Killing Yourself to Live - Chuck Klosterman

I didn't plan on reading a book written by a rock journalist immediately after reviewing the most prominent movie made about a rock journalist, but sometimes these things just happen. I have heard of Chuck Klosterman for quite some time, but have never really looked into him or his books. It makes sense that I would review a book written by one of the more well known commentators of pop culture for this blog, so I'm glad I happened to see this book in a friends bathroom and be able to snag it before he left town.

In Killing Yourself to Live Chuck sets out to visit places where famous musicians died and to make some kind of point about death being a good 'career move' for rock stars In practicality this book is only partially about this. The book ends up being 1/3 about dead rock stars, 1/3 Klosterman's observations about music and pop culture as a whole, and 1/3 discussions on ladies that he is currently entangled with or ladies he wants to be entangled with. The first two sections of this book are pure gold, and the last not so much.

It's not that his problem with having multiple love interests isn't relateable (hey, we've all been there). It's just that his other writing is so great that listening to him talk about relationship issues isn't nearly as interesting as his thoughts on rock music. I think memoirs have this problem in general: relationships that are so very important for the author are of little interest to the reader. The same thing happens in Nathan Rabin's book in that the parts of his life that may be the most important to him (his girlfriends) really aren't that interesting to anyone else.

But this is all really beside the point. The rest of the book is fantastic, and it's not like the girlfriend talk takes anything away from it (there are no Penny Lanes), it really just pads the text so that it's actually book length.

He rents a car and travels across the country in 20 or so days to visit these famous sites. And when I say across the country he really goes across the country. He starts out in the northeast (he currently lives in in New York City) and heads down south, then up through the Midwest, and then west across Montana to Seattle. It's an epic amount of driving, and he does the whole thing with only 600 cds to keep him company.

Something that is very refreshing about Klosterman is his Midwest sensibility. He's from North Dakota and even though he lives in NYC for work purposes, he's still very much a Midwestern boy. He's constantly going out to eat at the Olive Garden and Bennigans while he's on the road, and reminisces about his high school football days. But the thing that really stands out is his critique of hipsters and irony. While visiting the club where the tragic Great White concert occurred, he makes these remarks about the show:

"To me, that's what makes the Great White tragedy even sadder than it logically was: One can safely assume that none of the 100 people who died at the Station that night were trying to be cool by watching Great White play 20-year-old songs. This was not a bunch of hipsters trying to be seen by other hipsters..."

Klosterman constantly criticizes hipsters and the music they embrace, if they can truly be thought of as genuinely embracing anything, because he finds it disengenuious. To be sure, Klosterman has suspect taste himself, but whether it's his defense of Rod Stewart or his love of KISS (including their solo albums) he's genuine about everything. "Why would I want other people to think I like something I do not actually like? What possible purpose would that serve?" says Klosterman. He has a pretty good point and even though most people don't agree with his tastes (KISS? Really?) at least he's honest and genuine.

In my favorite section of the book, Klosterman spends 3 pages trying to describe why Led Zeppelin is a timeless band that is loved differently than other other band in history. He agrees that the Beatles and The Rolling Stones may be better, but Zeppelin has something that makes them special. A couple of quotes from this section:

"Led Zeppelin is the most legitimately timeless musical entity of the past half century; they are the only group in the history of rock 'n' roll that every male rock fan seems to experience in exactly the same way."

"There is a point in the male maturation process when the music of Led Zeppelin sounds like the perfect actualization of the perfectly cool you"

And about the time that every male goes through the 'Led Zeppelin phase" what they say to themselves:

"This shit is perfect. In fact, this record is vastly superior to all other forms of music on the entire planet, so this is all I will ever listen to, all the time."

Now he may be overstating this a little bit (I'm pretty sure I have male friends who don't really like Zepp) but I'm a little more likely to believe him because I went through a phase exactly like this. I went through a phase where I thought Zeppelin was the best band of all time, and that no one could come close to rocking as much as they do. In fact I revisit this stage every now and again and when I pick up old records (including Zeppelin) at my house next week I may enter this stage again.

Led Zeppelin rules.

Predictably, Klosterman ends his journey in Seattle to consider the death of Kurt Cobain. This makes sense, Cobain is the most famous rock star death for almost everyone in our generation (except a certain pop star who I'll get to in a second). Says Klosterman about Cobain's death and it's impact on society:

"Kurt Cobain had not merely made culturally important music--suddenly, he had made culture. His death became a catchall event for anyone who wanted their adolescence to have depth: It was not possible to achieve credibility simply by mourning retrospectively. Cobain's iconography hadn't changed that much, really; what changed was the number of people who suddenly thought Cobain's iconography said something about themselves."

I think his comments on this are extremely interesting, especially given current circumstances. Not only does Klosterman argue that people rewrite history about a dead star after their death, but they somehow try to connect with this death to find meaning in their own lives. People no longer though of Nirvana as being headed by an asshole drug addict, who didn't even make the most popular music of the time (that would be Pearl Jam). Everyone found Cobain tragic, and treated him like some kind of martyr.

This is exactly what everyone has been doing to Michael Jackson. No longer do we think of him as a possible pedophile that was just a big creepshow for the past 20 years. No longer do we consider that the person who made all of those awesome and genre breaking songs has been gone for quite some time. Everyone chose to rewrite history and remember him in their own way. And even more, people got so worked up and upset it seemed to affect their entire lives for days. I would like to read Klosterman's thoughts on the death of Jack-O because where for Cobain's death affected mainly young white men, Jackson pretty much made the news world stop for 2 weeks because everyone wanted to find meaning in their own lives and connect through his death.