STRANDED

The premise of this book was simple: ask twenty writers what rock and roll record they would take to a desert island." Sounds like a flimsy excuse for pulping a lot of trees? It is indeed—but, even worse, the 20 resulting essays here devastatingly expose the sorry state of what passes for criticism in the world of rock. Ellen Willis: "What it comes down to for me—as a Velvets fan, a lover of rock and roll, a New Yorker, an aesthete, a punk, a sinner, a sometime seeker of enlightenment (and love) (and sex) is this: I believe that we are all, openly or secretly, struggling against one or another kind of nihilism." Dave Marsh chooses "Onan's Greatest Hits" (songs to masturbate by). Langdon Winner: "Having lived in something of a shipwreck for the past several years. . . ." Tom Smucker: "Give me Precious Lord. With it I could make a stab at the eternal." Nick Tosches: "When I first heard '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction,' I was fifteen years old, and had never gotten laid." Get the idea? Pretentious, self-indulgent, and above all aggressively pre-sophomoric (even Janet Maslin, who writes brightly adult film reviews, goes all teenager-y)—most of the writers here pay tribute to favorite music (the Stones, Van Morrison, the Eagles, Captain Beefheart, Bruce Springsteen, no Beatles) in narcissistic confession-credos that are wearyingly similar, nearly all in the jivey Village Voice/Rolling Stone manner. As a result, and perhaps most crucially, few of these paeans will win new listeners for the records. (A couple of exceptions: Tom Carson's tribute to the comically trashy Ramones, Kit Rachlis on Neil Young.) And only John Rockwell really writes about rock as music—in a lengthy, precise analysis of the vocal artistry of Linda Ronstadt (she "reaffirms the place of interpretation in contemporary popular music"). Rockwell's grown-up approach gives some hope that rock criticism can some day be rich, varied, substantial; as of now, on the fairly representative evidence here, it's kid stuff all the way.