The author dissects America through his discussion of Robert Johnson, The Band, Sly Stone, Randy Newman and Elvis Presley. He argues that these men tended to see themselves as symbolic Americans and he reasons that their music is an attempt to live up to that role. This book was first published in 1977.
Vintage presents the paperback edition of the wild and brilliant writings of Lester Bangs--the most outrageous and popular rock critic of the 1970s--edited and with an introduction by the reigning dean of rack critics, Greil Marcus. Advertising in Rolling Stone and other major publications.
Bob Dylan and the Band spent the summer of 1967 in the basement of Big Pink, the Band's house in West Saugerties, New York, recording a set of rough demos, sketches, goofs, and cover versions. By turns innovative, raw, whimsical, and eerily beautiful, the Basement Tapes, as they are known, became legendary among musicians and fans alike. Here, ...
A study of the Basement tapes, recordings made by Bob Dylan and the Band in Woodstock, New York, in 1967, analyzes this secret music never intended for release in terms of its place in contemporary music and in Dylan's career. Originally published as Invisible Republic. Reprint.
Wilentz and Marcus have assembled an astonishing group of writers and artists--more than a dozen novelists, essayists, performers, and critics--to explore the ineffable power of the American ballad in words and in drawings.
This text tries to identify how American music is one more stage in the production of American myth, which has become, through the mass media, a summation of the expression of a popular culture. Marcus discusses Robert Johnson, The Band, Sly and the Family Stone, Randy Newman and Elvis Presley.
Published for the fortieth anniversary of the recording of "Like a Rolling Stone", this is the definitive biography of the song that caught the questing spirit of its time and changed the rules of the possible in popular music overnight Greil Marcus saw Bob Dylan for the first time in a New Jersey field in 1963. He didn't know the name of the ...
Was punk just another moment in music history, a flash in time when a group of young rebels exploded in a fury of raw sound? Greil Marcus delves into the afterlife of punk as a much richer phenomenon - a form of artistic and social rebellion that continually erupts into popular culture. In more than 70 short pieces written over 15 years, Marcus ...
This collection of 20 essays, written by 20 music experts, was compiled by acclaimed critic Greil Marcus. To create this book, Marcus approached each writer and asked him or her to address the question "What one rock and roll album would you take to a desert island?" This book provides the writers' enthusiastic answers. Their album selections ...
Compiled by Greil Marcus, his onetime editor at Rolling Stone, this anthology of articles, reviews, sketches, rants, and pure provocation is part of the literary legacy of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs. As Marcus points out in his introduction, PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS AND CARBURETOR DUNG is not a document of Bangs's writing so much as an attempt ...
Greil Marcus assembles another collection of previously published work dating back to 1976, from such magazines as "Rolling Stone," "The Village Voice," "Artforum," and "Threepenny Review." He covers topics as diverse as Camile Paglia's "Sexual Personae," Eric Ambler's spy novels, and songwriter Deborah Chessler.
This title is about a single, serpentine fact: late in 1976 a record called "Anarchy in the UK" was issued in London, an event which launched a transformation of pop music all over the world. The song distilled, in crudely poetic form, a critique of modern society once set out by a small group of Paris intellectuals. In Greil Marcus's classic book ...
Greil Marcus saw Bob Dylan for the first time in a New Jersey field in 1963. He didn't know the name of the scruffy singer who had a bit part in a Joan Baez concert, but he knew his performance was unique. So began a dedicated and enduring relationship between America's finest critic of popular music "simply peerless," in Nick Hornby's words, ...
A new generation of music critics grapples with the eternal question - what album would you bring to a desert island and why? Featuring original contributions from today's leading music critics, "Marooned" is a revealing snapshot of the current state of pop music criticism. A follow-up and homage to Greil Marcus' rock 'n' roll classic "Stranded", ...
In June 1992, when all the polls showed that Bill Clinton didn't stand a chance, he went on the Arsenio Hall Show and played "Heartbreak Hotel" on the saxophone. The author - one of America's most insightful critics - named this as the moment that turned Clinton's presidential campaign around. In this book, Marcus traces the impact of Elvis ...
In this witty exploration of popular culture, critic Greil Marcus draws on several of his previously published essays to point out striking similarities between Elvis Presley and President Clinton. He also discusses other 20th-century celebrities who have helped shape American culture, including Sinead O'Connor, Andy Warhol, and Bob Dylan.
In this collection of Greil Marcus's most incisive writing on punk rock and the punk-influenced pop music in its wake, America's preeminent pop music and cultural critic presents a chronicle of the punk years, portraits of key bands, and revealing analysis of their music.
Politics has taken a cultural turn in America, and the arts are at the center of today's culture wars. In this book, some of our most prominent cultural critics explore the relationships between culture and politics as played out in the world of novels, television, museums, and even fashion. The authors-John Simon, Greil Marcus, Arthur C. Danto, ...
A special 25th anniversary edition of this classic study of American rock and roll focusing on Sly Stone, Randy Newman and Elvis Presley amongst many others. The book looks at the American dream touching on myth, landscape and oral tradition of the continent.
"It may be the most sophisticated political thriller ever made in Hollywood," Pauline Kael wrote of this film, John Frankenheimer's terrifying 1962 political thriller about an American serviceman brainwashed in Korea and made into an assassin. Sophisticated to be sure, it's also a headlong fall through the looking-glass of American politics and ...
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