Synopses & Reviews
How do you land a sweet six-figure marketing gig at the hallowed record label known for having signed everyone from Led Zeppelin to Stone Temple Pilots? You start with a resume like Dan Kennedy's:
- Dressed up as a member of Kiss every Halloween
- Memorized Led Zeppelin IV at age ten
- Fronted a lip-sync band in junior high
- Worked as a college DJ while he was a college drop-out
In his outrageous memoir,
McSweeney's contributor Kennedy chronicles his misadventures at a major record label. Whether he's directing a gangsta rapper's commercial or battling his punk roots to create an ad campaign celebrating the love songs of Phil Collins, Kennedy's in way over his head. And from the looks of those sitting around the boardroom, he's not alone.
Egomaniacs, wackos, incompetents, and executive assistants who know more than their seven-figure bosses round out this power-ballad to office life and rock and roll.
Review
"Seeing the world through Kennedy is like smoking some magical drug that makes everything hilarious in ways that cannot be explained." Scot Armstrong, screenwriter of Old School
Review
"Dan Kennedy is the laugh-out-loud Proust of American post-youth strivers. In Rock On, he cements his status as master of the hysterical inner monologue, laying bare the music biz with an effortless, beyond-hip immediacy that is impossible to resist." Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight
Review
"The music business isn't pretty, but it's pretty funny. Humor writer and McSweeney's contributor Kennedy recounts his short career as a marketing executive for Atlantic Records.... Hilarious.... A fitfully funny, ultimately sad look at the continuing decay of our popular culture." Kirkus
Review
"Kennedy's self-deprecating wit is highly appealing." Booklist
Review
andquot;Kennedy's self-deprecating wit is highly appealing.andquot;and#8212;Booklist
Review
"Imagine a love child born of "The Office" and
High Fidelity. With
Knocked Up as the slacker godfather. That captures Dan Kennedy's memoir
Rock On: An Office Power Ballad, his amazingly funny yet perceptive look at rock music and big corporations in crisis."
—USA Today USA Today
Review
"Fast-moving and darkly funny,
Rock On should be a chart topper."
—People, four star review
Review
"[Rock On] is not just laugh-out-loud funny; it’s snort-audibly-on-the-subway funny. . . . [Kennedy] spins his misgivings into hilarious gold, and in the process illustrates how to use your disillusion."
—Time Out New York Time Out New York
Review
"A delirious evocation of the love/hate relationship virtually my whole generation has had with the music industry. The rest of us may have dreamed it, but Dan Kennedy actually lived it out in the trenches. The results aren't pretty, but luckily for him, and us, they are hilarious."—Todd Hanson, editor of The Onion: America's Finest News Source
Review
"Dan Kennedy is the laugh-out-loud Proust of American post-youth strivers. In Rock On he cements his status as master of the hysterical inner monologue, laying bare the music biz with an effortless, beyond-hip immediacy that is impossible to resist."—Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight
Review
"Seeing the world through Kennedy is like smoking some magical drug that makes everything hilarious in ways that cannot be explained."—Scot Armstrong, screenwriter of Old School
Review
"The music business isn't pretty, but it's pretty funny. Humor writer and McSweeney's contributor Kennedy recounts his short career as a marketing executive for Atlantic Records. . . .Hilarious. . . .A fitfully funny, ultimately sad look at the continuing decay of our popular culture."--Kirkus Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Kennedy's self-deprecating wit is highly appealing."—Booklist Booklist
Review
"Kennedy is a talented humor writer, and the book is riotously funny throughout. . . .Anyone who appreciates good writing will enjoy it. . . .Recommended."--Library Journal Library Journal
Review
"An entertaining explanation of how, after years of stumbling through adulthood, he landed an improbable gig writing and producing ads for Atlantic Records. . . . Kennedy's style--hilarious, paranoid and vulnerable--captures wonderfully the absurdity of the corporate music industry. Readers will appreciate the many lists that pepper the book, including 'Inappropriate Greetings and Salutations for Middle-Aged White Record Executives to Exchange: #1. Hello, Dawg."—Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly
Review
"A very funny memoir about [Kennedy's] days as a marketing executive in the currently flailing music business."--GQ GQ
Review
"Imagine a love child born of "The Office" and
High Fidelity. With
Knocked Up as the slacker godfather. That captures Dan Kennedy's memoir
Rock On: An Office Power Ballad, his amazingly funny yet perceptive look at rock music and big corporations in crisis."
—USA Today USA Today
Review
"
Rock On is a succession of gently mordant vignettes, with hilariously spot-on asides about media image-making, music-biz hierarchies and sensitive singer-songwriters. . . . Like Walter Mitty in reverse, Kennedy constantly retreats from an absurd corporate environment—equal parts tyranny, vanity and fecklessness—into neurotic internal-reality checks even funnier than the folly all around him."
—The New York Times Book Review New York Times Book Review
About the Author
A regular contributor to McSweeney's and host of the popular Moth StorySLAM in New York, Dan Kennedy is the author of the widely acclaimed Loser Goes First.