Rating: 
Summary: Very funny autobiography/rock criticism book
Review: "Fargo Rock City" is an autobiographical look at how the heavy metal bands of the 80's affected the author, Chuck Klosterman, during his youth in North Dakota. It consists of a lot of rock criticism, defense of the heavy metal genre and unsparing self-revelation from the author. It is also very funny throughout. I freely admit that I really enjoyed "Fargo Rock City", but that I am biased because I am the same age as Klosterman. Even though I wasn't a big heavy metal fan in my youth, I'm still familiar with the bands he talks about and picked up most of his cultural references. If you don't remember seminal releases from Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, or Guns N' Roses, groups which are discussed extensively in the book, "Fargo Rock City" may not be that fascinating for you. Nevertheless, you can still enjoy Klosterman's funny stories (e.g. about trying to maintain his hipster credibility while his CD collection contains material from widely mocked hair bands like Poison and Warrant) and his analysis of the bands of his time and how they were slain by their flannel-clad successors."Fargo Rock City" is an entertaining counter-argument to the convential rock criticism of 80's metal from a fan who grew up on Ozzy and Crüe. Klosterman is likeable and self-deprecating but also opinionated and knowledgeable -- the right combination for a rock critic. I thoroughly enjoyed "Fargo Rock City".
Rating: 
Summary: small town bustout
Review: As an '80's kid growing up in rural Indiana, there weren't a lot of ways to imagine the world outside. T.v. was stupid, the movie theater was forty minutes away, and even the local library wasn't all it was cracked up to be. My conduit for fantasies of a faster, more glamorous life was the radio. It was the same for Mr. Klosterman, as told in Fargo Rock City. The glam-metal bands of his time set out a full plate of crashing chords, easy women, and free-flowing booze. He (nor I,)never tasted any of those things personally, but the bands painted a vivid enough picture to focus on a better life in the wide world - after high school, when your mom could no longer dictate your hairstyle. This is a light read, certainly. Mr. Klosterman's book is meant as no more than a remembrance of things past. Even his dissection of what separates "poseur" bands from the "real rockers" is a throwback - what is easily recognized as rock marketing today could get you in fistfights with your Slayer-loving brethren back in '88. So scratch your itch for "serious" lit elsewhere - Fargo Rock City is meant for fun, and Mr. Klosterman does an admirable job of providing it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: Just wanted to add a 5 star to blance some of the 1-2 stars. If you weren't a metal fan back in the day this won't be for you. But for the rest of us it's a fast and fun read.
The 1-2 stars reviewers were not doubt from the the culture club - Duran Duran set. Metal's not for everybody, so just give it a rest about how much superior ya'll are:)
Metal Forever!!
Rating: 
Summary: Who wrote these reviews?
Review: All the people who reviewed this book while admitting they never listened to metal, hair or otherwise - way to miss the point. How did you even find out about this book? Did you pick it up thinking it was an interesting treatise on alchemy in North Dakota? And once you started reading it, why didn't you put it down?
That said... Klosterman promised something he didn't deliver. I'm about his age, saw all the same videos, and remember some stellar moments - and don't care a bit which way Bret Michaels wrapped his scarves around his mic stand. Would have rather heard cogent, coherent, interesting stories about, oh, Klosterman's life and how metal shaped it. Or Fargo's metal scene. Okay, maybe he provided that. I quit paying attention around the time he dismissed the NWOBHM as unimportant.
After a while the defensiveness gets a bit shrill - he knows that hair metal (the only genre he manages to get his hands around) is basically indefensible; you might as well write a book extolling the virtues of disco. But the whole point of listening to music that 98% of the world calls [...] (including the people who make it) is to be able to laugh at yourself while you're doing it. Getting your back up sort of negates the point.
Anyway. I'm still left wondering what hipster magazine advertised this book, since many of the humorless REM types seem to have reviewed it. (I kid, I kid. Wait... no.) If you consider metal to be low-class, vapid, uninteresting, derivative, sound-alike, misogynistic or satanic - then you've never bothered to listen to it. Go review something you can wrap your little mind around, and stick your opinion someplace useful.
Rating: 
Summary: How kitsch is our sincerity.
Review: My roommate lent me this book, which I believe he bought on a lark in Union Station (DC), to distract himself during the nine-hour train ride to Boston. I also believe he liked the book, though I'm not sure. It's an awful book. Maybe, if you're into heavy metal (or any of its derivative sub-genres, which requires pedantry of the worst sort to know), this book will appeal to you. Even then, I'd bet not. Musical taste isn't determinative here. No, it's something much more basic than that. Ultimately, writing style aside--and Klosterman's is brutish, equal parts Ben Greenman and Saul Bellow, i.e., leaden and sleep-inducing--obsessions over obsessive insignificantia of American Youth, circa 1984, just aren't that interesting. Worse, Klosterman probably doesn't think they're interesting either. But, oh, how it sells. Such is the hipster set. The pre-emptive "just kidding" is the most powerful marketing device of the last 15 years. Celebrations of the banal, studious glorifications of the arcane. Eat your Eggers, drink your This American Life. The diet of the regret-filled 34-year-old living in a gentrified 3rd-floor Brooklyn walk-up. Full disclosure, in light of the recent review scandals: I don't know Chuck Klosterman, nor do I try to get published anywhere, in any form. I think the ULA are small-time heroes, and Mark Ames was exactly right in his NYPress evisceration of Klosterman. Give me James Kunstler's deft, relevant prose or Michel Houellebecq's biting, angry fiction. It's time our generation became a little more serious, a little less sincere. Sorry, "sincere."
Rating:
Summary: Why yes, I am ready to rock. Thanks for asking.
Review: This is one of the best metal-related books I've ever read. It focuses on the 80's hair metal scene and it's affect on pop culture, as well as seeing how that music reflected the society of that time. It's interesting material, and it also happens to be one of the funniest books around. This book made me laugh out loud several times, earning me some interesting looks from my fellow metro passengers. Imagine all of the times you and your buddies have joked about Kiss's shameless self-promotion, Axl Rose's antics, or Kip Winger's teeth, and factor in some witty social commentary, and you have the spirit of this book. If you grew up with 80's metal, Fargo Rock City is required reading.
Rating:
Summary: And I didn't even listen to heavy metal (in public)
Review: Chuck Klosterman's book of heavy metal criticism is really a book about himself. He reveals, by writing about the music he loved growing up, all the attachments teenagers make to the music they glom onto. As a teen growing up a few years before Klosterman, I was much more likely to be listening to Whitney Houston and, later, Crowded House and old Fleetwood Mac. (See, you don't have to be a heavy metal / glam metal / hairband fan to be embarrassed about the musical choices made as a teen. Especially Whitney Houston.) Still, I couldn't deny the power of "We're Not Going to Take It", "Livin' on a Prayer", or "Sweet Child O' Mine". While I looked down my nose at those who had the AC/DC posters in their bedrooms or wore their Rush T-shirts, I can now see that they, like everyone else, were just finding a niche and a passion to make those years bearable. Klosterman is revealing himself - where he's come from and where he's arrived. The loss of his innocence seems to coincide with the rise of the Seattle sound (or, as he puts it, Sasquatch Rock). Perhaps my story could be told similarly (except my innocence would coincide with Whitney marrying Bobby Brown).
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