Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota

Fargo Rock City

A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota

by Chuck Klosterman
(based on 70 customer reviews)

Fargo Rock City : A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota (Paperback)
Author: Chuck Klosterman
Publisher: Scribner


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Most useful review as voted by customers:
12 out of 15 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 6/18/03


Chuck is a Rock God -- Honestly

At first, I was a bit disappointed by the book and then I read the epilogue. Why wasn't it more of a memoir? Why was it filled with so much analysis? Then, I realized that isn't really the point of this wonderful book. Klosterman has made me a fan for life. What wins me over his unbashed honesty. I've long held that the lowest critic life form is that of rock critic. Klosterman calls them on their pretension. He hammers away at what I have always believed is that music is important if it touches you. My MP3 collection has Sinatra and Warrant. Who cares who is better, both form the soundtrack to important parts of my life. Klosterman tells some hilarious stories and his takes on music and life is so refereshingly honest that I can't stop smiling. He isn't mean or nasty--just tells it as he sees it. DOn't agree? That's ok. I learned more than I ever imagined about '80s heavy metal (some which I finally realized I liked about 10 years too late) and I suspect I would have gotten more out of the book if I had understood all the references, but I loved what I read anyway. Except for the passage where he compares the Gospels to GNR Lies, this book really does rock. Isn't that the most important thing?

9 out of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 4/30/01


A classic

I spend about half my time thinking and writing about music and this is the best damn book I've read in several years. Nothing written about metal comes close. It deserves a place alongside Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock and Soul, Greil Marcus' Mystery Train, Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music, and Gary Giddins Visions of Jazz at the very top of the list of the best books ever written about American music. Its obvious virtues are, well, obvious: it's funny, entertaining, and true to its subject. What's not obvious until you let it simmer for a while is how smart the book is. The discussions of what irony meant in the 80s, of the not-so-useful discussions of sexism in heavy metal, and the razor sharp "sociology" of the rural midwest ought to attract the attention of a ton of people who hate (or, mostly, think they hate) Van Halen, Motley Crue, GnR. Yet and still, the best thing about this book for me is that it took me back to some music I'd half-forgotten about and reminded me of why it spoke to me in the first place. If you love metal, you gotta read this book. If you don't, you still gotta read it.

8 out of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 4/24/01


A Metal Manifesto (or No Apologies)

This funny and enjoyable book is an answer to the pop culture elitists (such as myself!) who dismiss heavy metal as ridiculous junk. By relating the social and personal impact of metal on himself and his friends growing up in rural North Dakota, Klosterman makes a compelling case that this music has an importance and meaning far beyond how it compares musically and lyrically to Dylan, The Beatles, Springsteen, and other ordained members of the Rock Canon. The sprawling text is part memoir, part free-thinking criticism, part record guide, and always hilarious.

I guess that FARGO ROCK CITY falls somewhere between Dave Eggers and Chuck Eddy, but it's really too sui generis to be so glibly catagorized. This book is for the "Rocker within us all"! Check it out....

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