Produced by John McClure, it is the companion to Marks' paperback book of the same name, which profiled the writer's interviews with many major rock musicians and personalities.

He and Lebzelter created the album using the Moog III synthesizer and cut-up excerpts of the interview tapes, which featured 27 hours of conversation with 53 musicians.

[5][nb 1] For the album, also titled Rock and Other Four Letter Words, Marks collaborated with composer and filmmaker Shipen Lebzelter,[2] with production from John McClure of Columbia Records.

According to writer Scott G. Campbell, the tapes included "such rarely interviewed people as Donovan and George Martin, musical director of the Beatles.

"[2] After returning to Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York, Marks and Lebzelter took the tapes and cut, spliced, sliced, chopped and fed them into a "hungry" Moog III synthesizer to create the album.

"[10] The liner notes credit "a cast of thousands, Including the voices, comments, yawns and blurbs of bunches of international rock stars and various other good people".

[15][16] The original musical content is heavy and highly eclectic; according to critic Charles McKinney, it ranges from "gospel to protest to zook sounds to electronic efforts".

[10] Music critic Oregano Rathbone highlights the record's Moog work, atonal experimentation with musique concrète and tape manipulation,[17] while David F. Wagner compared the album's combination of 'salon rock' ("both orchestrated and choral") with Marks' interview outtakes to the Mothers of Invention, likening it to what the group "might come up with if they were asked to dedicate an entire album to plugging a book by Frank Zappa.

"[9] Delaware County Daily Times deemed the recording to be "based on the standard 32 bar rock melody, arranged in sequences which build to crescendi.

[2][17] "Baked Beans" is a joke song with an uplifting gospel chorus that segues into the spiritual "Down by the Riverside",[9] while "They're Through" is a protest number denouncing The Establishment;[2][10] according to Wagner, it can be interpreted as "a revolutionary call to arms or a parody of same".

[1] Described as a "total environment program", the event included Marks' performance of a theatre work with his troupe;[1][22] he wore attached amulets down his exposed chest.

[17] In a contemporary review for The Indianapolis News, Charles McKinney wrote that Rock and Other Four Letter Words uses "the very sounds" of pop culture to create "a kind of music, or language, or environment, however one wishes to categorize it."

He noted the controversial nature of many of the interview excerpts and praised the record as "a fascinating, integrated conglomerate of words, coughs, sniffs, serious asides, howls, put downs, sighs and songs.