{"product_id":"rock-chuck-klosterman-9780306837999","title":"Rock*: A Mainstream Alternative History of Alternative Mainstream Music","description":"\u003cb\u003eKaleidoscopic\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e culture critic Chuck Klosterman rewrites the history of reality, built off a question that has never been asked or (in all likelihood) even considered: What if Phillip K. Dick's \u003ci\u003eThe Man in the High Castle\u003c\/i\u003e was actually about rock music?\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Velvet Underground \u0026amp; Nico\u003c\/i\u003e was released in the spring of 1967. For decades, the cliche has been that it initially only sold 10,000 copies, though everyone who bought it supposedly started a band. It is the definition of a record whose influence outstrips its mass popularity. But what if the opposite had transpired? What if instead of selling 10,000 copies, it had sold...10 million copies? What if it had sold 100 million copies? What would have happened if the Velvet Underground had inexplicably become the biggest group in the history of popular music, and everything about the rest of the 20th century was merely a footnote to that phenomenon? \u003cbr\u003e Whatever answer you imagine is an infinitesimal splinter, at least when compared to \u003ci\u003eRock*: A Mainstream Alternative History of Alternative Mainstream Music. \u003c\/i\u003eIn what's guaranteed to be the most polarizing work of his already polarizing career, Chuck Klosterman has generated a fictitious universe where almost everything is different, except for the songs. The songs remain the same--the difference is how they are heard and what they now mean. Lou Reed is a messiah, reversing the monoculture and dictating the outcome of presidential elections. The Beatles disappear, though they never break up. The Rolling Stones collapse while Led Zeppelin goes bankrupt. Punk rock fills stadiums, undermined only by insouciant radicals like Boston and Van Halen. Disco is destroyed. Hip-hop becomes country. The 1980s are defined by disposable pop icons (like G.G. Allin) and Christian revivalists (like Madonna). Lenny Kravitz lets love rule, Oasis collides with a wonderwall, and the terrorist attacks of 9\/11 are somehow blamed on the Strokes. \u003cbr\u003e \"I have always felt,\" Greil Marcus once remarked, \"that when criticism really hits its stride, when it's at its highest pitch, it's fiction.\" Marcus wasn't talking about \u003ci\u003eRock* \u003c\/i\u003ewhen he said that, but he accidentally describes it perfectly. Presented like \u003ci\u003eThe Rolling Stone History of Rock \u0026amp; Roll\u003c\/i\u003e if written by Jorge Luis Borges and Patrick Bateman, it intermixes satiric contrarianism and \u003ci\u003eSpinal Tap\u003c\/i\u003e-ish absurdity with darker theories about what makes art popular, how success delineates perception, and the inescapable consensus of subjective history. It is not, nor does it claim to be, the greatest book ever written about rock and roll. But it's probably the last one that ever needs to be written.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Chuck Klosterman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0306837994\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780306837999\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Da Capo\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/22\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.25h x 6.25w x 1.09d","brand":"Chuck Klosterman","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48443189068031,"sku":"9780306837999","price":32.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_e90a087c-4227-4180-a1c3-f11c35237591.jpg?v=1777202445","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/rock-chuck-klosterman-9780306837999","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}