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The Sound and the Fury: 40 Years of Classic Rock Journalism: A Rock's Backpages Reader
Longtime music writer and editor Barney Hoskyns decided to build an archive of articles by his favorite rock writers - like Al Aronowitz, Jon Savage, Greil Marcus, Will Self, Lenny Kaye, Mary Harron, and Nick Hornby. Thus was born the website Rock's Backpages (www.rocksbackpages.com), home to thousands of brilliant reviews and rants, interviews and overviews, that helped define music journalism over the last four decades. The Sound and the Fury is the best of this remarkable collection. With contemporary and retrospective articles on the Beatles, Otis Redding, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, ABBA, Madonna, Ice Cube, Nirvana, Morrissey, and many, many more.
480 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 30, 2025
Eclectic mixture of music journalism. Some more interesting than others. Certainly learnt a few new things. Prompted me to go back a number of songs and artists in my music library. Maybe some of the most interesting articles are those mega stars in their early days. Nostalgic remembering those days of reading Melody Maker, Sounds and New Musical Express and also not agreeing with all that was written!
March 20, 2020
A solid collection of some pretty solid rock journalism including pieces by Greil Marcus, Glenn O'Brien, Lenny Kaye, and other luminaries and sub-luminaries of the genre. Outstanding pieces include Mick Farren's classic 1976 piece on the Nashville scene, David Dalton's post mortem on the Altamont debacle, and Jerry Gilbert's profile of Bruce Springsteen's early success. The two pieces on NWA and Ice Cube are painful reading but historically noteworthy, Cliff White's 1976 encounter with Marvin Gaye is probably the weirdest piece in the anthology, and the afore-mentioned Lenny Kaye's tribute to Grand Funk Railroad at Shea Stadium made me go back and have a look at some footage of those dinosaurs of my teen years at the event in question, and by golly, they were pretty damned good! There is a "meh" factor for several of the selections included, but any serious student of rock music and pop culture will find some nuggets (Kaye reference intended) worth keeping.
July 16, 2018
Like all but the best compilations or soundtracks, not every thing in here is a winner, but what is is enough to remind you how it felt to get really into music for the first time, and some might be good enough to inspire a deeper dive.
September 30, 2018
Interesting, albeit dated, collection of rock journalism from 40 years, though the majority of the work is from the 1960s and 70s. Some of the pieces are timeless, such as the Beatles arrival in America, but others in the book were a slog to get through.
December 14, 2020
Notable pieces: Steve Turner with Bowie, Will Self with Morrissey, and Mary Harron with Warhol
August 13, 2016
This collection of rock journalism spans from the late 1960's through the 1990's, but most of the articles discuss the music of the 60's and 70's. In fact, the two most recent articles in this collection are a reflection on Altamont 30 years later and a review of sorts of the remastering of some Abba albums (a piece written by Nick Hornby that is worthwhile for the title alone, "Abba: Welcome to the Palindrome.")
Most of the articles are from the British press, but a few are from American magazines. Rolling Stone is notably missing from the list of publications. The collection still is mostly focused on American music, and you'll recognize many of the contributors: Greil Marcus, Jon Savage, John Mendelssohn, Glenn O'Brien, the aforementioned Hornby.
I enjoyed some articles, but some were a slog to get through so while individual articles might be a 4 or a 4.5, 3 is appropriate overall. As is the wont of music journalism, certain florid excesses in the writing wore thin over time, and I just wanted to be done at a certain point; visible straining to make a mundane event into THE cultural signpost of the decade here (dude, it's a fucking Grand Funk Railroad concert), pretentious navel-gazing there (I could not hack my way through Robot Hull's history of psychedelic music. And no, I did not misspell his name.) Some articles had interesting subject matter but were mishandled by the writer. David Dalton's eyewitness retrospective on the tragedy at Altamont was somewhat ruined by a needlessly snarky tone. David Toop's article on the connection between the Beach Boys and Manson was too enamoured with being a think piece about American culture that wanted to tie Kenneth Anger, D. W. Griffith and Manson together for reasons known only to the author.
A few of the pieces I did like:
Al Aronowitz's story about the early days of Beatlemania (for the Saturday Evening Post)
Steve Turner's unpublished story about David Bowie and the business of how one consciously becomes an idol
Glenn O'Brien's interview with Madonna, back before the Blond Ambition tour when she still sounded like a human person
Mike Farren's British take on a visit to 1970's Nashville, which sounds like it's going to be a total cliche of Brits laughing at hicks. It does have a bit of that, but it's still deeply entertaining. I also learned that one of Nixon's last acts in office was to attend the opening of the new Grand Old Opry in March of 1974. If you want to see Nixon trying to play the piano and use a yo-yo (it's debatable which one he is worse at), you should go to the Internets immediately, because, of course, this footage exists.
Michael Lydon's review of the Monterey Pops festival
Greil Marcus's review of The Band's performance at Winterland, which is so lovingly detailed it will make you weep for having missed it
Paul Williams' loving take on the music of 1960's San Francisco
Some of the pieces were interesting to read, because I had just forgotten so much about what it was like at the time. Robert Gordon's tense interview with Ice Cube delves into the violence and misogyny in his lyrics, and who can even remember that controversy now. Jerry Gilbert's portrait of Springsteen written in 1974 is endearing because he's somehow managed to stay the same modest, mumbling guy. Overall, a fun read.
Most of the articles are from the British press, but a few are from American magazines. Rolling Stone is notably missing from the list of publications. The collection still is mostly focused on American music, and you'll recognize many of the contributors: Greil Marcus, Jon Savage, John Mendelssohn, Glenn O'Brien, the aforementioned Hornby.
I enjoyed some articles, but some were a slog to get through so while individual articles might be a 4 or a 4.5, 3 is appropriate overall. As is the wont of music journalism, certain florid excesses in the writing wore thin over time, and I just wanted to be done at a certain point; visible straining to make a mundane event into THE cultural signpost of the decade here (dude, it's a fucking Grand Funk Railroad concert), pretentious navel-gazing there (I could not hack my way through Robot Hull's history of psychedelic music. And no, I did not misspell his name.) Some articles had interesting subject matter but were mishandled by the writer. David Dalton's eyewitness retrospective on the tragedy at Altamont was somewhat ruined by a needlessly snarky tone. David Toop's article on the connection between the Beach Boys and Manson was too enamoured with being a think piece about American culture that wanted to tie Kenneth Anger, D. W. Griffith and Manson together for reasons known only to the author.
A few of the pieces I did like:
Al Aronowitz's story about the early days of Beatlemania (for the Saturday Evening Post)
Steve Turner's unpublished story about David Bowie and the business of how one consciously becomes an idol
Glenn O'Brien's interview with Madonna, back before the Blond Ambition tour when she still sounded like a human person
Mike Farren's British take on a visit to 1970's Nashville, which sounds like it's going to be a total cliche of Brits laughing at hicks. It does have a bit of that, but it's still deeply entertaining. I also learned that one of Nixon's last acts in office was to attend the opening of the new Grand Old Opry in March of 1974. If you want to see Nixon trying to play the piano and use a yo-yo (it's debatable which one he is worse at), you should go to the Internets immediately, because, of course, this footage exists.
Michael Lydon's review of the Monterey Pops festival
Greil Marcus's review of The Band's performance at Winterland, which is so lovingly detailed it will make you weep for having missed it
Paul Williams' loving take on the music of 1960's San Francisco
Some of the pieces were interesting to read, because I had just forgotten so much about what it was like at the time. Robert Gordon's tense interview with Ice Cube delves into the violence and misogyny in his lyrics, and who can even remember that controversy now. Jerry Gilbert's portrait of Springsteen written in 1974 is endearing because he's somehow managed to stay the same modest, mumbling guy. Overall, a fun read.
April 11, 2014
This book is an collection of articles written from the late 60's through the early 90's for various magazines, focusing on rock/pop personalities, concert reviews and commentary on significant styles and events of the period. The articles are presented unedited, with prefaces from the authors, who in some cases have nor re-read the work for decades. It's interesting to read some of this material after 30+ years, and realize how much rock journalism has evolved. In some cases, the articles were written by very young people, and it shows, but that's the charming part. There's good and weak material here, but it's a good cross section of rock history. Only a few articles are retrospective, the best one being Davis Dalton's compelling eyewitness account of Altamont.
I consider myself an amateur rock historian, and this book is a welcome addition to my shelves.
I consider myself an amateur rock historian, and this book is a welcome addition to my shelves.
August 21, 2013
pretty great both for historical value and some legitimately excellent reporting and criticism. unfortunately both of the only pieces covering hip hop are cringe-worthy, filled with the condescension of old white men looking down their nose at this morally dissolute gangster rap nonsense, but the highlights include a piece on the marketing of david bowie, playful banter with madonna, a visit to northern soul mecca the wigan casino, a stunning account of altamont, an analysis of the who's career through the lens of mod culture, a great article about warhol that really cemented my understanding of his place in culture, and a neat essay about how one of charles manson's songs wound up on a beach boy album.
January 19, 2009
There were some great pieces here, from some legendary writers not necessarily best known as music journalists, i.e. Will Self and Nick Hornby. I especially enjoyed the on-the-ground reporting from Monterey Pop and Altamont - in comparison you could look at the late '60s festival scene as either a utopia or hellscape. My least favorite essay was the one on Joni Mitchell - I love her songs but the interview confirms her tendency towards navel-gazing pretension.
December 22, 2007
"Forced" to read this in 'History of Rock n' Roll' college class. Loved it.
December 27, 2009
Includes "Give Peace a Chance! Grand Funk Railroad Take Shea Stadium" by Lenny Kaye (1971) and many other gems.
February 6, 2012
Pretty good, apart from the questionable NWA article.
May 24, 2012
Rock writers with an atitude, for a change. You may not agree with all of them (I didn't), but I enjoyed reading it nevertheless.
March 21, 2013
classic rocks last stand:
http://generation-add.blogspot.com/20...
http://generation-add.blogspot.com/20...
July 17, 2015
stories about altamont, KDC
October 13, 2015
Excellent collection showing rock writing has long been strong. It also shows, astoundingly, just how little has really changed.
January 23, 2017
Very entertaining stories with very hidden sides of popular stars. Not all of them were from "rock and roll stars" but at the end, who cares? You learn a lot. it's a great book
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews