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The Rock Snob’s Dictionary
The following is a review of the book ‘The Rock Snob’s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Rockological Knowledge’ by David Kamp and Steven Daly.
Now, the main question to be asked on seeing this wonderful volume’s title is, “Who, or what, is a Rock Snob?”, or, more importantly, “Am I a rock snob?”.
To guide you towards enlightenment in these matters, let me pose three questions.
a) Can you name all the rock stars that screwed Super Groupie Pamela Des Barres?
b) Do you know what the word ‘Krautrock’ means, and actually use it in a sentence?
c) Can you name four bands that Clapton played for?
If you are rattling off names of ‘70s rock heavyweights to the first question, and explaining the German origins of ‘Krautrock’ to the second, then this book will only serve to further bloat your already obese sense of Rock Snob worth. To the third, if you barely managed to fumble past Cream, and jubilantly finished the list in ten minutes, then I regret to inform you that you are NOT a rock snob. Read this book, and weep at your ignorance! Indeed, to qualify among the upper echelons of Rock Snobbery requires a lifetime dedicated to the “accumulation of arcane knowledge” about the most trivialities of rock ‘n’ roll. For all eager aspirants to this high honour, ‘The Rock Snob’s Dictionary’ is where to begin.
David Kamp and Steven Daly, with their dry snob humour, will show you exactly how little you know about rock, while comfortingly informing you not to even bother with listening to the music. That is a lesser pursuit. What is vital is to know who photographed the MC5 on the cover of the out-of-print Japanese release of ‘Kick Out the Jams’. Don’t expect anything you already know to be in this lexicon. Searching in the Y section for Yes will reveal no such entry. The only entry under Y is dedicated to ’60s French girlie-poppers, the Ye-Ye Girls — no, I didn’t know who they were either. The ‘Dictionary’ is not an exhaustive Britannica-like work. On the contrary, it represents the truly trifling, but highly Snob-worthy artists and terms of popular music. If more than 23 people in the world know heard of an artist, it’s not likely that they will feature in these pages.
So, all in all, this book is utterly useless. It’s an incoherent collection of trivia, whose only redeeming trait is that it has been alphabetised. But to think in such a utilitarian manner is the hallmark of a true non-Snob. Not only will this book allow you to transcend such prosaic attitudes, but it will show you the wonder of Rock Snobbery. Looked at from the enlightened standpoint, the Dictionary is full of great information, written in sharp, witty prose that almost makes you feel like you could actually use this in casual cocktail party banter. That may be stretching the efficacy of the content a little too far, but its nose-in-the-air pedantry is undeniably stylish. In addition to its regular entries, it has such vital lists as “The Snob Cheat Sheet for Confusing Similarities” and “Fifth Beatles, In Order of Worthiness”, making it one of the most significant contributions to rock since the invention of the Oberheim OB8 (Yes, I suggest you look it up…).
It might be crappy, but I need to get myself a copy. I’ll lap up all the information and trivia present. But then, where do I get a copy from? o_O