This long overdue history of glam rock went from being a can’t-put-down read to an ill-conceived exercise in futility due to its superfluous final chapter. Titled “Aftershocks,” this chapter finds Simon Reynolds falling into the trap of so many latter-day critics who try to rationalize that this “modern" stuff like Lady Gaga is somehow analogous to actual rock n’ roll when, in reality, what really drives it is the same mentality one more commonly associates with advertising and, worse yet, politics — mainly, louder, crasser is better. While glam echoed the pre-intellectual rock era with its devotion to style — eschewing such outmoded sixties concepts as “realism” and “authenticity” — it was still based on substance.