Book Review – Planet Rock

TITLE: Life On Planet Rock
AUTHOR: Lonn Friend
YEAR: 2006

Life On Planet Rock is a fun book to read if you enjoy behind the scenes storys of the circus called Rock & Roll.

The first few chapters drew me in and I didn’t want to put the book down.  Lonn wrote about bands that I grew up listening to, bands that inspired me.

Around the middle of the book I had to force myself to keep reading.  He wrote about bands like “The Who” & “Kiss” bands that I really didn’t know much about and couldn’t relate to, since he doesn’t talk much about the bands, but rather how they infuenced him.  I would have been more interested if he had written about the bands.  I may have gotten interested enough to take the time to listen to those dinosaurs of rock.  But instead I was completely uninterested and couldn’t wait to finish the chapters and get to an interesting story, instead of reading  about his beliefs and thoughts on the bands.

The tail end of the book was fun to read.  With classic hair metal bands like Bon Jovi, or Aerosmith.  It was great to read about his relationships with each band member and how it effected his daily life.

The very end of the book felt like it was all over the place.  It didn’t have any direction, didn’t feel like it was ending.  It just ended.  With an Avril and Britney comparision non the less.  The sad thing is that he never once mentioned Avril or Britney and the state of music today.  He just tagged their names onto the end of his last paragraph.  It was quite dissapointing after reading all of his detailed (even his sometimes too religously influenced) stories.

Overall the book gets a 7 out of 10 on my scale.

It was fun to read about the bands I loved.  It had too much religous opinion, but he was writting “his personal” story.  The book didn’t glorify rock and roll, or the job of being a specialist in the field either through editor or magazine or a radio talkshow DJ.  it just left me with the question…how many other editors out there live with the delusion that rock stars are their best friends?

-Bonnie :)

*If you have read this book then please submit your review through my contacts page.  I will post it on my site too.*