By Steven Hyden

Steven Hyden thinks that the best Paul McCartney solo album is 1980’s McCartney II, which to me is the mark of a man who is categorically insane. (It is 1973’s Band on the Run, of course.) We all have these severely ingrained notions about classic rock because of the trumped-up size of its myth and its record-setting tenure on terrestrial radio. As such, arguing about which Zeppelin or Floyd or McCartney album we prefer is something of a pastime. The pages of Twilight of the Gods could fill a bar for weeks with squabbles like these, at which point I would personally fight Hyden (whom I have worked with professionally) over many claims he makes in this book.

Inarguable, though, is that the mostly white, mostly male classic rock gods are dying; Hyden has to decide whether to close the door on that particular stairway to heaven. He focuses on rock’s defining moments between Sgt. Pepper’s in ’67 and Nine Inch Nails’ bloated failure The Fragile in ’99, praising and interrogating the music with wit, emotion, and encyclopedic knowledge. Overlaid with sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking personal moments that elevate the book beyond mere compendium, Hyden has the power to make you look at power ballads, Styx, and even R.E.O Speedwagon’s “Take It on the Run” in a new light. –Jeremy D. Larson