MIXED MEDIA

“THE WORST ROCK ‘N’ ROLL RECORDS OF ALL TIME” By Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell

Citadel Books ($14.95) ** 1/2 It’s not surprising to find records by Richard Simmons, Milli Vanilli and John Travolta on a critical all-time worst list. But Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, U2, Paul McCartney, the Doors and Simon & Garfunkel? Rather than work from any consensus of what stinks, the authors make their own cranky, highly subjective choices, and pick on not just obvious schlock but some of rock’s big guns--so virtually any reader will snortingly disagree with a handful or more. But the writing of the brief entries is often cattily amusing, making this an ideal bathroom book for two-minute dissertations on what made losers of such disparate works as “In the Year 2525,” “Hip to Be Square,” “My Ding-a-Ling” and Dylan’s “Self-Portrait.”