Book Review: “Twilight of the Gods” by Steven Hyden

Steven Hyden’s Twilight of the Gods has a subtitle that can be viewed as equally depressing as the main title: “A Journey to the End of Classic Rock.” However, what could easily be dismissed as a lament by an aging Gen X’er of lost youth or encroaching cultural irrelevance is, in his hands, more of a nuanced apologia of a musical form. Hyden sidesteps many traps that could easily paint him as a Dad Rock enthusiast who hastily denigrates disco, rap, electronica, pop, or county for Midwestern hard rock with the phrase, “Now, this is what I call music!” In chapter after chapter, Hayden knows that what is considered classic rock is a genre of music created almost entirely by white guys who coopted Blues and made it louder and more aggressive. The genre was aided and abetted by a music industry made up almost entirely of white guys who paid (often illegally with cocaine and cash) to have this type of music dominate the radio airwaves — which were run almost entirely by white guys. Add to that, concert promoters — who were almost entirely white guys — whose business model was built on luring mostly younger white guys into arenas to see essentially heroic versions of themselves on stage. The kind of cultural hegemony this variant of rock had on the culture writ large is clear with the terms “classic” and “rock” being fused together. Both terms denote a kind of permanence of being that is uttered in the common lexicon — even as the people who created this music are dying off with greater frequency. Hyden is keenly aware of the kind of musical game rigging that’s been going on since rock-n-roll started in the 1950s, but what he’s presenting in Twilight of the Gods is that of a fan who can still find exhilaration, meaning, and relevance from a genre he loves — warts and all. He does not go easy classic rock when he wants to spotlight the warts, but he also enthusiastically sings its praises — even when highlighting bands who are more niche like Phish, Wilco, and Weezer.

What also makes Twilight of the Gods so powerful at times is the way in which Hyden weaves in biographical details about how bands like REO Speedwagon’s Hi Infidelity reflected his mother’s emotional reaction to her divorce. Or how Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors seemed to be the soundtrack that expressed what his father was feeling when his marriage fell apart. But where he really nails why his love of artists like Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Pink Floyd, and Bob Dylan mean so much to him is because his parent’s divorce left him without a father figure during those crucial teenage years. Those who stepped in as surrogate dads were his musical heroes whose lyrics and music offered him a way to make sense of the world. Or as he humorously wrote about Bruce Springsteen:

“My own Springsteen neediness is borderline unhealthy. He’s not merely my favorite rock star — my emotional ties are far messier than that. I’ll put it this way: if you made a Venn diagram of Springsteen fans and people who have weirdly poisonous relationships with their fathers, I’d would be sitting dead center…Bruce didn’t get along with his dad either, and like Bruce, we’ve all used Bruce Springsteen songs to work out our feelings about the old man.”

It’s not all daddy issues for Hyden, however. Indeed, these detours into his own personal life aren’t all that frequent in the book. Rather, he’s more macro in the chapters that detail the way in which, say, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones morphed from a weary look at “the end of the 1960s” to being used by Donald Trump at campaign rallies to represent a white conservative status quo. Something similar happened in 1979 during Disco Demolition Night in Chicago — where 70-thousand people came to a White Sox game to watch a DJ blow up piles of disco records. After the explosions, five-thousand drunken assholes stormed the field in a riot. The narrative after Disco Demolition Night came to represent a white conservative backlash against a music genre associated with blacks, Latinos, and gays. While rock fans were clearly angry as their place in the pop culture was being displaced by disco, rock musicians had a different view of the genre: they liked it — or at least saw money-making potential by incorporating disco into their music. How else do you explain KISS, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Blondie, and others recording hit singles that used elements of disco? It’s clear that many musicians at the time were not tribal in their tastes, but it’s also clear that whatever open mind they had about disco was not shared by many of their fans.

Regarding tribalism: at one point in the book Hyden summarizes Deena Weinstein, a professor of sociology at DePaul University. Weinstein’s 1991 study Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology identified that race nor gender was a major factor in the culture of metalheads. Rather, there’s a kind of tribalism at play where acceptance in the tribe is predicated on following certain codes (i.e., how you dress, how you act, and how you express your love of the music). Weinstein says that metal culture is “exclusivist.” That may be the case, but many music subcultures share similar codes. Think of country or hip-hop. Both genres are generally accepting of outsiders if they conform to the codes of conduct in their respective tribes. That exclusivist nature is the expression of what makes that culture or subculture unique and different from the mainstream. Rock is not all that different. It has codes, but because so many of its fans are older, they are less strict than their counterparts. Or, to put it another way. It’s a-okay for a guy in his 60s and 70s to show up to a country concert wearing a cowboy hat and boots. But if you’re in your 60s and 70s and show up to a rock concert wearing the same stoner gear you wore in high school, you’ll look like an idiot.

Overall, I found Twilight of the Gods a compelling read. I enjoyed Hyden’s breezy style of writing, his humor, his analysis, and the conclusions he draws after taking his journey to the end of classic rock. Endings are rather sad affairs, and Hyden’s tale — which is rather sad at times — ends by saying that all of this…this genre of music, like everything humans create, fades over time. As it fades, it’s a reminder that we too face a similar fate. Instead of wallowing in the tragedy of its passing, he says “let’s appreciate what we have while we can.” Sure, classic rock artists are old people who probably phone in most performances. But every now and then, there will be performances or even new songs that are powerful reminders of the heroic roles rock stars played in the lives of kids from the Heartland, from cities, suburbs, and other places where they connected with the power of thundering guitars, rumbling bass, galloping drums, and a swaggering singer expressing life in the pure, transcendent moments of a song.