This is not a conventional book, as it is not written in any particular chronological order. The chapter headings/songs are Shake Some Action, Transmission, In the Still of the Nite, All I Could Do Was Cry, Crying, Waiting, Hoping, Instrumental Break, Money (That’s What I Want),Money Changes Everything, This Magic Moment, Guitar Drag and To Know Him Is To Love Him. The author takes ten songs – not necessarily the songs you would obviously choose as representing the greatest, or best known – and uses them as springboards to make connections and links between different genres, bands and events. I have read many books about the history of rock and roll, but this looks at music from a slightly different angle.
He flows through the songs and musicians he loves as if creating a waking dream crowded with the stars of rock history."-Touré, The New York Times Book Review -Touré "The New York Times Book Review" About the Author Like so many of Marcus's previous books, The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs often feels like a tone poem or perhaps a written embodiment of the cultural memory. Altschuler "The Huffington Post" "Marcus is our greatest cultural critic, not only because of what he says but also, as with rock-and-roll itself, how he says it."-David Kirby, The Washington Post -David Kirby "The Washington Post" "Marcus, of course, is one of the epic figures in rock writing. Altschuler, The Huffington Post -Glenn C. Even if they have heard them before, they will listen to them as if for the first time."-Glenn C. The book, I am certain, will compel readers to return to the songs Marcus has anointed, and to others. "This could be Marcus' most inviting book: Emotion paces erudition, and the present gets to ride shotgun with the past, real and imagined."-Will Hermes, Rolling Stone -Will Hermes "Rolling Stone" "In his new book, which is surely one of his best and most beautifully written, Marcus revisits ten songs, recorded during the last sixty years, some of them long forgotten, in order to capture the pulsating and powerful language of rock 'n' roll. This book, by a founder of contemporary rock criticism―and its most gifted and incisive practitioner―is destined to become an enduring classic. Slipping the constraints of chronology, Marcus braids together past and present, holding up to the light the ways that these striking songs fall through time and circumstance, gaining momentum and meaning, astonishing us by upending our presumptions and prejudices. In Marcus’s hands these and other songs tell the story of the music, which is, at bottom, the story of the desire for freedom in all its unruly and liberating glory.
“To Know Him Is to Love Him,” first by the Teddy Bears and almost half a century later by Amy Winehouse. “All I Could Do Was Cry” by Etta James and then Beyoncé. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs recorded between 19, then proceeds to dramatize how each embodies rock ’n’ roll as a thing in itself, in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out―a new language, something new under the sun. Grunge took over the word, kicking classic rock and hair bands to the side, and Cobain became rock’s biggest icon, even if it only lasted a few years.One of our finest critics gives us an altogether original history of rock ’n’ roll Unlike all previous versions of rock ’n’ roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points that everyone knows. “Smells Like Teen Spirit’s” impact was immediate. The fact that he did that so brilliantly is worthy of all the praise. No matter how deep their knowledge of Nirvana’s catalog runs, it all starts with “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” As famously noted, the tune was Cobain’s attempt to write the “ultimate pop song” and rip off the Pixies. Cobain remains an icon whose influence feels even more present today in artists outside of the rock genre, from Jay-Z and Lil Wayne to Lana Del Ray and Lil Nas X. The genre peaked with Kurt Cobain and company’s ascension and the success of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as a generational anthem and game-changing music video. Yet, that hasn’t done anything to diminish Nirvana’s legendary status. In the late 1990s and 2000s, the legacy of grunge morphed into something that inspired some of the most loathed rock bands of the time.
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