A review by shelby1994
Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas by Chuck Klosterman

adventurous funny informative medium-paced

4.0

 Klosterman reads as an idealized, goofy, slightly more progressive version of your bff’s older brother that thought modern music couldn’t compete with The Ramones, minus the anarchist angst. 
 

Most of these essays were written in the 8 year span between the approaching panic of Y2K and the height of the Iraq War. More than anything else Klosterman has written time capsules of the very panicked “CULTURE IS DYING” attitude that pervaded this time period. 

The rise of reality TV (which we are likely to encounter a second tsunami of due to the ongoing WGA/SGA strikes), the death (or evolution, depending on who you talk to) of rock and rock idols, and the naivety that George W. Bush was the worst thing that could ever happen to the country resulted in SO MANY hot takes. And Klosterman was more than up to the task. 

The first half of this collection focuses on pop culture, specifically the rock, punk, and garage scenes of the late 90s. It’s the strongest part of the book. The second half goes on tangents about what the next decade might hold and is less interesting mostly because the reality is more fantastically depressing than any of Klosterman’s predictions. Although he did think we might face the death of product advertising which would be a welcome development. 

There’s some retrograde language and opinions in here. Women are pretty consistently underrepresented, as are minorities. 

He does have a new-ish book out (‘The Nineties’) which is a retrospective on 90s pop culture, and I’m super interested to if his  political/cultural lenses have shifted with the times. 

  Read If: 

• You never forgave U2 for downloading their album onto your iphone 
• You have very strong feelings on the Punk scene 
• You’ve cried to Piano Man at 2am in a bar