In his book Terminated for Reasons of Taste, seasoned rock critic Chuck Eddy sought to articulate the ways in which the currents of the pop music industry are in many ways cyclical, despite the ever-changing political and cultural realities of our great country. His justifications/excerpts related to each piece are generally historical, dealing with charts and accolades and weird aspects of the music, but his writing is most interesting when he discloses his own experiences. In one anecdote, Eddy discusses an event in 1987 where two of the Beastie Boys dissed him for his hipster style and then broke into his hotel room in the middle of the night and dumped a wastebasket of “extremely wet water” on his head. These songs act as a guide to the unique taste of Chuck Eddy, for which he was apparently terminated. -- Adam Rothbarth
