Ball the Wall

by Nik Cohn

This is a compilation of the best works by Nik Cohn, one of the great British feature writers on pop music.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Criticism

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Cohn is considered by some critics to be a father of rock criticism, thanks to his time on The Observer's early rock column entitled The Brief and his first major book Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom, first published in 1969. Cohn has since published articles, novels and music books regularly.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

If not already Nik Cohn should be at the very least a legendary figure in the world of pop writing. He was the inspiration for Pete Townsend's "Pinball Wizard,' and wrote "Saturday Night Fever" which was not actually a Disco period piece, but based on his London Mod years.

He's also a fantastic writer. Here you get commentary on clothing and rock n' roll. At the time"Ball the Wall" was sort of a greatest hits collection of Cohn's writings for magazines, etc. Long out of print but well worth the look. Go for it!

[Nigel Sutcliffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the precise moment that Nik Cohn discovered Rock Dreams in 1957, his real life began - and. For the next twenty years the love-affair was total. From the first glimpse of Rock & Roll's demon snake, his consuming passion was "Magic - the pursuit of beautiful lies." By the '60s, described as 'the speed writer of pop: half martyr to his own myth, sprinting across the gilded landscape, feet bleeding inside the carefully dirtied-down sneakers' he not only pursued the Magic but made it. For Nik Cohn didn't ever merely write about Rock legend or Pop culture. As arbiter of style, dweller on the edge and scribe he, somehow, created his own. Pausing only to enshrine Rock's roots in its first history, the memorable Awobopaloobop Alopbamboom; to help inspire Pinball Wizard; to write the magazine story that led to Saturday Night Fever; to invent the 'Pepsi Generation'; and to survive, just barely, a final holocaust on Times Square, 24 on 42, he embodied the neon slogan: You Don't Have To Pay To Play. By 1978 the magic was used up and Cohn moved on, leaving the collected novels, histories, autobiographical ramblings, articles, polemics and tales. In Ball the Wall, the very best of these are collected to make a new and self-contained volume. The result is not merely a portrait of one writer's odyssey but of an entire age and its offspring - the sweet hello and long goodbye of Rock. As Gordon Burn points out in his introduction, Nik Cohn was pop's first chronicler and he remains among the very best. For all those whom the Rock Age touched, Ball the Wall is essential reading.

[Peter Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good selection of pop/ fashion articles worth a read for the history of pop,especially British pop.