The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs

by Greil Marcus, Henry Rollins (Narrator)

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. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs recorded between 1956 and 2008, 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.

“Transmission” by Joy Division. “All I Could Do Was Cry” by Etta James and then Beyoncé. “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” first by the Teddy Bears and almost half a century later by Amy Winehouse. 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. 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. This book, by a founder of contemporary rock criticism—and its most gifted and incisive practitioner—is destined to become an enduring classic.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Essays, Audiobook, Criticism, Historical

Audiobook

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. In recent years he has taught at Berkeley, Princeton, Minnesota, NYU, and the New School in New York. He lives in Oakland, California.

Reviews

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 1 out of 5]

This might be the purest form of intellectual masturbation I've ever come across. Greil Marcus is less interested in the songs themselves he's (supposedly) focusing on than whatever free association comes into his head based on the song. This is full of sideways meanderings and random sojourns. This is true of both the structure of the chapters, but the way he writes his sentences. His sentences are run-on, comma-laden, blatherings that are hard to pay attention to. So the individual sentences go nowhere and the chapters don't seem to be about anything. A section on "Transmission" by Joy Division is more interesting in discussing the actor who played Ian Curtis in a movie than anything else. (Wait - check that. The chapter is also really interested in discussing that actor playing an entirely different role in an entirely different movie). A 40+ page chapter on Buddy Holly's "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" doesn't even mention the song itself until you're 20 pages in.

At a certain point in time, your eyes glaze over and you read over a page without retaining anything. But it's OK - when you try to read closely you realize there's nothing worth retaining.

I've read some other books by Marcus ("Mystery Train" and "Ranters and Crowd Pleasers"), and really enjoyed them. This? Complete utter crap.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read many books about the history of rock and roll, but this looks at music from a slightly different angle. 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. 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.

This is not a conventional book, as it is not written in any particular chronological order. The chapter on Transmission, for example, may begin with Joy Division, before explaining how the genesis of the band began at a Sex Pistols concert in Manchester and then veering off to a story about the Brian Epstein and the Krays. Crying, Waiting, Hoping examines the career of Buddy Holly and his ‘ordinary’ appeal and then looks at different incarnations of the song, including that of the Beatles – from the Decca audition tapes to the Get Back sessions- and then somehow ends up examining A Day in the Life.

Just about every musical genre is covered in this entertaining and informative book. From Chess Records, Robert Johnson, Motown, Dylan, Phil Spector, just about everyone who is important in popular music is included. However, there are also the less well known links and relationships, from the Blues to early Rock and Roll, through politics and film. If you have any interest in music and in how it has developed, then you will certainly enjoy this book.

Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

[Bruce Hatton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being written by the brilliantly quirky Greil Marcus, this book doesn't feature any of the "usual suspects" in the list of songs. No "Mystery Train", "Satisfaction", "Like A Rolling Stone" or "Strawberry Fields Forever". Instead he chooses ten songs recorded between 1956 and 2008 - some quite well known, others almost forgotten - and dramatises how each embodies rock'n'roll as a thing in itself; in the story it tells, inhabits and acts out.
Unsurprisingly, some of these songs have very sad tales to tell. None more so than the last featured, "To Know Him Is To Love Him": a song which seems to both transcend and unite the tragic lives of both its composer, Phil Spector (currently serving life for murder in Corcoran State Prison) and its definitive interpreter, Amy Winehouse, who was born over 20 years after the song was first released and drank herself to death in 2011.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

got this out because I noticed the first of the ten songs was 'Shake Some Action' by the Flaming Groovies, which I recently discovered due to reading 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah'. I have played the song 49 times my iPod tells me, since downloading in mid-January (wrote this in early Feb). I think I must like it.

Later, after reading..
Marcus' language and commentary is like fireworks going off. Well over the top, but, hey, it's rock and roll. For example this is (some of) what he says about the song above: in “Shake Some Action” everything is new, as if the secret had been discovered... nothing like what happens in “Shake Some Action ” had ever been heard on earth; the point is that rock ’n’ roll, as music , as an argument about life captured in sound, as a beat, was something new under the sun, and it was new here, in 1976, in the hands of a few people in San Francisco. And It starts fast, as if in the middle of some greater song. A bright, trebly guitar counts off a theme, a beat is set, a bass note seems to explode, sending a shower of light over all the notes around it. The rhythm is pushing, but somehow it’s falling behind the singer. He slows down to let it catch up, and then the sound the guitar is making, a bell chiming through the day, has shot past both sides. Every beat is pulling back against every other; the whole song is a backbeat, every swing a backhand, every player his own free country, discovering the real free country in the song as it rises up in front of him, glimpsing that golden land, losing it as the mirage fades, blinking his eyes, getting it back, losing it again— that is its reckless abandon, the willingness of the music, in pursuit of where it needs to go, where it must go, to abandon itself.

If you don't like that you won't like this book. Looking at the songs (Shake.. followed by Transmission (Joy Division), In the Still of the Nite, All I could Do was Cry, Crying, Waiting, Hoping, Money (That's What I want), Money Changes Everything, This Magic Moment, To Know Him is to Love Him), you think no Beatles, Elvis, Stones? But of course he does include them, he uses the songs as starting points and there is much about those three and more. For example the Crying Buddy Holly one goes into long passages about the Beatles when they first played it as Liverpool teenagers in Paul's front room, and how later they played it in the Let it Be sessions and takes in much of their oeuvre along the way. So, I was happy.

More later maybe..

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greil Marcus may be the best living music writer on the planet. He has a scholarly edge but that doesn't hide his emotional enthusiasm for the music he writes about. He writes in an almost free associational way that fills you with facts and emotions but always managed to come back to his point and his passion.

That is what makes his new book, The History of Rock N' Roll in Ten Songs so utterly fascinating. The author takes a different approach to the history of rock. Gone are the linear citing of performers and dates. Instead he takes ten songs that he sees as representing the essence of the music and describes their hold on us. In the chapters for each song, he tells about the first recording of the song but will also mention later version showing how they become timeless in our psyche.

A couple of the songs he mention are puzzling. "Shake That Action" by the Flamin' Groovies is in my opinion, one of the great trash heap songs with little redeeming value. But the author, and many other rockers, obviously disagree with me. Most importantly, Marcus makes his points about the immortality of the song quite well even if he doesn't convince me. Other songs like the Buddy Holly's "Crying , Waiting, Hoping" and the standard oldie "In The Still of The Night" are much better choices and their greatest is easily understood. Marcus does not fail to forget the later masterpieces either paying special attention to "Transmission" by Joy Division. The author in his unique style brings importance to these songs and is saying...Yes, the performances is awesome but the meaning and emotion of the actual songs is also part of the magic of rock 'n' roll.

It is nice we still have veteran writers like Greil Marcus around. It seems like most have either retired (Robert Hilburn) or died too early (Lester Bangs). The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs can be read as either an unconventional history of rock or a fine example of literary prose. Either way, it is an enjoyable and informative read. The one thing I would recommend is to listen to the song before reading its chapter. Most of these songs and recordings can be found on YouTube.

[Aseem Kaul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about Greil Marcus' The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs. On the one hand, I love that Marcus eschews the usual standards in favor of ten (relatively) obscure numbers, and am fascinated by his thesis that every rock song is a kind of microcosm, containing within it the seeds of the entire genre. And I love how Marcus traces the evolution of the songs he picks through the hands and voices of the performers, the way the song passes from generation to generation, each new version discovering something new that it turns out was always there, the words of the dead modified in the guts of the living. And there's no denying that Marcus, at his best, is a brilliant rock critic--his chapter on Transmission is simultaneously the most exhilarating and incisive piece about Joy Division I've ever read, and I don't think I'll ever be able to hear either 'Crying Waiting Hoping' or 'Come on in my kitchen' the same way again.

On the other hand, some of the songs he picks are decidedly mediocre (try as I can I can't see the merit in 'Shake Some Action') and his definition of rock seems both too broad and too narrow. Too broad because it seems to include pretty much any and all of the popular music of the last century (I mean Cyndi Lauper, really?), and too narrow because all ten chapters focus in one way or the other on fleeting epiphanies of sound, the moment in a great song when the singer's voice is transformed into something primal, something that speaks to us in a way that transcends language. I'm not denying that this is part of rock's appeal, but surely a book that claims to be about the History of Rock 'n' Roll could make place for the poetry of the music, its capacity for humor, its quality of cool. Plus there's his bizarre fascination with movies, frequently spending as much time on the way a song was depicted in some biopic or the other as on the song itself.

But mostly it's just that the book, while shot through with electrifying moments never quite comes together. The argument is glimpsed but never really made. And you are left with both the distinct impression that you've learned something important, and the knowledge that you cannot articulate precisely what. Which, now that I come to think of it, may be Marcus' point - because isn't that exactly how a great song makes you feel?

[Hundeschlitten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a somewhat conflicted relationship with the writings of Greil Marcus. There was a period of my life when a dog-eared copy of Lipstick Traces (A Secret History of the 20th Century) held a prominent and seemingly permanent place on my bed stand. I eagerly assented to his cocksure notion of the Sex Pistols and the punk revolution as a cornerstone in understanding the history of cultural subversion. A lot of us punk rockers needed someone like Marcus to explain and justify our place in the world. But over the years, I've soured on Marcus' writing, perhaps to the same degree that I've soured on the importance of the Sex Pistols, or even of the meaning of punk itself. Once you no longer want to drink the Kool-Aid, all of Marcus' postulations can seem like the tale of an overly intellectual idiot, signifying nothing. So I quit reading him over a decade ago....

But my thoughts on his writing have undergone a 2nd revision, because I really enjoyed "The History of Rock 'n Roll in 10 Songs." In the first place, any history of rock music that begins with "Shake Some Action" and then proceeds to "Transmission" has got my attention, because I have loved both songs for decades. While none of the other featured music, other than the Buddy Holly, held any similar associations, I appreciated the seemingly capricious way they all fit together. Gone was the relentless rationality that Marcus used in some of his earlier books, driving his points home through sheer intellectual effort and organization. Here is a book that turns its arbitrariness into a weapon, slashing at the oppressive rationality of not just our organized world, but even the structure of many of Marcus' own arguments.

Of course, there is still Marcus' penchant for overwriting, but that was OK for me, because with this overwriting came a reaching for the great themes and a repeated attempt to put the power and meaning of a song into words. I have spent much of the past couple of weeks researching some of the songs mentioned in this book, many of which I had listened to before but never really heard.
For instance, The Drifters and The Shangri-La's, who I have always thought of as the makers of somewhat enjoyable but not particularly interesting old pop songs. Marcus has gotten me to really listen to their music for perhaps the first time. It has been a rewarding journey.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greil Marcus is really sailing here; it's his best since the Clinton/Elvis piece, maybe since "Mystery Train.'' The section on the Beatles/Buddy Holly alone is astonishing - some of his best writing, particularly surprising since Greil's more a Dylan guy. The closing on Amy Winehouse/Phil Spector is great, too. Whether or not you accept his thesis - and hey, it's just a thesis - he pulls things together well. Certainly makes you think - and think again, about just why "Sergeant Pepper'' meant so much at the time, even if maybe not so much, since, and his riff on Lennon and the boy's version of "Money'' is spectacular (so is the section on Cyndi Lauper and "Money Changes Everything.'') It's easy to complain about Marcus' excesses, but he's dialed in on this, which may just be the book he was always meant to write.

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Popular music, like sport, is heavily historicised with a community of followers who have what can be seen as a near obsessive engagement with its stories, its developments, its stars and anti-stars. It celebrates itself in halls of fame, annual self-congratulatory shindigs, self-proclaimed stylistic revolutions and for all its diversity a view of itself as logically progressing from the then to the now (as with the passage of time those revolutions become less revolutionary as we find stylistic links to the past…..), teleologically justifying its present. If that’s your view of the history of ‘rock ‘n’ roll’, a view Marcus opens this fabulous book with by listing, over four pages, the inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame in order of their induction, then either this book is not for you (because it rejects that notion of history) or perhaps this is just the book you need to move beyond celebratory narrative to a social and cultural history of a musical form. Thanks to Goodreads for the giveaway that brought this to me in hardback.

The history of rock ‘n’ roll is dominated by a ‘great man’ (with women admitted, but not too many and not too often) version of history – the one where an heroic figure strides across the historical stage shaping and determining what is to follow, with a minor role to play for institutional history – but even there the ‘great man’ model is hard to escape. Thankfully, there is a small but persistent strand that disputes this approach. Some of Greil Marcus’s work has a special place in that disputatious mode: this is most obvious in his superb Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century linking punk to Dada, Surrealism and Situationism (and few others along the way) without falling into the modernist trap that is an elevated, independent avant garde.

Whereas Lipstick Traces has a broadly linear form, this history of rock ‘n’ roll takes the form of a network, where the genre’s forms, ecumenically defined, and its history takes the form of mesh of links between songs, styles and performers spreading out in unexpected ways, renewing, reviving and redefining popular music since the middle of the 1950s. Some of the ten songs are well known (‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’ for instance) while others are close to obscure and one less a song than a performance art piece. But, each of them reveals a network of styles, artists, connections and associations that influence the way we understand and hear popular music. In a sense then this is an experiential history, exploring the phenomenology of audienceship – the ways we make links in how we understand what we hear and therefore understand and makes sense of what we’re hearing. It is about that hint at a motif from James Brown’s ‘It’s a Man’s World’ in the opening bars of Alicia Keys’ ‘Falling’, or in Mindy Smith’s shift to a minor key in her cover of ‘Jolene’ (made more evocative by Dolly Parton providing backing vocals on at least one of Smith’s recordings of the song). It is, as such, a book that explores the bases of musical affectivity, our preterconscious, in some ways emotional, hearing of and responses to the songs we love (or not).

As should be expected, this network approach shows itself not only in the content but in the presentation. With each of the ten songs (there are nine song-focussed chapters, one of which turns on two songs) marking the beginning of network of styles, personalities, cultural or musicological associations there are times when the background to that network needs to be set up before both the song and its web of significance can begin to make sense, so in some cases it may be several pages before the song makes an appearance, but when it does, it makes sense: Marcus is too skilful and experienced a writer to let us flail, and the dominant ‘great man’ approach too powerful for both Marcus and his publishers (Yale UP) to assume that it would be possible to leap right in without, in some cases, the context being spelled out and association set up. There are places of poetic association: in one paragraph he draws to musical association between Amy Winehouse and the Shangri-Las (a link Winehouse herself made in interviews), and via Winehouse’s musical background The Shangri-Las to Dinah Washington, Theolonius Monk, Ray Charles and Mahalia Jackson – and two pages later ‘Back to Black’ to ‘The Leader of the Pack’, as (in my reading) mournful anthems for the wrong guy living the wrong life. The book is packed with much more subtle and meaningful associations that function not so much as eureka experiences but quiet moments of realisation that creep up to make clear affective associations and the underground weave that is popular music’s foundation.

The sorts of links Marcus builds, the networks he constructs/reveals (depending on your view of what historians do; from my point of view, we construct) rely on deep and extensive knowledge of a field, often based on deep immersion and years of engagement (as well as daunting filing systems). There are intellectual and conceptual similarities to Lipstick Traces in the exploration of subterranean cultural flows and ephemeral elements of an already ephemeral cultural form, but this is much less linear analysis. The 10 songs, nine chapters and one instrumental interlude weave into and across each other, linking to events, forms, personalities in the popular music world as well to events, cultural forms and personalities from beyond that world, most forcefully in ‘Guitar Drag’ linking artist (and track producer) Christian Marclay, the novelist Colson Whitehead and the racist murder of James Byrd by John King, Russell Brewer and Shawn Berry in Jasper, Texas in 1998. Of all the content, ‘Guitar Drag’ is perhaps the most unsettling in a history of rock ‘n’ roll, and the one that perhaps most forcefully asserts the genre’s significance.

This is a book to be read slowly, to be wondered over and about and to leave with a richer understanding of the affectivity of audienceship, of music’s forms, links and architecture and of popular musicology. Or, it might be that it leads to a whole bunch of quirky links and factoids to stun in the local pub quiz, depending on your appreciation of Marcus’s historiography. Most especially, it is a book for the open-minded music aficionado, and nothing like the official, ‘great man’ version of rock history with its heroic innovators and genre changing stars; if you take this to heart, ‘great man’ musical history will be a goner.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Greil Marcus may be the most pretentious living music writer on the planet. He has a masturbatory quality that only exacerbates his self-indulgent insistence about the music he prattles on endlessly about. He writes in a completely free associational way that fills you with obscure intellectual references but never manages to come back to any convincing point whatsoever.

That is what makes his new book, The History of Rock N' Roll in Ten Songs so utterly insufferable. The author takes a completely self-centered approach to the history of rock. Gone are the chronological listings of performers and dates. Instead he takes ten songs that he sees as representing the essence of his straight up narcissism and describes their hold on him and him alone. In the chapters for each song, he tells about the first recording of the song but will also mention later versions claiming how they became timeless in his solipsistic world.

All of the songs he mentions are puzzling. "Shake That Action" by the Flamin' Groovies is in my opinion, one of the great trash heap songs with little redeeming value. But the author, and many other contrarian music snobs, obviously disagree with anyone with taste. Most importantly, Marcus makes his points about the immortality of the song numbingly redundant without coming close to convincing anyone with something better to do. Other songs like the Buddy Holly's "Crying , Waiting, Hoping" and the overplayed cliche "In The Still of The Night" are equally generic choices and their averageness is easily dismissed. Marcus does not fail to forget his later random obsessions, paying special attention to "Transmission" by Joy Division. The author in his typically cretinous style brings mediocrity to these songs while saying...Yes, the performances are awesome but the meaning and emotion of the actual songs is also part of the magic of my personal brand of treacly rock 'n' roll prose.

It is what it is that we still have writers like Greil Marcus around. The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs can be read as either an incomprehensible autobiography of Greil himself or a byzantine example of faux-literary ramblings. Either way, it is a fatuous and regrettable read. The one thing I would recommend is to listen to the song before reading its gushing hagiography in this bombastic perversion of all things sacred. Most of these songs and recordings can be found on YouTube but Jesus, at this point why even bother.

[Allan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this as an Audible Daily Deal, and given that I am a fan of music bios and trivia, I thought that it would be right up my street, particularly with the glowing recommendation given by narrator Henry Rollins, who I have a lot of respect for as an artist.

Marcus set out to write this book without directly referencing the big hitters in rock n roll history, and managed to do so aside from bringing The Beatles into the frame. I enjoyed the chapter on Joy Division, but to be honest found much of the writing too dense, and the music references too obscure to gain any real enjoyment from the book.

[Spiral · Rating 2 out of 5]

Σημαντικός μουσικογραφιάς ο Marcus, όμως ετούτος εδώ ο τόμος είναι τουλάχιστον άνισος. Τα κεφάλαια Instrumental Break, Money/Money Changes Everything και This Magic Moment είναι πολύ καλά, όμως στο υπόλοιπο βιβλίο κυριαρχούν βιαστικά συμπεράσματα και forced διαπιστώσεις, ντε και καλά profound χωρίς να δικαιολογείται από πουθενά όλο αυτό το απύθμενο βάθος. Η σύγκριση με τα Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop και 33 Revolutions per Minute που επίσης διάβασα πρόσφατα είναι αναπόφευκτη και δυστυχώς αδυσώπητη. Oh well.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, my meander through this rhapsodic book took a couple years; don't let that stop you from reading Greil Marcus or this short book of his in particular.
I love that one of the ten + essays concerns my cousin Charles Wolff's big hit with The Brains, "Money Changes Everything," a great song by Tom Gray, especially paired in comparison with Barrett Strong, "Money (That's What I Want,") written by Berry Gordy. The last essay, about "To Know Him is to Love Him," twins the memory of Phil Spector with the legacy of Amy Winehouse, especially poignant in this week or two after Spector's death in prison.
Marcus' end notes are almost as good as his text, and all along, the essays point out the multimedia links to the rambling connections with songs, to the potential to find the songs on YouTube. I'll be rereading, and referring to these essays, again.
Highly recommended.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Greil Marcus is a brilliant writer who is deeply in love with rock and roll music.

This book is composed of essays focusing on certain relatively obscure songs that Marcus believes embody the essence of rock 'n roll. It a fascinating journey.

I would recommend to anyone that they read the essay "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" which begins with a discussion of Buddy Holly, moves to the Beatles and returns to Holly.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Several of Marcus' recent books have been relatively minor, if still engaging and enlightening. I'm not sure I'm ready to call this latest a major work, but it's really one of the best things he's published, and one of the few books of his that I'd point to and say it's a fine place to get acquainted with his writing. The idea of breaking away from the traditional chronological retelling of rock'n'roll history isn't especially original, but Marcus' commitment to his approach is unwavering and, I think, successful.

Among the treats here is the presence of the Beatles, of whom Marcus hasn't previously written at this length. They're all over the chapters on "Money"/"Money Changes Everything" and "Crying, Waiting, Hoping." Those two sections and the middle "Instrumental Break" are the heart of the book. And despite what the index tells me, it doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of Elvis and Dylan here.

Elsewhere, many of Marcus' longtime touchstones make brief or not-so-brief appearances: American Hot Wax, Arlene Smith and the Chantels, lots of other Los Angeles doo wop, Little Richard, Nik Cohn's wonderful Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom, Robert Johnson, and one of his favorite little artifacts, the "Olympia, birthplace of rock" designation on Kill Rock Stars releases from the early '90s.

I was also delighted that Marcus, in the notes, calls Devin McKinney's Magic Circles "The best book on the Beatles." He's right. It's the only Beatles book that forces a truly fresh look at the group, just as Greil Marcus, at his best, demands a different kind of engagement with whatever he happens to be writing about.

[Kenneth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I used to read Marcus in Rolling Stone all the time, back in th' day, I never got around to LIPSTICK TRACES. And then, for some reason, my wife got this History from the library. She only dipped into it before handing it off to me, and I only read the first chapter and a few pages later on, before I too put it on the "return" stack. Marcus is one hell of a stylist, and obviously someone who knows his subject matter intimately... maybe too intimately for a non-fanatical music fan to appreciate. Half the time I didn't know what he was going on about, although I'd concede he was writing eloquently and affectingly.

I think this is the kind of book where you need to relax and immerse yourself in it, with handy access to the music he's referencing, in order to get the full benefit of his passion and insights. Failing that, I found it a little bit fascinating, a little bit frustrating, and ultimately just not quite rewarding enough for me to commit to reading the whole darned thing.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a lot of problems with this book and finished it out of sheer stubbornness. The premise is great, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The writing is thoroughly pretentious. I think what annoyed me the most was that it took these songs and just analyzed them to death. Paragraphs talking about one line of a song. It reminded me of everything I hated about English class in high school. I know some people like that, but it is not my thing at all.

It could have used some serious editing too. Some of the chapters just went on and on. and the margins are HUGE which makes it even more obvious that a lot of the book was just filler. I think this would have made a great long-form essay on Rolling Stone or Slate or something like that.

One thing it did do was pique my interest in some of the songs discussed that I haven't heard. I will definitely be seeking those out.

Perhaps I am just not the intellectual audience this is written for. It sure misses the mark for this rock n roll fan, that's for sure.

[Samantha]

This isn't the type of book I would normally read, but it's been on my shelf for a few years now, and the Read Harder challenge convinced me to finally pick it up.
I liked having each of the ten songs placed into a larger context beyond the song or even the band that was being discussed. Marcus frequently included film in his analysis of how influential each of the ten songs was, which was interesting. I do think that I'm not quite the level of music buff that Marcus intended his reader to be. But he did a great job of tracing the line of just one song throughout musical history. Throughout the book, his connections go as far back as the tale of John Henry and goes up to Obama's inauguration up Amy Winehouse's death.
But my favorite section was about Buddy Holly's "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" and the trend of having a general named woman in a song like Holly's infamous Peggy Sue, and so on.
I learned a lot, but I do feel a lot went over my head.

[Kirsti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fever dream by a very knowledgeable person. I knew it was about ten relatively obscure songs, but I didn't know that Marcus would spend so much time describing movies (fiction and documentary) and art in addition to music. Also, he spends pages developing alternate histories of what might of happened if certain musicians hadn't died young. The book is so laundry-listy in places that it's tough to read on a Kindle.

At the end of the book, Marcus thanks YouTube, since nearly all the songs and scenes that he describes are available there. One of the reasons I enjoyed this book so much is that I could call up the songs he writes about and listen to them immediately before reading about them.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book through a Goodreads First-Reads giveaway.

This book was hard for me to rate. It had some brilliant moments but there was also a lot that made me question if I was the wrong reader. I expected the book to take ten songs and tie them together to tell the history of rock 'n' roll and it didn't do that for me. It took ten songs, plus a lot of other songs, some movies, some history, and a lot of random stuff, and made it into a book. It never all came together for me. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the book, because I do, I just wasn't able to lose myself in it and it seemed very scattered to me.

[ash · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF-ing at 15%. Writing about music is, without exaggeration, one of the most difficult kinds of writing you can do and even if a writer is very good at it, stylistically it's often still an acquired taste. This one is just not at all to mine, even if I could feel the potential rumbling around in it.

[Hapzydeco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting premise - analyze ten rock history songs. A gaggle of musical genre, but without any chronological order. Greil Marcus’ interesting antidotes provide for an entertaining and informative book.

[Coffeenoir (David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really a difficult book to make it through, more like a stream of consciousness account of the authors meandering. I had to go back and reread so many passages to see if they even were making sense or if I had just zoned out for a few pages.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shit, he's wonderful. The writing here is top-notch, as good as he's ever been. Some wonderful shaggy-dog tales and erudite analysis - all in one.

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you could pick any 10 songs that define the history of rock and roll, what would they be?

For me, it would probably be songs like "Thunder Road," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "Billy Jean," "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," "Stand By Me," "I Wanna Be Sedated," "Up On the Roof," "Heroes," "A Day in the Life," and "Like a Rolling Stone."

Of course, I could go on and on. Ten songs isn't nearly enough to encapsulate rock and roll. As good as I think the above list is, I've left out Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Eddie Cochran, Ritchie Valens, Roy Orbison, Little Richard, The Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Kinks, The Beach Boys, Queen, Aerosmith, Elton John, Janis Joplin, Fleetwood Mac, Prince, U2, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix, Billy Joel, The Police, Neil Young, REM, Elvis Costello, The Jam, The Smiths, The Cure, and countless other legendary performers. That's why Rolling Stone has a list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

In the introduction, Marcus has a great quote from Pete Townsend that perfectly sums up his approach in this book:

“It’s like saying, ‘Get all the pop music, put it into a cartridge, put the cap on it and fire the gun.’ Whether those ten or 15 numbers sound roughly the same. You don’t care what period they were written in, what they’re all about. It’s the bloody explosion that they create when you let the gun off. It’s the event. That’s what rock and roll is.”

So Marcus isn't looking for the key songs in the historical narrative of rock and roll (you can go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland for that). He's looking for songs that left an indelible and recurring mark on our culture, both personal and collective.

Here's Marcus's list of 10 songs: "Shake Some Action," "Transmission," "In the Still of the Night," "All I Could Do Was Cry," "Crying, Waiting, Hoping," "Money (That's What I Want)", "Money Changes Everything," "This Magic Moment," "Guitar Drag," and "To Know Him Is To Love Him." Marcus also includes a bonus chapter in which he imagines what legendary bluesman Robert Johnson's life might have been like if he hadn't died in 1938.

It's a quirky list. The songs are not even the most popular from the artists represented. For instance, "All I Could Do Was Cry", a song from Etta James, was not as big a hit as "At Last!", and "Transmission," a song from Joy Division, isn't as well known as their hit "Love Will Tear Us Apart." But this obviously isn't a popularity contest. The songs "Shake Some Action" and "This Magic Moment" seem insignificant in comparison to the others, although they still sound distinctive. I wouldn't even characterize "Guitar Drag" as a song; it's more performance art.

Still, I love the book, and I commend Marcus for explaining the historical and cultural impact of these songs. For two nights I was wrapped up in all the pop culture references Marcus could throw at me. He's an incisive critic, a knowledgeable music historian, a savvy enthusiast of pop culture, and a really clever writer.

Nowadays it's so easy to find digital music on YouTube and Spotify, so I played each of the 10 songs several times to see whether I agreed with Marcus while I was reading the book. Often, I did. Even when Marcus failed to convince me of the importance of a song, I was thoroughly entertained by his rapturous take on music history.

[Mike Mikulski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a list of top songs or artists but rather essays on what makes a great rock and roll song.

From that perspective Marcus provides some great insights. What makes a great rock and roll song? It may be an infectious hook in the Flamin' Groovies Shake Some Action or the creative genius of a tortured artist such as Ian Curtis of Joy Division's Transmission. It may be a compelling vocal delivery like the Doo Wop artists Fred Parris and the Five Satins song In the Still of the Night or Etta James and Beyonce's renditions of All I Could Do Is Cry. It may be universal themes of desire and greed as laid out in Money (That's What I Want) or in Cyndi Lauper and Barret Strong's versions of Money Changes Everything, both who passed on the message with not just lyrics but vocal inflection and style. It may be a common man's perspective like Buddy Holly's, Waiting, Hoping, Crying, the Beatles remained passionate about this song as late as the Let It Be/Get Back sessions.

Rock can be a powerful tool to make a statement and illustrate vile injustice as in the avant garde recording Guitar Drag that parallels the 1998 horrible lynching/dragging murder of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, TX by white supremacists. Rock can take a saccharine lyric like Phil Spector's To Know Him is to Love Him and give it new meaning when you learn it was taken from the words on Spector's father's tombstone or with the vocal perspective delivered by Amy Winehouse.

Marcus describes how rock songs grow and evolve over time describing how single songs were changed and re-adapted over time and extrapolates what blues legend Robert Johnson's life might have been if he had not died in 1938 at 27.

At first Marcus's style annoyed me by the way it jumped around and introduced references in an almost random way. But as I settled in I found the references rich and worth looking into further, just like a favorite record may take a few initial listenings to warm to and to hear fascinating complexity.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greil Marcus is one of the great cultural critics writing in America. There seems to be very little music that Marcus has not listened too, books he has not read and movies he has not seen. He is able to take this knowledge and draw striking comparisons across various genres to enlighten the reader about the alchemy that occurs as interesting art bounces back and forth in time and place to create something more evocative than its parts. In this book Marcus focuses on 10 songs, actually more like a hundred to draw linkages between reader and listener that excites your intellectual curiosity and makes you want to dive down the myriad rabbit holes of cultural cross pollination. If you like music, books or the history of modern America something in this collection will strike a chord.

[Joe Natoli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had really high hopes for this...but Marcus/ writing style, to me at least, is obtuse, clinical, studious...like someone trying to impress a college professor with the language they use. Found myself constantly looking for the emotion inside the music here...and it was nowhere to be found.

[Cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading for my diss - felt like homework:(

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably Greil Marcus’ best book - the man is a master at following the threads of our culture and highlighting the forces at work - all through the lens of rock and roll. The chapter on Buddy Holly and the Beatles is worth the price of the book - it choked me up and brought tears to my eyes! Brilliant! And the imagined long life of blues man Robert Johnson proves that Marcus would be an astounding novelist on top of everything else. This book is highly recommended.