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collection of music reviews / interviews

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  • 24-03-2016 10:46am
    #1
    rock whore
    Registered Users Posts: 253 ✭✭


    Can anyone recommend one for me?


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    #2
    UsedToWait
    Registered Users Posts: 2,273 ✭✭✭UsedToWait


    Just saw your post now, though it's been here a while..

    Few oldies that you might enjoy (read the Amazon reviews first, and of course, ymmv)

    Lester Bangs - the daddy of rock journalism - I suppose you could call him the Hunter S Thompson of rock writing..

    I've read these 2 collections of his:

    Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung

    Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste

    Just be aware that he's Marmite - a couple of quotes from the reviews:

    'A superb collection ... wild and funny and unpredictable. Lester Bangs was a great American writer who happened to write about rock 'n' roll'

    'Probably the worst book on music ever written, a waste of trees, ink, and time'


    I really enjoyed Mikal Gilmore's
    Night Beat: Shadow History of Rock and Roll

    (Incidentally, Mikal is the brother of mass murderer Gary Gilmore, and his book about his family and brother Shot in the Heart is well worth seeking out, and if the case interests you, you could follow it up with Norman Mailer's amazing The Executioner's Song, about the same case - it, along with Capote's In Cold Blood is the best account of a crime I've read).


    Finally, you could investigate Greil Marcus, often held up as the greatest rock critic, though I found his writing a bit pseudo-intellectual, and another of the old school Nik Cohn - I enjoyed his Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom :)


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    #3
    rock whore
    Registered Users Posts: 253 ✭✭rock whore


    Thanks a mil. Some great stuff there.
    I just picked up Psychotic Reactions.
    And I had forgotten about Greil Marcus too.
    Those should keep me going for a while!


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    #4
    Arghus
    Registered Users Posts: 14,344 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    My recommendation for this particular field will probably mean nothing if you don't like The Beatles, but I heartily, wholeheartedly endorse Revolution In The Head by Ian MacDonald.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revolution-Head-Beatles-Records-Sixties/dp/0712662081

    In my opinion this is the best book on not only The Beatles, but on that era as a whole. As well as being a awe inspiring feat of meticulous musical scholarship, MacDonald looked at popular culture as a whole and how that tumultuous time in world history made itself heard through the music and how, to a certain extent, the music pushed back with its own force.

    I can't say enough good things about this book. I don't agree with some of the things he has to say in it - he goes deep, real deep on the sociopolitical analysis from time to time, but he was such a knowledgeable author that what he put down on paper was always thought provoking.


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