A Whore Just Like the Rest: The Music Writings of Richard Meltzer

The 1970 publication of Richard Meltzer's first book, ''The Aesthetics of Rock,'' made him a big cheese in the demimonde of music critics, but his predilection for over-the-top mischief soon got him all but excommunicated from the fold. In A Whore Just Like the Rest: The Music Writings of Richard Meltzer, he outlines his early mind-set: ''Operating under the premise that pranks 'n' antics were the basic, irreducible nub of any 'true' rock experience... I'd do things like throw rubber snakes at publicists, dance on tabletops at press parties, review (harshly) albums I'd obviously never listened to (or concerts I'd never attended), reverse the word sequence of a text to make it read backwards...so by '74, it was pretty much g'bye for me.''

Not quite. Meltzer's done a heap of writing since then, plenty of it about his love-hate (or is that just hate?) affair with rock. You'll find more than 30 years of his best work here, accompanied by fresh (and hilarious) commentary. His appetite for debunking hubris and biting hands that feed is apparent in every barbed record review, cranky rant, and sarcastic star profile. Looking for madcap invention, unabashed honesty, gleeful shamelessness? Meltzer's your man, and ''Whore'''s your book.