There is a moment when radical ideas no longer seem radical. Watching Lester Bangs in this video makes that clear. This could just as easily be a video of almost any unknown comic book collector or Star Trek fan talking about their favorite episode. Instead, its Lester Bangs, the man who almost single handed invented rock criticism.
That idea, seems quaint now, but at the time, the notion that rock music should be taken seriously was revolutionary. Bangs was intellegent, passionate about the music, ferocious in defense of the things he liked--and equally so about the things that he didn't.
Through his writing he broke down the barrier between the music he was covering and his own opinion, never pretending to be a disspassionate observer.
Bangs clearly saw his writing as equal to the music that he wrote about, by injecting himself into the story he could be hysterically funny, infuriating and equally insightful.
Eventually his point of view became the common wisdom on whatever the subject was, with his style as a writer engendering a whole new school of journalism. The writer as a smart ass observer--part dork, part fan, and always worth reading.
Mark Magula