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Our Band Could Be Your Life

Written by: Michael Azerrad
Narrated by: Jon Wurster, Merrill Garbus, Fred Armisen, Sharon Van Etten, Stephin Merritt, Jeff Tweedy, Corey Taylor, Phil Elverum, Michael Azerrad, Dave Longstreth, Jonathan Franzen, Laura Jane Grace, Colin Meloy
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Publisher's Summary

This is the never-before-told story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan '80s - when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations, and other subversives reenergized American rock with punk rock's do-it-yourself credo and created music that was deeply personal, often brilliant, always challenging, and immensely influential. This sweeping chronicle of music, politics, drugs, fear, loathing, and faith has been recognized as an indie rock classic in its own right.

Among the bands profiled: Mission of Burma, Butthole Surfers, The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Black Flag, Big Black, Hüsker Dü, Fugazi, Minor Threat, Mudhoney, The Replacements, Beat Happening, and Dinosaur, Jr.

©2012 Michael Azerrad (P)2019 Hachette Audio
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What listeners say about Our Band Could Be Your Life

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Essential Listening

For those interested in the subject matter this is great music history. Amazing level of detail!

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Very well written, some technical issues

Overall this is a very well written overview of the eighties to (very) early nineties indie music scene leading up to the explosion of Nevermind by Nirvana in 1991. I was fairly familiar with The Replacements, Dinosaur, Jr, Butthole Surfers, The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Fugazi and Minor Threat, having listened to them in high school, but less so with Mission of Burma, Big Black, Mudhoney and Beat Happening. The book covers overall context as well as more personal history behind characters like Henry Rollins, Steve Albini, Ian Mackaye and Calvin Johnson of K Records and the dynamics that make and break bands that put in immense effort to tour and live off their music. The book is as much about the struggles of starting and running an indie record label as it is about the trials and tribulations of life on the road in a cramped, run-down van in the pre-email, pre-cell phone days.

From a technical standpoint the narration is well-done overall, and the different narrators makes for good variety. For some reason one of the chapters had a word bleeped out repeatedly, despite the fact that other chapters were full of swear words. And Fred Armisen's narration sounds like he was recording in a broom closet or tiled bathroom, it's unfortunate that he didn't have a proper setup as I found the sound quality distracting.

Overall highly recommended to any fan of even some of these bands or indie, punk or grunge music in general.

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terrible reading

Most of the readers got words & names wrong and had really bad, boring delivery.

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