England's Dreaming, Revised Edition: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond

Product Information

Maybe, if the book is anything, it’s the making of the case that popular music is an art form in its own right – not just reflecting social history but actually being social history – a driver for change. JD: We both know Jon, but we didn’t when we first read the book, and rereading it now is like being in his presence. The majority finds it difficult to lift itself above the mundanity and self absorption of Adrian Mole-level teenage scribblers - NME, the last remaining of the great triumvirate of British rock weeklies has always been a stew of teenage hormones and spite ponced up as critique. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps. This really is an excellent well-written book and as a bonus contains an excellent discography and bibliography.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. It’s an indispensable documentary resource that offers panoramic insight into UK punk’s most innovative and influential stage; it manages to immerse the reader in the visceral rush and the sheer creative energy of the period at the same time as it provides measured, incisive commentary on that period.

A soap opera for foreigners, a few dutiful shower curtains, some nice choral music, and a line in chintzy ceremonial plates. Charles is simply not like the other royals: not like his parents, not like his siblings, not like his sons. I thought – at Goldsmiths College, the saggy apoliticism of late-90s London was crushingly disappointing, and I wouldn’t discover the traces of Savage’s city until some years later. I don’t really remember what it’s like to be a 17-year-old, but I think if I were to read it now, at that age, I’d be enthralled and thrilled by it.

The only problem with my new stoical attitude to the monarchy is that it instantly evaporates on contact with the BBC. So too with punk: this generation – that of my parents – owed everything to the welfare state, yet they destroyed as much of it as they could.And second that his obvious enthusiasm for the people, the music and the events, shines through bright enough to burn. And in the service of that desire, getting frequently annoyed with this book to the extent of writing pissy lengthy pseudo-scholarly annotations all over the margins succeeded admirably in distracting me.