Has this book been mentioned on the list?  I'm thinking that I read a
glancing reference to it a while back, but I heartily recommend this
book to the list.

Granted, it's about being a hair-metal band fan instead of a powerpop
fan, but the experiences have got to be similar.

Maybe it's growing up in a town of 613 people in Central Nebraska, just
as he grew up in a less than 500 person North Dakota town, but I know
where Chuck Klosterman is coming from.  His basic thesis is that music
simply IS, and the listener is the one who gives it any meaning.  Punk
has meaning because its listeners give it meaning. Classical has meaning
because its listeners give it meaning. Jazz has meaning....you get the
trend here, right.  He claims that while 80's hair metal is predictable
and repetitious and incestuous and has basically stupid lyrics, it is
still important because it meant something to him at 15, and 18 and 21,
and 28, and...

I also agree with the point that he makes in the epilogue about Head
East -- EVERYONE I knew in the 70s and 80s had at least one Head East
album, usually two or three -- there's no way they only ever went Gold.
(by the way, nobody ever seemed to really like Head East, they just had
their albums -- probably because they were perennial openers for the
bigger bands -- that's what kept bands like REO going until the schlock
ballads broke them through)