Chuck Klosterman Can't Sing

Everyone knows that if you love music but can't sing, you become a rock critic. I would guess that is probably true of Chuck Klosterman as well. But what makes Klosterman more interesting than most is the time he devotes to the culture surrounding music. (He also likes to write about himself, which is okay, I guess, because we are all a bit narcissistic when it comes to music. After all, we like music because we relate to it, see something of ourselves in it, not because it sounds good.)


Klosterman was raised in Wyndmere, North Dakota, and his first book Fargo Rock City describes what it is like loving heavy metal while growing up in rural North Dakota. He is a bit younger than me, though, so I don't quite relate to his love of hair bands like Ratt, Warrant, Poison, and Motley Crue. (He also spent his college days in a co-ed dorm at The University of North Dakota, which was probably the same one I inhabited a half decade earlier.)

Another of his books was also very insightful. Killing Yourself to Live explains how rock stars get more famous after they die. It is based on a cross-country road trip Klosterman took to investigate his story. And because he spends a good portion of his time lamenting about which of his girlfriends he is going to end up with, it is even more narcissistic than the previously mentioned book. Good read, none-the-less.

I am currently reading Klosterman IV, which is a collection of articles he has written for various pubs over the years. Although most of them are celebrity interviews (Britney Spears, Val Kilmer, Bono, etc.), it is holding my interest. I was getting tired last night, though, so I put it down, not wanting to miss anything in the fog of doziness.

In fact, I am resting up for the next chapter, something he wrote early in his career about the Fargo-Moorhead music scene. (He actually mentions a punk bar called Ralph's that my friend Brad used to take me to whenever I trekked down from Grand Forks.) The footnotes, basically his own humbling critic of the article, is absolutely hilarious, and in and of itself, worth reading the book.

But my favorite things about Klosterman is that he is no rock snob. I hate people who knock other people for their lack of musical taste. Taste is a word made up by elitists who use it to put others down, their only way to claim any self worth. Klosterman is more like the friend you had in junior high that was always bringing over whatever new album he had scammed his parents into buying for him. You would both marvel at how awesome it was.