Books
Entertain Us!
The Rise and Fall of Alternative Rock in the Nineties. (2012) In 1990 alternative music was where it belonged – underground. It left the business of rock stardom to rock stars. But by 1992 alternative rock had spawned a revolution in music and style that transformed youth culture and revived a moribund music industry. Five years later, alternative rock was over, leaving behind a handful of dead heroes, a few dozen masterpieces, and a lot more questions than answers. What, if anything, had the alternative revolution meant? And had it been possible – as so many of its heroes had insisted – for it to be both on MTV and under the radar? Had it used the machinery of corporate rock to destroy corporate rock? To answer these questions, Entertain Us! takes you on a journey through the nineties – from Sonic Youth’s ‘Kool Thing’ to Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’, Nevermind to Odelay, Madchester to Nu-Metal, Lollapalooza to Woodstock ’99 – narrated in the voices of the decade’s most important artists. This is the story of alternative rock – the people who made it, the people who loved it, the industry that bought and sold it, and the culture that grew up in its wake – in the last decade of the twentieth century.
Selected chapters from Entertain Us!
We're the Load of Crap - Mudhoney and the Pathetic Aesthetic
A Popular Consensus - Rock and realism in the early 1990s
Alternative to Alternative - The Smashing Pumpkins 'Siamese Dream'
Who Wants a Normal Life - Jarvis Cocker, the outside moves in
Check Out America - Culture Wars in Guyville
I am My Own Scene - Individualism in the Alternative Nation
Party Malfunction - Riot and Revolt at Woodtsock 99
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The Culture Club
Modern Art, Rock and Roll, and Other Stuff Your Parents Warned You About. (2007) The Culture Club goes beyond the standard histories of Rock and Roll to reveal modern music's hidden roots in Modern Art. From Alexander Rodchenko to Franz Ferdinand, Antonin Artaud to The Flaming Lips, John Cage to the B-52s, Jean-Paul Sartre to Saturday Night Fever, a century of heavy traffic between the Pop charts and the Avant-Garde is brought dramatically to life. The Culture Club reveals how Futurism, Constructivism, Surrealism, and all the other '-isms' of the twentieth century found their way into your headphones, and into your head.
Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone!
he Romantic Movement, Rock and Roll, and The End of Civilisation as We Know It. (2009) Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone! uncovers for the first time the hidden roots of rock & roll in the Romantic movement of the 1800s. Picking up a clue in My Chemical Romance's 'Welcome to the Black Parade', the author follows it into a world where Keats meets The Cure, Wordsworth hangs with Weezer, and Byron exchanges haughty glances with Bowie. From Schopenhauer's darkest days to Queen's hits, Hey! Nietzsche! is a wild ride through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, with the best mix-tape in the world on your car stereo.
