LOLLAPALOOZA: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival (St. Martin’s Press; March 25, 2025) sees New York Times bestselling authors Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour (Nothin’ But A Good Time) telling the no-holds-barred history of the iconic music festival.
To by published by St. Martin’s Press on March 25, 2025, the book chronicles the revolutionary 1990s rise of Alt-Rock, festival culture, and more. It is a definitive, no-holds-barred oral history of groundbreaking tour told by the musicians and industry insiders who lived it. Included are original interviews with PERRY FARRELL and JANE’S ADDICTION, PEARL JAM, SOUNDGARDEN, NINE INCH NAILS, METALLICA, SONIC YOUTH, TOOL, SMASHING PUMPKINS, ICE-T, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, GREEN DAY, PATTI SMITH, ALICE IN CHAINS and more. Foreward by Kim Thayil of SOUNDGARDEN.
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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.
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.
RICHARD BIENSTOCK is a journalist whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Billboard, SPIN, and other publications. He is a former senior editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored and co-authored several books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. He is also the New York Times bestselling co-author of Nothin’ But a Good Time.
TOM BEAUJOUR is a journalist as well as a co-founder and former editor-in-chief of Revolver, America’s premier hard rock and heavy metal monthly. Beaujour has produced and mixed albums by Nada Surf, Guided by Voices, the Juliana Hatfield Three, and many others. He is also the New York Times bestselling co-author of Nothin’ But a Good Time.
LOLLAPALOOZA: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival
By Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour
St. Martin’s Press I March 25, 2025
Hardcover: 9781250283702 I $32.00 USD I $42.00 CAD
eBook: 9781250283719 I $15.99 USD I $16.99 CAD
Digital Audio: 9781250379009 I $26.99
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