
Lollapalooza
The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival
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About this listen
The definitive, no-holds-barred oral history of 1990s alt-rock festival Lollapalooza―told by the musicians, roadies, and industry insiders who lived it—includes a foreword by Kim Thayil of Soundgarden! From the New York Times bestselling authors of Nothin’ But A Good Time.
In Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival, New York Times bestselling authors Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour tell the no-holds-barred history of the iconic music festival. Through hundreds of new interviews with artists, tour founders, festival organizers, promoters, publicists, sideshow freaks, stage crews, record label execs, reporters, roadies and more, Lollapalooza chronicles the tour’s pioneering 1991-1997 run, and, in the process, alternative rock’s rise–as well as the reverberations that led to a massive shift in the music industry and the culture at large.
Lollapalooza features original interviews with some of the biggest names in music, including Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth, Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, Ice-T, Rage Against the Machine, Green Day, Patti Smith, Alice in Chains, Metallica and many more.
Conceived by Farrell as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction, Lollapalooza’s inaugural outing across the U.S. in the summer of 1991 helped to coalesce an ideology and aesthetic that not only washed over popular music but seeped into fashion, film, television, literature, food, politics and more. Throughout the decade, Lollapalooza offered a vast and diverse ensemble of bands, breaking barriers of genre and uniting alternative rock, heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, industrial, goth, avant-garde, spoken word, electronic dance music and other styles under one big tent, and setting the template for the modern American music festival and the scores of other contemporary destination fests that are now an integral part of how audiences experience live music.
Unorthodox not just in music, Lollapalooza also spotlighted visual arts, nonprofit organizations, political outfits and even the occasional freak show, offering a tantalizing cocktail of culture, art, and activism that, taken together, defined the alternative mindset that dominated the 1990s. Echoes of its impact reverberate strongly today–cemented by annual sell-outs at destination events all over the world, an estimation of 400,000 attendees at the flagship Chicago fest each summer, and a spot among the world's largest and longest-running music festivals.
A nostalgic look back at 1990s music and culture, Lollapalooza traces the festival’s groundbreaking origins, following the tour as it progresses through the decade, and documenting the action onstage, backstage, and behind-the-scenes in detailed and uncensored and sometimes shocking first-person accounts. This is the story of Lollapalooza and the 1990s alternative rock revolution.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
©2025 Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour (P)2025 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"In the tradition of Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me and their own Nothin’ But a Good Time, Bienstock and Beaujour spliced together dozens of interviews with musicians, producers, staff, and others on the scene to craft an epic story of 1990s rock and roll as filtered through the heroin-hazy lens of the granddaddy of American music festivals... Essential addition to any rock history library."―Kirkus
"The Lollapalooza tour defined "alternative culture" in the nineties with lineups that bridged rock, hip-hop, and performance art. The book, Lollapalooza, collects the musicians' unbelievable-yet-true stories into an indispensable page turner and shows how a tour like Lollapalooza could never happen the same way again.”—Kory Grow, Rolling Stone
"Lollapalooza defined a generation, and who better to hear it from than the people who lived it? A must-read."―Daniel Kohn, SPIN
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Story
It has been three decades since Nirvana upended the pop cultural landscape with Nevermind, the landmark album that became the soundtrack of Generation X, capturing its confusion, frustration, and passion. In 1993, Michael Azerrad published what stands as the definitive biography of this revolutionary band and its star-crossed leader Kurt Cobain. Written with the band’s complete cooperation—the only book to feature interviews with Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Dave Grohl—it became a massive bestseller and, in the words of Cobain, "the best rock book I’ve ever read.”
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Interesting but no Storyteller
- By Mark on 10-21-24
By: Michael Azerrad
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Grunge Is Dead
- The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music
- By: Greg Prato
- Narrated by: Greg Prato
- Length: 22 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Grunge Is Dead weaves together the definitive story of the Seattle music scene through a series of interviews with the people who were there. Taking the form of an “oral” history, this books contains more than 130 interviews, along with essential background information from acclaimed music writer Greg Prato.
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The reader is terrible, the topic isninteresting
- By gabry79 on 04-25-22
By: Greg Prato
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The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue
- A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street
- By: Mike Tidwell
- Narrated by: Brandon Pollock
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2023, author and activist Mike Tidwell decided to keep a record for a full year of the growing impacts of climate change on his one urban block right on the border with Washington, DC. Tidwell's story depicts the neighborhood's battle to save the trees and combat climate change: The midwife who builds a geothermal energy system, the Congressman who battles cancer and climate change, and the Chinese-American climate scientist who wants to bury billions of the world's dying trees to store their carbon and help stabilize the atmosphere.
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Juxtaposed challenges to his intimate neighborhood with global trends.
- By Leslie Ann Taylor on 05-24-25
By: Mike Tidwell
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Pretend We're Dead
- The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Women in Rock in the '90s
- By: Tanya Pearson
- Narrated by: Kendra Hoffman, Carrington MacDuffie, Suehyla El-Attar
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2018, during an interview with journalist Tanya Pearson, Shirley Manson lamented: "It’s a blanket fact that after September 11th, nonconformist women were taken off the radio.” This comment echoed a reality Pearson had personally witnessed as a musician and a fan, and launched her into a quest to figure out just what happened to these extraordinary female figures. Pretend We’re Dead seeks to answer two big questions.
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The well investigated content and personal interviews
- By meg jones on 01-29-25
By: Tanya Pearson
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Rip It up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984
- By: Simon Reynolds
- Narrated by: Liam Wheatley
- Length: 23 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In this, the first book to take a big-picture view of the entire post punk period, acclaimed author and music journalist Simon Reynolds recreates a time of tremendous urgency and idealism in pop music. Full of anecdote and insight, and featuring the likes of Joy Division, The Fall, Pere Ubu, PiL and Talking Heads, Rip It Up And Start Again stands as one of the most inspired and inspiring books on popular music ever written.
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Great documentation incredible bands
- By Robin A Sanford on 08-29-24
By: Simon Reynolds
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I Want My MTV
- The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution
- By: Craig Marks, Rob Tannenbaum
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 20 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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It was a pretty radical idea - a channel for teenagers, showing nothing but music videos. It was such a radical idea that almost no one thought it would actually succeed, much less become a force in the worlds of music, television, film, fashion, sports, and even politics. But it did work. MTV became more than anyone had ever imagined. I Want My MTV tells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands, learn about new music, and have something to talk about at parties.
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The Most Entertaining Book of the Year
- By David on 10-24-12
By: Craig Marks, and others
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The Greatest Band That Ever Wasn't
- The Story of the Roughest, Toughest, Most Hell-Raising Band to Ever Come Out of the Pacific Northwest, the Screaming Trees
- By: Barrett Martin
- Narrated by: Barrett Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1992, the Screaming Trees were expected to become the next big band to come out of the Seattle music scene during the heyday of grunge. Except it never happened. It wasn't because the band didn't have great songs—indeed, the Trees were revered for their ability to write a great song that was both artistically original and commercially viable, which is no easy task. Other Seattle bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden were fans of the Screaming Trees, playing shows with them and collaborating on albums, long before their own bands broke through into the mainstream.
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Not Quite the Whole Story
- By Gorgatron on 09-18-24
By: Barrett Martin
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I'll Love You Forever
- Notes from a K-Pop Fan
- By: Giaae Kwon
- Narrated by: Giaae Kwon
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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In using intimate experiences to examine larger cultural topics, this singular work breaks new ground in its consideration of K-pop. I’ll Love You Forever blends the critical with the personal while spanning the history of K-pop from the perspective of a bilingual and bicultural Korean American.
By: Giaae Kwon
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Heartbreaker
- A Memoir
- By: Mike Campbell, Ari Surdoval - contributor
- Narrated by: Mike Campbell
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Campbell was the lead guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from the band’s inception in 1976 to Petty’s tragic death in 2017. His iconic, melodic playing helped form the foundation of the band’s sound, as heard on definitive classics like “American Girl,” “Breakdown,” “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” “Learning to Fly” and “Into the Great Wide Open.”
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Wonderful!
- By William Straten on 03-21-25
By: Mike Campbell, and others
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Turn It Up!
- My Time Making Hit Records in the Glory Days of Rock Music
- By: Tom Werman
- Narrated by: Tom Werman
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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As an A&R man at Epic Records, Tom Werman helped introduce the world to REO Speedwagon, Boston, Ted Nugent, and Cheap Trick; he also discovered KISS, Rush, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, but his record label passed on all of them. Then, as an independent producer, he oversaw landmark albums by Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister, Lita Ford, Jeff Beck, Poison, and many more. All in all, his record-making resume includes twenty-three gold- or platinum-selling albums and cumulative sales of more than fifty-two million copies.
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Great behind the scenes descriptions of some historic recordings.
- By MeLisa Owens on 05-28-24
By: Tom Werman
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Altamont
- The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day
- By: Joel Selvin
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In this breathtaking cultural history filled with exclusive, never-before-revealed details, celebrated rock journalist Joel Selvin tells the definitive story of the Rolling Stones' infamous Altamont concert in San Francisco, the disastrous historic event that marked the end of the idealistic 1960s.
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I was there...
- By Marcheta on 08-29-16
By: Joel Selvin
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After Disney
- Toil, Trouble, and the Transformation of America's Favorite Media Company
- By: Neil O'Brien
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Walt Disney left behind big dreams when he died in 1966. Perhaps none was greater than the hope that his son-in-law, Ron Miller, would someday run his studio. Under Miller’s leadership, Disney expanded into new frontiers: global theme parks, computer animation, cable television, home video, and video games. Despite these innovations, Ron struggled to expand the Disney brand beyond its midcentury image of wholesome family entertainment, even as times and tastes evolved.
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Fascinating history
- By Nikki on 05-05-25
By: Neil O'Brien
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Led Zeppelin
- The Biography
- By: Bob Spitz
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of the definitive New York Times best-selling history of the Beatles comes the authoritative account of the group many call the greatest rock band of all time, arguably the most successful, and certainly one of the most notorious.
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Sex & Drugs & Rock-n-Roll.... in that order.
- By Joe on 01-03-22
By: Bob Spitz
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My Black Country
- A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future
- By: Alice Randall
- Narrated by: Alice Randall
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author presents “a celebration of all things country music” (Ken Burns) as she reflects on her search for the first family of Black country music.
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Not so much a indictment of country music but a hey you are missing a piece of evidence here
- By Chris Lane on 10-02-24
By: Alice Randall
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The Name of This Band Is R.E.M.
- A Biography
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1980, an unexpected group of musical eccentrics came together to play their very first performance at a college party in Athens, Georgia. Within a few short years, they had taken over the world–with smash records like Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster and Green. Raw, outrageous, and expressive, R.E.M.’s distinctive musical flair was unmatched, and a string of mega-successes solidified them as generational spokesmen.
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Can't Get There From Here
- By ifthenwhy on 02-21-25
Bruuuuuuutal voice acting
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The premise was strong, and the book had good intentions, but the end result is chaotic and confusing rather than insightful or engaging. I really wanted to like this, but I’d recommend skipping the audiobook version. Maybe the print edition would be easier to follow, but this audio format does the story no favors.
A tough listen
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