Overview

"From the offices of Rock's Backpages and edited by famed rock writer, critic and author Barney Hoskyns, ""The Sound and the Fury: 40 Years of Classic Rock"" presents the most iconic pieces of rock music writing from the past half century. Coming at rock and roll from a different angle - with various takes on its love, its loathing and its access and excess, pieces include Al Aroniwitz documenting the Beatles' arrival in America; Nick Hornby reappraising pop deities Abba; and Will Self taking on Morrissey, just a few of the many stories selected from the rich RBP online library."

Full Product Details

Author:   Barney Hoskyns
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight:   0.357kg
ISBN:  

9780747563136

ISBN 10:   0747563136
Pages:   448
Publication Date:   19 May 2003
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

The Beatles - Music's Gold Bugs, by Al Aronowitz; How to Become a Cult Figure in Only Two Years - The Making of David Bowie, by Steve Turner; It's Hard to be a Saint in the City - A Chat with Bruce Springsteen, by Jerry Gilbert; Sounds Dirty - The Truth About Nirvana, by Jon Savage; Joni Mitchell - An Interview, by Penny Valentine; Marvin Gaye - Earthly Fights & Mystic Flights, by Cliff White; Neil Young - When Does a Dinosaur Cut Off Its Tail?, by Richard Cook; Bob Dylan - Jesus, who's got time to keep up with the times? , by Mick Brown; Madonna's Blonde Ambition, by Glenn O'Brien; Ice Cube, by Robert Gordon; Morrissey - The King of Bedsit Angst Grows Up, by Will Self; The Golden Road: A Report on San Francisco, by Paul Williams; The New York Dolls at the Mercer Arts Center, New York City, by Miles; The Road To Wigan Casino - Northern Soul, by Vivien Goldman; Go, Johnny, Go! Punk Hits Britain, by Caroline Coon; Live from Nashville - A Limey at Large in Music City USA, by Mick Farren; Poison The Hood - Niggaz with Attitude, by John Mendelssohn; The Monterey Pop Festival, by Michael Lydon; Lollapalooza - A Woodstock For The Lost Generation, by Simon Reynolds; Altamont - An Eyewitness Account, by David Dalton; Hit the Road Stax - Otis Redding et al at Finsbury Park Astoria, by Bill Millar; The Band - We Can Talk About It Now, by Greil Marcus; Give Peace A Chance! Grand Funk Railroad Shea Stadium, by Lenny Kaye; Eric Clapton - Rainbow Theatre, London, by Charles Shaar Murray; The Who's Mod Generation - Quadrophenia Through The Years, by Greg Shaw; Pop Art/Art Pop - The Warhol Connection, by Mary Harron; The Sound and Vision of Psychedelia, by Robot A. Hull; John Lennon - My Brilliant Career, by Simon Frith; Surfin' Death Valley USA, by David Toop; ABBA - Welcome to the Palindrome, by Nick Hornby

Reviews

More than 400 pages of highlights from the capacious and variegated rocksbackpages.com archive - MOJO stalwart and rocksbackpages co-founder Hoskyns' Intro reflects gloomily on rock journalism's former freedom and irreverence compared to, as he sees it, current collusiveness with the entertainment machine . One can only hope that was a grey day talking and take inspiration from all the subsequent uproar. While the rehashed live reviews seem to have expired with time, otherwise it's a rush of a read whether the approach is Vivien Goldman's sweaty Northern Soul excitation at the Wigan Casino in 1975 or John Mendelssohn's aggressive 1991 reassessment of NWA as a cynical minstrel show calculated to snare white youth dollars. Virtually yellowed pages maybe, but they are alive with surprise and revelation, viz the extraordinarily cagey Bob Dylan's magnificent declaration of self-worth/egotism extracted by quiet old Mick Brown one night in a Madrid caf . I don't think I'm gonna be understood until maybe 100 years from now, he said. What I've done, what I'm doing, nobody else does or has done. - Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 2003

Solid collection of rock writing from the mid-1960s through the '90s, mostly by veteran scribes for magazines like Creem and New Musical Express. Selected from the archives of www.rocksbackpages.com, a Web site Hoskyns (Across the Great Divide, not reviewed) started to keep critically insightful rock writing accessible at a time when corporations control and commodify rock rebellion, these 30 contributions from mostly well-known figures like Greil Marcus, Paul Williams, Simon Frith, and Nick Hornby arguably provide a representative cross-section of the genre's strengths. Some essays are built around interviews with significant figures like Neil Young, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell, Ice Cube, and Bruce Springsteen (Jerry Gilbert's astute 1974 piece captures the Boss forlornly straddling impoverishment and fame). The strongest work provides offbeat perspectives on various scenes, capturing vital moments in the sprawling narrative of rock's development. These include Mick Farren's humorous Live From Nashville (1976), which captures an uneasy outlaw South; Barry Miles's poignant reminder of pre-AIDS downtown decadence, epitomized by the glammed-out New York Dolls; and Lenny Kaye's hilarious account of Grand Funk Railroad's sold-out Shea Stadium gig. Other notable entries include Steve Turner's prescient look at the image-marketing behind David Bowie's early rise, David Dalton's chillingly precise eyewitness account of the fatal 1969 concert at Altamont, and Greg Shaw's endearingly fuzzy attempt to lionize the Mods upon The Who's release of Quadrophenia. Lesser contributions merely reflect cults of personality, as in a pallid Madonna interview by Glenn O'Brien (editor of her Sex book), Will Self's unremarkable Morrissey portrait, and Charles Murray's perfunctory account of Eric Clapton's 1973 return to performance. Attention is predictably lavished on boomer rock of the '60s and '70s at the expense of the '80s and '90s; coverage of Nirvana and Lollapalooza notwithstanding, there is almost no acknowledgement of the post-Reagan rock underground. (See Michael Azzerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life, 2001, for that tale.) For unreconstructed rockers who long for pre-Eminem/Britney days. (Kirkus Reviews)

This collection is a distillation of the archive of articles placed on the website www.rocksbackpages.com by Barney Hoskyns, who had the idea of creating a library of classic rock reviews that would be accessible to rock fans the world over. Collected at a time when CD and record sales are in a tailspin of decline and the music press is also under serious threat, the huge success of rockbackpages.com shows that there is still a demand for well-researched and well-written articles on rock as opposed to the bland banality of the cynically packaged pop culture. The book deals with the period post-Elvis up to present times, and is divided into six main sections, each dealing with a particular genre of writing. The first section, 'Stardust', looks at fame and the effect it has on the objects of scrutiny, from the Beatles' arrival in America through the creation and inexorable rise of David Bowie, the darker thoughts of The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, to the disturbing truth about Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. The next section is 'Close Encounters', in-depth interviews with stars as widely different as Joni Mitchell and Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan and Madonna. The conversations are sometimes edgy, sometime lazily amiable. Next comes 'On the Scene', a look at some of the trends in pop music then 'Congregations', pop festivals which Hoskyns describes as tribal assemblies, and then 'Live and Direct', reviews of live performances from Otis Reading at Finsbury Park to Eric Clapton at the Rainbow. The final section is 'After the Fact', pieces written on, for example, John Lennon, Andy Warhol and Abba, all with the benefit of hindsight. The writing in this collection is incisive and lively; views are not reticent so there is an energy and enthusiasm that makes for stimulating reading. A very comprehensive index makes retrieval easy and there are short biographies of all the writers at the end of the book. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Author Website:   http://www.bloomsbury.com/Authors/details.aspx?tpid=601

Barney Hoskyns is the author of several tomes on music and film.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:   http://www.bloomsbury.com/Authors/details.aspx?tpid=601

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions