the same time is an essential part of our lives.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic

K.M. · June 18, 2006

R. Meltzer may not have actually invented rock criticism, but he created a writing style approximating the way music sounds. With words jumping from the page, flowing from idea to idea, ranging from stylistic jams to short tight bursts like perfectly crafted two-and-a-half minute poptunes. Who else would've lead his tome with a literal printing of the lyrics of "Surfin' Bird"? There was nothing being written about rock music remotely close to "The Aesthetics of Rock." Nearly 40 years later, there still isn't. Before there was Lester, there was Meltzer, and he's still standing. And writing. It's a good thing. PS - Buy his other works, too.

Shipping 9'99 euros, too expensive for a pocket book

H. · December 31, 2021

The book arrived with DHL into a solid parcel.But as I wasn't able to choose standard shipping for a pocket book I find too expensive a 9'99 E shipping cost for 1 pocket book, when I only needed/ wanted a normal standard shipping.Anyway...Thanks.OR

Five Stars

A.P.S. · October 5, 2016

No question, the most supreme book ever written about music. It will never be bettered because it is so total that there is no more room at the top.It’s also almost impossible to read, just the same as some music-acts are now impossible to hear. The physical mechanisms may be in place but the mental structures have undergone a quantum change, impossible to observe.Meltzer makes up words. But it’s not some sort of cheap ur-texting; he knows our own semi-hidden internal syntax. And he has fun digging it out. The serious fun of a one eyed cat, peeping in a seafood store.Rock and f**king roll!

Footnotes plus footnotes plus footnotes plus footnotes...

R.S.G.S. · February 20, 2011

I must admit that the first pages of the book were certainly fascinating. But, I don't know when, I started to feel kind of upset. Sometime later after that undefined moment, I started to feel even more upset. Call me whatever if you want to, but I didn't understand what the author was trying to tell me, taking for granted that he was trying to transmit a message (to me, it's just a bunch of ideas, some of them certainly interesting, some other... I don't know). At first, it's iluminating, it real food for thought. But, little by little, paragrapahs succeed each other without logic. The author tries to creates clever puns, but all he gets is make my longing for the end of the book bigger and bigger (I wanted to finish it in order to reach some kind of conclussions). And... the footnotes!!! They're irritating, boringly long. Getting to the end of some footnotes was an excruciating experience.I must also say, on the other hand, that there are some very interesting points of view of songs like "I'm The Walrus". Very illuminating too, from my modest point of view, his comments on the early Rolling Stones, on Dylan, on The Doors. Very curious too the parallelisms he establishes between Beatles and Stones. Perhaps, the most attractive thing about this text is that it was written then... at a time when The Beatles, officially, still existed; when Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, etc, were still alive. I think that is its greatest value.I don't think I will ever read it again or recommend it. There are however some fragments -excluding, of course, the agonizing footnotes- about aspects like Death in rock, or Nostalgia which to me are certainly excellent.

Advertised as New, massive crease on front

A.L. · May 24, 2023

Increasingly frustrated with Bolo book orders arriving looking like they've been stored in a builder's bumcrack.