Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but, on the evidence of this, I'd say Lester Sucks, rather than Bangs...

Wasn't LB one of the few who lionised Iggy Pop back in the day? At least BF hasn't been reduced to flogging cheap car insurance...

This is pretty much par for the course with this guy.

I'm not the sort to get upset because some critic slags-off one of my 'idols' -- I couldn't care less, frankly -- but, as one who wrote music journalism for ten years, I must say Lester Bangs is the most overrated music writer ever. Page after page of unfocused, self-serving, stream-of-consciousness drivel. If you were lucky, maybe 10% of it had to do with the music he was reviewing. No editor worth his salt would give the guy quarter these days, but in the revolutionary atmosphere of late '60s Detroit, he was afforded a platform he didn't deserve.

His protégé at Creem magazine, Nick Kent, turned out to be a much better writer.

As for Iggy, well, yes. It is upsetting to see an artist I love reduced to selling car insurance.

Kill your idols.

Couldn't agree more, Peanut.

Nick Kent's two volumes of memoirs (particularly Apathy For The Devil) are a good read. He also makes it clear that he didn't share some of his colleagues' disdain for BF (or Byron Ferrari, as they more witlessly styled him...).

I enjoyed Apathy For the Devil, but it's a memoir and, as such, doesn't have the immediacy of Kent's magnificent anthology, The Dark Stuff.

Btw, I keep seeing The Dark Stuff around at the bargain-basement price of £3.00. HMV has it at that price, I think. Anyone on the forum who has an interest in quality music journalism and doesn't already own a copy, this is the time to buy.

Another fave music writer is Richard Meltzer. Alas, I haven't seen his anthology, A Whore Just Like the Rest, around in a long time. It might be out of print.

When I looked at this clip of LB I was struck by how much he looked and sounded like an AMERICAN and how he looked remarkably unhip. Let's face it BF in the mid-1970s ('74-'77) adopted a pose where he was the ultimate mega-poser. In Britain and Europe and Japan the pose and artifice didn't seem so strange, but in America BF's posing came across to most people (including Lester Bangs it turns out) as simply phony. And I must admit when I saw Roxy in the Siren tour of late '75 I must admit I wasn't real excited by BF's act and stage demeanor. America could embrace the glam of Bowie but not Ferry. Just one of those things...