The “thing you think sucks is actually great” essay is popular among pop-culture writers, and nobody writes ’em better than Chuck Klosterman, who appears tonight at Boswell Book Company. The former Spin writer defended the sleazy ’80s glam metal he grew up on in his first book, Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey In Rural North Dakota, but it wasn’t until his sophomore effort, Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, that his trash-loving contrarianism reached critical mass. Klosterman has since made a career out of defending the indefensible—Pamela Anderson, '80s Kiss albums, even Saved By The Bell. The beauty of Klosterman’s writing is that you can think he’s full of it and still enjoy reading his hyper-analytical theories about cultural detritus. But do the arguments that Klosterman spews so entertainingly hold any water? Decider takes a closer look.
Mötley Crüe
You might think: These cock-swinging bad boys personify the excess, silliness, and plain ol’ dirty ass skankiness of the ’80s glam-metal scene.
Klosterman begs to differ: “It will be interesting to see how Mötley Crüe is eventually categorized by rock historians; I sometimes wonder if they’ll end up being the ’80s version of Nazareth or Foghat. They honestly deserve better. When you place heavy metal in a cultural context, Too Fast For Love is the kind of album that kind-of-sort-of matters. Whenever you forget what made glam metal so ridiculously popular, listen to this record. This is what happened when four Hollywood hobos got it right.” (Fargo Rock City)
Who’s right? Too Fast For Love really is kind-of-sort-of good. But the best thing the band ever did is the tell-all autobiography, The Dirt: Confessions Of The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, which is one of the all-time greatest rock books. “Live Wire” is a decent strip club anthem, but it can’t beat lurid tales about banging groupies named Bullwinkle and doing mounds of blow with David Lee Roth.
Poison
You might think: If Mötley Crüe is shit, then Poison is dog shit.
Klosterman begs to differ: “We in the Midwest first heard them in the spring of 1987 on AOR stations like Fargo’s Q-98; the song was “Talk Dirty To Me,” which—if my memory serves me correctly—was the greatest song anyone had ever recorded up to that point in history.” (Fargo Rock City)
Who’s right? While Mötley Crüe has achieved a measure of revisionist respect, Poison likely squandered its chance for some late-period critical props when singer Bret Michaels started looking for true love in hot tubs stocked with surgically enhanced ho-bags on VH1.
Billy Joel
You might think: The Piano Man is the epitome of baby boomer cheese, and he hasn’t had a hit since the last time he got behind the wheel and ran into a tree.
Klosterman begs to differ: “He has no intrinsic coolness, and he has no extrinsic coolness. If cool were a color, it would be black—and Billy Joel would be sort of a burnt orange. Yet Billy Joel is great. And he’s not great because he’s uncool, nor is he great because he 'doesn’t worry about being cool' (because I think he kind of does). No, he’s great in the same way your dead grandfather is great. Because unlike 99 percent of pop artists, there is absolutely no relationship between Joel’s greatness and Joel’s coolness (or lack thereof), just as there’s no relationship between the 'greatness' of serving in World War II and the 'coolness' of serving in World War II.” (Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs)
Who’s right? Klosterman seems to base a lot of his Billy Joel fandom on 1982’s The Nylon Curtain, which contains a lot of low-grade schlock, including the bombastic Vietnam song “Goodnight Saigon” and the synth-driven “Pressure” (perhaps better known as “Pres-shah!”). But Joel’s 1977 masterwork, The Stranger, definitely makes us crazy for burnt orange.
Contemporary country music
You might think: Listening to your genitals being smashed into oblivion with a broken beer bottle is preferable to hearing the latest Toby Keith track.
Klosterman begs to differ: “What I’m saying is that lyrics do matter, and people who say they’re overemphasized by critics are wrong. The significance of lyrics in pop music is not overrated; in fact, it’s probably underrated. And this is what people overlook about modern country music. They fail to see that it’s a word-based idiom, and words are far more effective than pianos or guitars. The manipulation of sonics makes someone like Moby a genius, but he’ll never have the middle-class importance of someone like Toby Keith.” (Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs)
Who’s right? We actually kind of like Toby Keith, but only because we love America and putting boots up the asses of terrorists.
Vanilla Sky
You might think: This hokey Tom Cruise vehicle gives pot-fueled pretentiousness a bad name.
Klosterman begs to differ: “Vanilla Sky was one of the more worthwhile movies I’ve seen in the past 10 years … 'What is reality?' It’s insane of [reviewer Owen] Gleiberman to suggest that posing this query could somehow be a justification for hating Vanilla Sky. It might be the only valid reason for loving it.” (Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs)
Who’s right? Any movie where Cameron Diaz exclaims “I swallowed your cum—that means something!” can’t be all bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment