This book was fail. I only give it two stars in honor of the album that inspired it. There is an art to criticism and I had hoped an approach to one of the most dynamic, creative, inspiring, unclassifiable records in the history of rock would have been just as dynamic and inspiring. Instead what we get is this a middle of road tract that reads like an essay written by a teenager about his "favorite band" but with all cuss words left out to make sure he doesn't piss off his English teacher. A little bit of music theory actually would have been nice. Blurry anecdotes about what the songs' lyrics' aboutness are all you are going to find here. Maybe we could have learned that ourselves from I don't know... listening to the album, which if you're bothering to read this book you've probably wore this record out three times over. The author teaches a university course about punk rock and bought a copy of Double Nickles on the Dime on the way home from taking his college prep tests. He splits the difference between academia and punk attitude and the results are neither insightful or inspiring. When I hear "History Lesson, Pt. 2" I weep. ( )