He is one of the inventors of rock criticism. His first book, The Aesthetics of Rock (acclaimed by Greil Marcus as "a disemboweling of rock's soft white underbelly"), became an instant cult classic when published in 1970. And for the next thirty years he fearlessly expanded the boundaries of music writing. Now he has collected the best of his prodigious output into a gonzo sampler of the reviews, profiles, interviews, and essays that form the heart of his rockwriter legacy. Traveling from psychedelia to the "dinosaur-rot early '70s" to the redeeming majesty of punk and the constant solace of jazz, this will stand as a remarkable document of an era by a singular voice in music writing.
As the back cover of this book rightly claims, Richard Meltzer is “one of the inventors of rock criticism” alongside Lester Bangs and Nick Tosches. But his idiosyncratic gonzo/beat/lunatic style has kept him relatively obscure—and polarizing; most readers are either baffled as to what his appeal could possibly be, or willing to swear by his every word. And while I admit not everything by him is completely brilliant, all of it contains something unique, surprising, and worthwhile. A Whore Just Like the Rest seems to literally contain all of it—575 pages of reviews, essays, blurbs, and random thoughts, stretching from the late ’60s into the end of the ’90s, when Meltzer tossed off surreal concert previews for the San Diego Reader. (Example: A Cigar Store Indians blurb is mostly a list of imaginary flavors at the “National Soup Museum.”)
Fucking with forms is a Meltzer specialty, but he can also be a moving, intimate writer. That comes through best in the little section intros that trace the ups and downs of his career—he’s great at writing about himself. But even in his most conventional pieces, he offers the kind of unfiltered stream-of-consciousness that even Bangs couldn’t muster, risking clumsy jokes or absurd invectives with no compulsion to wrap them all up in a neat conclusion. When he’s rolling, Meltzer is like an experimental musician, improvising phrases, roaming around for ideas, returning randomly to invented words or nonsensical jive. Don’t read A Whore Just Like the Rest for information or insight about the music he’s discussing—instead, look for the kind of unexpected revelations that can only come from free-form art. Give him patience, and he’ll reward with moments you can’t find anywhere else. –Marc Masters
