Classic or Dud: Chuck Klosterman

Mr. Que, you are welcome to read my blog and post any comments there. I'm always interested in feedback.

And, from someone who has walked across a parking lot from a brew pub to a Barnes and Noble many times, I would have to say that drunken magazine browsing and bookbuying is seriously underrated.

Oh fuck it, PappaWheelie OTM

you got that right, Amigo...eating tacos when you are drunk is pretty underrated too...IMO.

http://www.amazon.com/Fargo-Rock-City-Odyssey-Dakota/dp/0743406567/sr=8-1/qid=1159547518/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1444821-4239222?ie=UTF8&s=books

http://www.uga.edu/union/Pics/I&I%20pics/klosterman.jpg
Toasted teacake

http://www.mrsomalleys.co.uk/images/large/110056l_LRG.jpg
Chuck Klosterman

Whole E Shit

http://www.aldeaeducativa.com/IMAGES/capote.jpg
http://www.bookreporter.com/art/covers/140w/0679643109.jpg

And so far as I know, he never wandered around the Spin offices wearing a velvet cape. But I could be wrong.

gypsy mothra did you ever lay out this theory of yours? I remember you mentioning it before in a thread about Dave Eggers ages ago.

I'm a little surprised that the dude doesn't post here.

is this guy like still a thing? i had him written off like neal pollack or something

dud

Chucky gives Chinese Democracy an A-

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/chuck_klosterman_reviews

Oh, weird. He's all beardo now but still wearing the conspicuous thick-rimmed indie specs of his "toasted teacake" period. What's the cultural significance of this?! Also, A-minus would have been the grade I'd have guessed Klosterman would have given Chinese Democracy, without having a) read a word he's written, or b) heard a note of the album in question. Does that mean a) I'm spooky clued-in, b) I'm a troll, or c) dud?

Now I have read a word Klosterman has written. I read the piece linked to above. The Chinese Democracy one. And I liked it very much. (Despite my having hated nearly every note Guns & Roses has produced since Appetite For Destruction, or, briefly, embarrassingly, Gn'R Lies, it almost makes me want to hear the album. And I know how Klosterman feels about wanting to divine Axl's inscrutable motives; I have felt this about treasured artists' work on failed projects produced under intense scrutiny, and sadly I'm too drunk to remember what they were.) I'm sorry I was so foolish in my previous post and I repent. Classic?

i think g n' r lies is pretty awesome mostly.

I haven't heard it (G'n'R Lies)since 6 months after it came out and I became a Politically-Correct Young Person Who Reviled Hair Metal And Racist And Sexist Opinions Except Those Held By Eldridge Cleaver and sold my cassette of it. Maybe it's still pretty awesome. Anyhow, I went back to that AV Club page and found it really really spooky how much Klosterman looks like late-period (sensitive, beardo, I AM AN ACK-TOR) Robin Williams in that photo, down to the slightly blossoming nose. Must close internet now and get more wine and erase memory of anonymous, penetrating stare.

And I know how Klosterman feels about wanting to divine Axl's inscrutable motives; I have felt this about treasured artists' work on failed projects produced under intense scrutiny, and sadly I'm too drunk to remember what they were.)

I remember now. My subconscious was trying to give me a prod by providing the phrase about divining motives: REM. Their period of transition into superstardom post-Green I recall listening to them with more fascination for their self-awareness than their music, which was sometimes astonishingly good but increasingly often fell über-flat as they very transparently wrote for a larger and larger audience. W/E.

Chinese Democracy is (pretty much) the last Old Media album we'll ever contemplate in this context—it's the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file. This is the end of that.

"(pretty much)"

Yeah, that part that m. coleman quoted was definitely the part of the review (at least of the parts I actually skimmed so far) that bugged me the most -- "last Old Media album... last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs..." Haven't people been saying that about albums for at least the last five years now? And then another one (or another hundred) come along that disprove the theory.

(I like the review in general, though. Even though I really have no particular interest in hearing the new GnR album unless it falls into my lap.)

Dear Chuck (Klosterman): don't worry, there will be another U2 album

Klosterman kind of looks like Paul Krugman with that beard.

Did his Beatles piss take get discussed on another thread? I kinda hate this piece.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/chuck-klosterman-repeats-the-beatles,32560/

I thought it was intermittently funny and not too objectionable by Klosterman standards.

NO.

I don’t know if I’m helping or hurting anymore.

Take a guess.

Rating Rock: Klosterman versus Kant

Why stop there?

deep dark secret confession: i discovered ilx by googling "chuck klosterman"