Review: 'Rock Critic Confidential by Jeffrey Morgan'

Somewhere between the juvenile and patronizing "Good beat. Should make the charts" mode of rock criticism and the dry, historically informed, humorless yet neatly organized paragraphs of AllMusic.com, a fresh breed of drug-eating pranksters at rags like Creem truly believed they were revolutionizing rock criticism. Jeffrey Morgan was one of these types, ostensibly reviewing the latest by Bowie in the guise of a pulp novelist or making some sort of nebulous commentary on the state of rock and roll in a parody X-Files script or mock Bob Hope USO show monologue. This stuff certainly revolutionized rock criticism, but the point and the humor are generally lost on me, though that might be because I'm just not hip enough, maaaaaaaaan. I guess I'm also not hip enough to agree that Morgan's rambling Lou Reed interview from 1976 in which the Velvet Fog keeps shoving his foot in mouth with racist slurs and bleary non-sequiturs is the definitive one because if abject stupidity and narcissism are Reed's sole defining characteristics I might as well throw out all my VU albums. A 1987 talk with an unapologetically racist, homophobic, and downright psychotic Ted Nugent, however, is truly definitive because that guy actually doesn't have anything to offer other than repellant verbal diarrhea. 

So, kudos to you, Jeffrey Morgan. You've written some real head scratchers and interviewed some real pricks. You've also  snapped some pretty decent photos of people like Bowie, Debbie Harry, Bob Dylan, the Stones, The Who, etc. too, so Rock Critic Confidential by Jeffrey Morgan does not have to solely rely on its text. Apparently it's the first lavishly illustrated collection of rock criticism. I'm not sure why there are photos of Courtney Love in her underwear on the front cover and Wendy James in crop top and short shorts on the back when Morgan neither took these pictures nor mentions these artists in his text. Just kidding. I know exactly why.