In a book that’s structured like a double LP — 19 'tracks,' or chapters, apportioned over four 'sides,' Hyden dissects the traditions and punctures the myths of rock fandom (and rock criticism) with a specificity that can only be called love. He’s like a kinder, married-with-children version of Rob, the record-shop proprietor who narrates Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. Or rather, Rob wishes he’d grown up to be Steven Hyden ... The crumbling of the monoculture means that you probably won’t ever have to squint to make out any of these artists from the other side of a football stadium, but that’s a good thing. Hyden’s warm and witty scholarship is, too.
In what passes for structure, Hyden undertakes a hero’s journey, à la Joseph Campbell, through classic rock’s foundational myths ... Hyden’s classic rock education is exhaustive. He’s listened to every bootleg, checked in at concerts by most every living god ... It’s only rock ’n’ roll, nonbelievers will say, but we who worship the gods will know better.
A classic rock Stations of the Cross is performed, where Hyden analyzes his initiation through radio, his study of albums as musical scripture, his concert-going as sacramental experience, his bootleg recordings as forays among the catacombs, the devotional completism of knowing deep cuts, and the cultural role of cover bands ... Hyden’s deconstruction of [classic rock's] mythos is rigorously honest ... One of the great strengths of Twilight of the Gods is that Hyden is able to hold onto his enthusiasm for Cream and Black Sabbath — his is a fun book — while also imploring the reader to complicate received narratives, to question rock’s strictures. As a critic, he may lack the twitchy amphetamine enthusiasm of a Lester Bangs, or the graduate-seminar erudition of a Marcus. But Hyden is willing to interrogate rock, this genre haunted by an unbearable whiteness of being, a form painted with a whiter shade of pale.
It’s affectionate and wryly self-interrogating, as Hyden explores why he connected with this music so much and why it still works for him ... If all of this sounds like yet another case of 'aging white guy waxes nostalgic while complaining that his interests, once mainstream, have been displaced,' Hyden’s way ahead of you. Unlike virtually every other kind of writing of this nature that I’ve read, his book never points fingers, cries foul, or blames the youth. Hyden acknowledges that he was born and raised at a particular time, in a particular place, with a particular shade of skin, and if anything, Twilight of the Gods reveals how those variables—which none of us have any control over—shape our cultural interests, which in turn define our sense of selves.
Twilight of the Gods feels less like an essential read than an enjoyable one. Hyden embraces the way that true believers love to debate this music, and — in true classic-rock journalism style — he's open about his biases.
... this five-star book ... a book such as Twilight of the Gods is an addictive and important read ... Twilight of the Gods got me excited about rock music again. For that reason, it is damn indispensable. I should have read my advance reader copy much earlier.
Hyden’s book is a cheery, surprisingly modest contribution to such relitigation in the musical arena ... A book like this could have been a middle finger to all those who cheer the supposed 'death of rock' with accusations of racism, sexism, and stale nostalgia ... The book feels designed to inspire quibbling such as this because it is, more than anything, a 289-page exercise in the joyful rock-fan pastime of bullshit theorizing.
Twilight of the Gods is certainly affectionate, but it's no love letter. Nobody writes to the apple of their eye re-contextualizing past actions for the #MeToo era. It's noble work, though, and allows us to see these idolized rockers more for what they are: flawed human beings (some more than others, of course) who gifted the world remarkable art.
These are the questions asked by Steven Hyden in Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock. He overtly addresses and makes a strong case for the idea of Rock & Roll as modern myth. He uses the famous, and perhaps overused, Joseph Campbell model of the Hero’s Journey to explore the pattern of the rise and fall of classic rock. He begins by attempting to establish definitions. This can be difficult for anything, especially something as diverse and arguable as popular music ... They are full of tales of excess, hedonism and debauchery. While no doubt apocryphal in terms of factual history, they establish and codify the iconic vision of what it means to be a classic rock star.
This musical elegy will have you shredding on air guitar in no time ... But just as the book begins to feel like riding on an oppressive cruise ship with performances by the remaining members of Def Leppard, Hyden makes clear he’s no ostrich buried in 1980s sand. He celebrates, for example, the excellence of Courtney Barnett, a fresh singer/songwriter from Australia. He astutely points out she’s in some ways a throwback with her left-handed Jimi Hendrix-style guitar look and Keith Richards hair, but brings her own modern sensibilities to her work ... Hyden teeters on the edge of over-mythologizing arena rock but pulls back just in time when he acknowledges its many downsides ... We’ll remind her to play it loud. Then she’ll smile indulgently, awkwardly plop the needle on the turntable, and then gently ask us if we’d like butterscotch pudding again for lunch.
Hyden’s critiques are consistently on target and humorous: according to Hyden, the Eagles were not popular because they were particularly good as a band, but because they were 'craven capitalists' who 'were cool like the captain of the high school baseball team was cool.' Hyden is also acutely aware of the overwhelming straight white maleness of the classic rock canon, dissecting his own teenage listening experience through a socially aware lens. Hyden has created a hilariously opinionated personal history of classic rock that should resonate with his fellow genre enthusiasts.
