The story of The Who, a band that stared out as The Detours and the High Numbers, is probably the best example of a group that combined an innovative stage show that incorporated ideas borrowed from art theory with a strong dialogue directed at a style-minded fan base and consumer culture. “Across The Who’s first […]
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Tag: The Beatles
Ready Steady Go!: The Weekend Starts Here … by Andy Neill (2020)
What was set up as a somewhat risky experiment featuring unusual approaches towards audiences, concepts and TV viewing habits, the live broadcast of the London based production Ready, Steady, Go! became probably the best pop TV show ever. As it united a fresh concept of live music (although until 1965, bands were only miming their […]
Representations of Working-Class Masculinities in Post-War British Culture: The Left Behind by Matth...
When considering his main subjects, author Matthew Crowley emphasizes that there are many different ways to live a certain working-class masculinity, as there never was just one single “traditional” experience or one simple, unified path that would lead to such an experience for every English male working-class person in the mid-20th century. In his study […]
Five Years Ahead of My Time: Garage Rock from the 1950s to the Present by Seth Bovey (2019)
The Third Bardo’s 1967 song “Five Years Ahead of My Time,” a musical gem by the psychedelic garage band from New York is the eponym for this book, as the many garage bands of the 1960s laid the foundations for American Rock music. The word “garage” in this context actually describes their foremost place of […]
From Flappers to Rappers: The Origins, Evolution, and Demise of Youth Culture by Marcel Danesi (2018...
As there are already some titles informing about this “feature” of modernity (youth cultures), the title at hand by Marcel Danesi convinces with a solid introduction of what “the youth,” (“a youth,” “a teenager,” or a person in its “adolescence”) actually is and how the “species” was first, well, discovered by sociologist. And how, after […]
The Kinks: A Thoroughly English Phenomenon by Cary Fleiner (2017)
Apart from a few stylistic irritations (like some explorations in country rock in the early 1970s), the musical output of the Kinks always was famous for particularly one thing: it was English, very much so. And it enlarged on aspects of everyday life in Britain “…such as work play, buying a house, driving a car, […]
Vinyl Records and Analog Culture in the Digital Age: Pressing Matters by Paul E. Winters (2016)
Not just the die-hard fans and collectors of vinyl recordings will be interested in this new book by Paul E. Winters. Since actually the whole idea of conserving the products of popular culture (which includes recorded sound and music) is carefully examined here. This goes along with analysis of the marketing ideas and promises used […]
Rock ‘N’ Film. Cinema’s Dance With Popular Music by David E. James (2016)
While already in the 1940s the Hollywood musical artistically integrated film, acting, dancing and singing, it also had another very important feature. „With sound, the movies had become the major means of disseminating popular songs, both those composed for Broadway musicals that were subsequently filmed and those written by the studio’s own teams of lyricists.“ […]
Working Class Heroes: Rock Music and British Society… by David Simonelli (2012)
David Simonelli, associate professor of history at Youngstown State University, must have plundered archive after archive, at least the ones of the NME, Melody Maker, Billboard and the BBC as well. At the center of his study is the approach to the shifting image of a young generation of musicians and their fans, by then […]