Before his death aged 33 in 1982, Lester Bangs wrote wired, passionate pieces on Barry White, Iggy Pop, The Clash, John Lennon, Lou Reed: 'I always wanted to emulate the most self-destructive bastard I could see, as long as he moved with some sense of style. Thus Lou Reed'. To his journalism, he brought the talent of a great fiction writer. As Greil Marcus writes in his introduction: 'What this book demands from a reader is a willingness to accept that the best writer in America could write almost nothing but record reviews'.