Fever: How Rock 'n' Roll Transformed Gender in America

by Tim Riley

In Fever , music critic Tim Riley argues that while political and athletic role models have let us down, rock and roll has provided enduring role models for men and women. From Elvis Presley to Tina Turner to Bruce Springsteen to Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Riley makes a persuasive case that rock and roll, far from the corrosive force that conservative critics make it out to be, has instead been a positive influence in people's lives, laying out gender-defying role models far more enduringly than movies, TV, or "real life."

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

NPR CRITIC, AUTHOR, PIANIST, and SPEAKER TIM RILEY reviews pop and classical music for NPR's HERE AND NOW, and has written for the HUFFINGTON POST, THE WASHINGTON POST, SLATE.COM and SALON.COM. He was trained as a classical pianist at Oberlin and Eastman, and remains among the few critics who writes about both "high" and "low" culture and their overlapping concerns.

Brown University sponsored Riley as Critic-In Residence in 2008, and in 2009 he began teaching multi-media courses as Journalist In Residence at Emerson College in Boston.

His first book, Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary (Knopf/Vintage 1988), was hailed by the New York Times as bringing "new insight to the act we've known for all these years..."

A staple author in college courses on rock culture, he gave a keynote address at BEATLES 2000, the first international academic conference in Jyväskylä, Finland. Since condemning the rap group Public Enemy for anti-semitic remarks in his 1990 Boston PHOENIX column, Riley has given lively multi-media lectures at colleges and cultural centers like the Chautauqua Festival on "Censorship in the Arts," and "Rock History."

His current projects include the music metaportal, the RILEY ROCK INDEX.com, and a major new biography of John Lennon for Hyperion, fall 2011.

Reviews

[LCB · Rating 2 out of 5]

Among my many irritations and complaints about this book, the biggest one is: For some reason, about two thirds of the way in, this turns into a Bruce Springsteen biography that the author barely manages to keep tied into the subject of the book. Utterly confused. This was a slog to get through after the first couple of chapters. I only bother finishing because my brain cannot leave a book unfinished.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though a little dull at times, I feel like Tim Riley executes his points fairly well and adds a touch of humor to the topic. Read this for a college course on rock 'n' roll.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty excited to read this book, but I was disappointed overall. Disclaimer: This is NOT a book about music history or its impact on history. It is a music critic book. If you want a history book, find something else.
I had seen the author in an interview, talking about the significance of Elvis on gender and image. The first two chapters were very interesting, mostly focusing on the John Wayne/Elvis Presley gender roles for young boys. I thought this was an excellent argument and a good historical argument. The author is not a historian. He is a music critic, a good one, but not in the terms of history. I felt that a lot of his arguments could have been better supported with some historical fact. For example, tying in female rock music and its impact on second wave feminism or how the second wave was reflected in music. Instead, he made more arguments about the different movements and styles in MUSIC rather than the joining of music and history (which to me goes hand in hand). A lot of the connections that he made between different artists or films felt rather stretched, and did not support the connection with more facts or theories. The stuff that he did have enough on, he rambled on and on.
Overall, the book was a little long for the points that he made and it was not what I was hoping for.

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

A slow read but worth it for the big picture. While each chapter took forever to slog through due to Riley's tendency to have diarrhea of the mouth (or keyboard) when talking about an artist he admires. The entirety of what I wanted to learn from this book could probably have been said in 20 pages or so when all the adjectives and accolades are removed.