Clinton Heylin - Babylon Is Burning: From Punk to Grunge C/D

But I kept reading it because he'd dug up so many great quotes from Bruce interviews that I'd never seen anywhere else.

Wonder if he was the first one to record Kinky Friedman saying “it’s a short step from the limo to the gutter.”

I actually agree with his criticisms when it comes to albums like Infidels (at least in terms of the worst songs and the three outtake that should've made it), Oh Mercy and his argument that the original all-NY version of Blood on the Tracks was even better. So many others have made similar arguments so his criticisms of those three LP's never seemed unusual. But he gets really presumptuous about why certain choices were made, and more often than not he makes his arguments with a lot of bile and arrogance. And he can greatly exaggerate the differences - like, an alternate take can seem better, but that doesn't necessarily mean every other one (including the chosen master) is a garbage track.

my first encounter with clinton heylin was his dylan recording sessions book, where he begins by explaining that his book is not dissimilar to mark lewisohn's book on the beatles except that he, heylin, is far superior to lewisohn and his subject is far superior to lewisohn's subject.

I like his Dylan book, dislike -- disliked at the time-- his contempt for women