Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991
Book Review: our band could be your life
Summary: 3 Stars
i remember reading Come as You Are when i was in, like, the eigth grade or something, and i have to come clean and admit that that book turned me onto a lot of bands which i probably wouldn't have discovered for a long time thereafter, because, well, living in suburbia, you don't tend to find out about anything even somewhat subversive, unless you're counting, say, snoop doggie dog, and even then you'd probably be pretty hard pressed to relate, especially if you're white and come from a middle class background, but i guess there's always trying. and in that sense, i think that was one of the most important books that i read in the eight grade, and probably my entire high school experience. so when i stumbled across azerrad's our band at the library the other day, i immediately wanted to check it out. ultimately, though, i don't really see what the point of all this is. i mean, anyone who was ironically turned on to punk rock in the early 1990's, when nirvana became so big, and understood that music could actually transcend commodity and might mean something beyond donning that as a fashion statement and showing up to school in ripped jeans for a few days, were most likely compelled to find out about the bands that did proceed that whole phenomenon. and i think in many ways that's what this book is attempting to do, acting as sort of a bridge to put the whole nirvana thing in better perspective, as someone else pointed out--a lot like legs mcneil's book, please kill me, delineates 70's punk rock scene and how it all comes together, though without the oral narrative. but anyone who has some small modicum of interest in picking up this book probably already knows a good deal about the bands contained within it (though maybe not all of them, because azerrad strangely feels compelled to cover everything from a band like black flag to beat happening, which is kind of strange in itself-- it would have been awesome if azerrad asked henry rollins what he thinks about being lumped in with a band like beat happening). so while this is a well detailed book, offering a lot of things that you may or may not have known about your band of choice(because, well, no one can like all of these bands, or even find them all relevant), it seems probabal that if you're reading this, these bands are most likely already your life, or at least a part of it.Book Review: And It's Accurate, Too!
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't vouch for the other twelve chapters, but -- speaking as someone who was there and fairly close to the inside -- Azerrad does a truly remarkable job with Mission of Burma, both in terms of getting the facts right, and capturing a sense of time and place, the mood of the Boston scene in their heyday. That gives me a lot of faith that the remarkable portraits of the other bands are as fair and accurate as they are vivid. A truly significant achievement in rock journalism.Book Review: Splendid Failure
Summary: 4 Stars
Let me preface my comments by saying that this is a really great book-a necessary book even. Many of the bands included in this "history" never received their due audience and accolades other than being name-checked by loads of early-to-mid 90's post-punk bands from Unwound to Polvo etc. Maybe you, like me, have searched out names of bands referenced as influences during interviews of your favorite bands only to be puzzled upon first (or twentieth) listening. "How did `this' get from `that'?" -and suddenly an obscure reference soon becomes merely a conversation piece in your collection. (I have come to the conclusion that great artists must hear better than most of us regular folks-they are able to listen just beneath the surface elements (production values, lyrics, tempo) of a particular record and discover a realm of possible sounds and ideas not overtly presented in the recording itself.) The bands included in this book aren't like that-they literally belong alongside the great indie music of the recent past (let's arbitrarily say 1991-1997, a shift having taken place in the indie world since then-a debate for a different forum). Most of these bands sound as "modern" as they did when first released (production values notwithstanding), and you need not be a "crank" to make them part of your daily listening regime. In that spirit, I thank Mr. Azzerad for providing us with the enlightening, comical, and even "inspirational," stories behind these bands, especially for those of us unfortunate enough to have discovered them years after their time.However, I have more than a slight suspicion that Azzerad has a larger agenda for his book, namely, explaining the Nirvana phenomenon. The preface is almost explicit: somehow we are to understand these stories as rising toward a watershed or high water mark, wherein the tremendous labor of the previous generation to forge an alternate (music) culture makes possible the explosion that was Nirvana. Without these stories, the Azzerad argument continues, we aren't able to understand the success or possibility of Nevermind. The Preface asks: "Who is the `we' that won when Nirvana `broke' punk?" But I found nothing in this book to explain what was probably only an anomaly with few lasting affects/effects (unless you consider a few years of MTV embracing "alternative rock" as a substantial moment in history). Most people who bought and listened to Nirvana cared little for what had come before, and remained unmoved (even in a derivative, second hand sense) by the ethic that made the music (and the life that went along with it) possible. Nirvana was nothing more than Metallica to legions of shirtless, tattooed youth (for evidence of this see the Woodstock fires/sexual harassment events and especially the scenes from Fugazi's "Instrument" where people outside their shows are interviewed-truly chilling). There is even some question as to whether Nirvana belonged to the "we" that "won".
The potential that many of these bands failed to live up to wouldn't have been fulfilled by "making it", and thereby pre-dating Nirvana, I would argue. It isn't that Dinosaur could have been the band to break out before Nirvana (as Lou Barlow seems to think); what Dinosaur could have done was simply not be direction-less ineffectual whiners and make the most of the scene to which they belonged. They would have been better served had they followed the lead of the Minutemen, Black Flag (Greg Ginn), Steve Albini, and Dischord in leaving a lasting imprint on the underground.
Book Review: At last
Summary: 4 Stars
The 1980s are being turned to chum, diced into simple nostalgia bites, so that the decade is best remembered now for a few MTV synth pop hits, maybe a Springsteen/Cougar Americana song, hair metal and the Rolling Stones' "Steel Wheels" tour. What is always lost in the VH-1 retrospectives is the remarkable American indie underground movement that began in roughly 1979 (the first Black Flag EP), peaked in the mid 1980s and had its last gasp in 1991 (when Nevermind, a record that could not have existed without the indie movement, hit #1).So it is a blessing that we have at last a fine, relatively unbiased and intelligent history of Husker Du, the Replacements, Sonic Youth, Beat Happening, the Buttholes, Dino Jr. -- bands that were the equivalent to the Beatles and Stones to me, and whose influence inspired whatever life there was to be found in 1990s pop music.
It's not a perfect book. For one, everyone will have gripes about which bands did and didn't deserve chapter-length studies (the most obvious oversight -- the Meat Puppets, and I'd go to bat for Camper Van Beethoven as well), and did we really need two separate chapters on Ian MacKaye's bands? Once a band signs to a major label its story effectively ends for Azerrad, which is fine when you're covering Dinosaur Jr., for example, but which also means that the Replacements' Tim -- one of their finest records -- isn't even mentioned. An influence of MacKaye's rather hysterical obsession with "purity", perhaps.
Azerrad's writing on the whole is fine, though he occasionally litters his prose with a gruesome slang phrase, like "all about" (viz. "it was all about purity"), and I would have enjoyed a discography and a more detailed notes section, as fresh interviews done for this book are often stitched next to fanzine interviews from 1983, with scant notice.
But these are minor criticisms -- this is a long-needed, wonderful book that hopefully in time will inspire others. How about a volume 2? The Meat Puppets, the Dead Kennedys, CVB, the Misfits, Human Switchboard, Bad Brains, the Mekons, even REM..
Book Review: Great book, small criticism
Summary: 4 Stars
I have really enjoyed this book. Long overdue, Azerrad presents a wonderful history of this most important movement in American music. I do have some problems with the book, though. Mainly it has to do with the histories of the bands that signed with major labels, The Replacements, Sonic Youth etc. By only quickly going over that part of those bands life, he misses an important part of the history. This is especially true of the chapter on The Replacements, which deals very little with their "major label" life and with Westerberg's solo career. I think the whole controversy on Westerberg's solo career is quite important to the history of the band (I also don't think Paul should be vilified for becoming a solo artist). Don't let this small criticism, though, dissuade you from buying this book, which is a very fine book indeed.