The Rock Snob's Dictionary by Steven Daly & David Kamp

Considering that it takes one to know one, this amusing mockery of music-related Asperger's syndrome must top the list of most self-defeating volumes in rock history (and there will be one, somewhere).

Considering that it takes one to know one, this amusing mockery of music-related Asperger's syndrome must top the list of most self-defeating volumes in rock history (and there will be one, somewhere). Who but a Rock Snob would enjoy, or even comprehend, a sarcastic précis describing marginal figures such as Townes Van Zandt or the authors' particular patsy, Curt Boettcher?

Not that Daly, once drummer of Glasgow's original post-punk fops Orange Juice (inexplicably unmentioned), and his American collaborator know everything. No self-respecting reader will overlook such glaring errors as describing the DJ's favourite Technics SL-1200 turntable as "belt driven". Boy, I hope somebody got fired for that blunder. Sadly the authors resisted inserting a proper nihilartikel, the alleged German word for an item invented to catch out the unwary plagiarist. Not even in their "Krautrock" entry.

At times they even offer opinions on music. Mistakenly, one suspects - does the world need more critics, especially ones who describe the undeniably distinctive, if selectively appealing, My Bloody Valentine as "rather ordinary" and the raucous Vox AC30 amplifier as "puny"? Surprisingly, they don't even mention Australia's overrated strivers The Go-Betweens, a turn appreciated exclusively by rock hacks. They do rate the fabulous Monks though, five Sixties GIs gone awol who boasted, shall we say, contemplative hairstyles.

This is pretty funny nonetheless, if no match for John Langford's wildly discursive, myth-puncturing cartoon series, "Great Pop Things". Ross McDonald's gloriously lousy line drawings turn Steve Earle into Ricky Tomlinson and Joe Meek, maverick producer and pederast, becomes Jonathan Meades, presumably unintentionally. The A-Z includes "Zimmy", supposedly the nickname bestowed on their hero by true Dylan believers, there's a list of putative "fifth Beatles" in order of "worthiness" and an accurate description of Lee "Scratch" Perry's audience as "hipsters, few of whom actually know any of his songs". Entries of particular Snob interest are marked, delightfully, with an "adaptor" symbol - that now forgotten bit of plastic which once completed the hole in your favourite single.

It's curious, though, how smoothly the tone of this tome, which started out as a regular prank in the annual "music" editions of celebrity puff sheet, Vanity Fair, sits within that magazine's grimly flip style. It seems "classic" rock writing, all clunky, self-reverential metaphors and speculative analysis, has infiltrated the mainstream so deeply it can no longer be parodied meaningfully. Roll over Al Goldman and tell Lester Bangs the news. (Damn.)