Auambabuluba balambambú. La edad de oro del rock and roll

by Nik Cohn

Nadie, tras medio siglo desde su publicación, ha escrito algo así. No al menos con esa frescura. Tampoco con una honestidad tan despiadada y, al mismo tiempo, divertida. David Bowie, Simon Reynolds, Greil Marcus o Jarvis Cocker, entre muchos otros, lo consideran uno de sus libros favoritos, una obra aun hoy nunca superada. The Guardian, por su parte y con letras doradas, lo nombra el Gran Libro sobre Pop. Cohn nos dice que está ahí, en primera línea; es testigo de todo y ha venido a contárnoslo. Es un fan escribiendo sobre su obsesión, el pop, con una pulsión y erudición tremendas. También con una pasión que es pura y cristalina. «¿Qué le falta a este libro? —se pregunta Kiko Amat en el prólogo a esta edición–. No mucho, a decir verdad. No mucho. Awopbopalobop Alopbamboom es puro totalitarismo adolescente, eso sí, y como tal hay que leerlo. El Año Cero llegó, y en un flash se marchó, parece decirnos. Cohn habla de las raíces, de Elvis y James Brown, el Merseybeat y los mods, pero le pone el cerrojo a la era y al género en 1968, asegurando que la época dorada había terminado, que tanto Beatles como Stones estaban acabados, geriátricos, arterioescleróticos, pura carne de anuncio de detergente, y que desde entonces solo podía haber degeneración, pretenciosidad, impureza y tedio. Me maravillaba con cada frase, cada staccato, cada comparación, cada maldito epigrama de Cohn. Este es el mejor libro sobre pop jamás escrito, pensé entonces, cuando no había leído otro. Y lo sigo pensando ahora, cuando he leído todos los demás».

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Art, Cultural, Rock N Roll, Counter Culture

404 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1969

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

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

"[Pop music] is teenage property and it mirrors everything that happens to teenagers in this time, in this American 20th century. It is about clothes and cars and dancing, it's about parents and high school and being tied and breaking loose, it's about getting sex and getting rich and getting old . . . " -- on page 145

Author Cohn - probably best known in the U.S. for his 1970's magazine article (although the content was later found to be largely fabricated) that fueled the blockbuster Saturday Night Fever - presents a collection of circa-1968 music essays in a book with a Tutti Frutti-inspired title. (Yeah, I'm not even going to attempt to type its actual appellation here.) While there were some nice chapters on the Beatles and Rolling Stones - plus appropriately laudatory sections on rock's vanguard such as Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Chuck Barry - there were times I was lost at sea with the acts that will mean very little to an American audience (Tommy Steele and Sandie Shaw, anyone?) and the author's occasional pretentiousness and/or misguided opinions. I mean, a guy who is rather insulting about the disparate talents of Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, and Dusty Springfield (to name only three artists who take some unusually severe shellacking), or guesses that the Doors and Led Zeppelin (both now staples on classic rock playlists) won't really have any staying power lacks credibility fifty year later.

[Ben Winch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can be a crybaby, sure, but rarely do I cry over rock-music writing. Still, one night as I read aloud to my wife Nik Cohn socked it to me:

Ireland was where I had grown up, and Rock the main reason I had left. My own raising had been in the Protestant section of Derry, where Bill Haley and Elvis were not mentioned. Then one evening I’d gone astray; found myself on the fringes of Bogside, the Catholic slum. Across the street I had heard Little Richard singing Tutti Frutti on a coffee-bar jukebox. Watched the local teen hoods – Teddy boys, they were called – with their duckass haircuts and drainpipe jeans, jiving in plain day. Had my first glimpse of sex, danger and secret magic. And I had never been healthy since.

What was it about the Teds that so overwhelmed me? Glamour, yes, and wildness. But something else besides, which stirred me even deeper – the force of self-invention. By all the logics of birth – religion, politics, economics – these boys were nothing. Papist scum, delinquent flotsam and jetsam, with no future or hope. Yet that wasn’t the way they strutted. Through the power of Rock, they seemed transformed into heroes. In every flash of fluorescent sock or velvet cuff, every leer and flaunt of their pompadours, they beggared the Fates. Made reality irrelevant.

It was a seductive picture.

Seductive – yes! Probably there’s never been a writer so seduced by “Rock” (note the capital) as Nik Cohn, or at least so able to convey the full force of that seduction. “The force of self-invention”, “Made reality irrelevant” – I dunno about you but that stuff gets me, in the gut. Please God (or Little Richard) get me out of here! What more can we ask of a song than that, for three minutes, it answers that need? I don’t know what it was that got me bawling – something in the prose, sure (“sex, danger and secret magic”), like it always is, but it went deeper. Those teen hoods from the grey Irish provinces in the fifties, empowered and inspired by a flamboyant gay black man from Macon, Georgia. Knowing that Keith Richards dates his own Rock conversion to “Tutti Fruiti”, and loving the Georgia Peach like I do, suddenly (again) it all made sense, how rock ’n’ roll changed the world, how it bridged gaps, how it educated.

But back to the prose. Probably, there’s never been another Rock writer like Nik Cohn. His style – as opposed to Nick Kent’s or Lester Bangs’s – never really caught on, maybe because it relied on brevity, poetry, mythology, not on grandstanding and faux-anarchic flourishes.

On Elvis (written, like all of this, in 1968, with the King in semi-retirement):

So Elvis now is a Godhead – unseen, untouchable, more than human. The demon lover has turned into a father, an all-powerful figure who can rule a fan’s life without actually having to be there. His remoteness is a positive advantage, his present badness is irrelevant, and there’s no reason why it should ever end. Worship is a habit that’s hard to break.

On Phil Spector:

He was demoniac. He’d take one good song and add one good group and then he’d blow it all up skyhigh into a huge mock-symphony, bloated and bombasted into Wagnerian proportions. Magnificent, chaotic din: he’d import maybe three pianos, five percussion, entire battalions of strings. Drums and bass underneath like volcanoes exploding. Tambourines by the hundredweight. And he looked down from his box and hurled thunderbolts. Added noise upon noise, explosion on top of explosion. Until it wasn’t the song that counted, the voices, nothing like that but only the sound, Spectorsound, and the impetus. Momentum, lurching and crushing and bursting, and it couldn’t possibly be stopped.

On the Stones:

No question, of course, the Stones were more loutish than they had to be but then, after all, each pop generation must go further than the one before, must feel as if it’s doing everything for the first time. Always, it must be arrogant and vain and boorish. Otherwise, it’s not being healthy and the whole essential teen revolt gets dammed up, that whole bit of breaking away and making it by oneself, and then it’s stored up in frustration, it twists itself and, most likely, it comes out ugly later on.

I could go on. There are so many quotable bits. Eddie Cochran “seemed less a specific person than an identikit of the essential rocker, a generalised fifties blur”, and yet (and I love this) he gets a whole chapter, where Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis have to share one together. Or this, on Rock-precursor Johnny Ray:

He’d hunch up tight into himself, choke on his words, gasp, stagger, beat his fist against his breast, squirm, fall forward on to his knees and, finally, burst into tears. He’d gag, tremble, half strangle himself. He’d pull out every last outrageous ham trick in the book and he would be comic, embarrassing, painful, but still he worked because, under the crap, he was in real agony, he was burning, and it was traumatic to watch him. He’d spew himself up in front of you and you’d freeze, you’d sweat, you’d be hurt yourself. You’d want to look away and you couldn’t.

Frail as he was, thin and deaf and sickly, his fans would be twisted into paroxysms of maternal hysteria by him and they’d half kill him. All round, it was the kind of orgiastic exhibition that simply hadn’t happened before and it was entirely pop. The music wasn’t, the atmosphere was.

I mean, phew, that first part’s like Hemingway describing a bullfight! And “paroxysms of maternal hysteria”? Now that’s a phrase. Word for word, in Rock writing, I don’t know if it’s been topped. Of course there are flat parts here and there, and like any true poet Nik Cohn seems barely to grasp his own significance at times, and you can picture him at that kitchen table in a rented house on the west coast of Ireland thinking, “What the hell, they’re paying me, I might as well write it down.” “Rock in the late ’60s,” he says in his old man’s preface, “was still a spontaneous combustion. Nobody thought in terms of long-term strategies; hanging on once the thrill had worn off would have been inconceivable.” So he writes as if no-one might write of his subjects again. He seals them in a time capsule, with (as he admits himself, since he had no references at hand) scant regard for facts.

By ’68, my options were plain. Either I could keep the faith as laid down by those first Teddy Boys in Derry. Stay true to Rock as a doomed romance; a passionate beating against the tides; a moment. Or I would shortly be very bored. Rich no doubt, and outrageously pampered. But a traitor at heart.

That’s what I believed, at any rate, when I was twenty-two. So I came to the house in Connemara, with the March rains lashing and the wild waves pounding on the rocks below, the perfect dramatic setting. And I started to write my farewells.

My purpose was quite simple: to catch the feel, the pulse of Rock, as I had found it. [...] What I was after was guts, and flash, and energy, and speed. Those were the things I’d treasured in the music. Those were the things that I tried to reflect as I left.

I could leave it there, on a sentimental note, but there’s one last thing. I mentioned Nick Kent and Lester Bangs, and in one respect Nik Cohn’s not so different to them. Rock, to all three, is inextricably linked with trash, and there’s something in that which I can’t help but revel in. (Yes, as Cohn disparages the Beatles: “So all right, the Beatles make good music, they really do, but since when was pop anything to do with good music?” And Dylan: “In my own life, the Monotones have meant more in one line of Book of Love than Dylan did in the whole of Blonde on Blonde – what hope could there be for me?”) Cos that’s what it’s all about, this pop thing, ain’t it? The opposite of some fusty professor with his canon. To be able to love the Monotones more than Blonde on Blonde, that’s freedom. I won’t even say artistic – just freedom, of thought, of identity.

Rock ’n’ roll was very simple music. All that mattered was the noise it made, its drive, its aggression, its newness. All that was taboo was boredom.

The lyrics were mostly non-existent, simple slogans one step away from gibberish. This wasn’t just stupidity, simple inability to write anything better. It was a kind of teen code, almost a sign language, that would make rock entirely incomprehensible to adults.

In other words, if you weren’t sure about rock, you couldn’t cling to its lyrics. You either had to accept its noise at face value or you had to drop out completely.

I don’t claim, of course, that everything that Nik Cohn says is gospel. His view of soul, for example, doesn’t jibe with me at all. But for what he knows and loves he is (or was) the best correspondent around, for his passion, wit, vision, style, verve. They say he was the first of the modern rock journalists. I’m not sure, but it would explain why he’s so singular. It was unexplored territory when he struck out in it, and the awe of that comes through in his telling. Along with Peter Guralnick (and for opposite reasons) he’s my favourite rock writer. The urtext.

Very likely these early years are the best that pop has yet been through. Anarchy moved in. For thirty years you couldn’t possibly make it unless you were white, sleek, nicely-spoken and phoney to your toenails – suddenly now you could be black, purple, moronic, delinquent, diseased or almost anything on earth and you could still clean up. Just so long as you were new, just so long as you carried excitement.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the essential titles with respect to the history of rock n' roll. What makes this book interesting is really the writer Nik Cohn. Hardcore Mod, a friend of Pete Townshend, and is actually the Pinball Wizard! Also if that is not enough, he wrote Saturday Night Fever. The twist in that narrative is though the story is based on a Brooklyn boy and the disco movement is actually based on Cohn's British Mod years.

Nevertheless, this is a fascinating book via the eyes and ears of Nik Cohn. Incredibly witty, and totally insightful. This is music writing on its highest level.

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Just re-read the book, and it is even better than before! Kimley and I will be discussiing this book for our May 1 BOOK MUSIK.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I WANT TO “HOLD YOUR HAND” - a short account of how far you could go in the 50s and early 60s

In the 50s and early 60s mainstream pop music was supposed to be fairly tame, with Wake Up Little Susie being about as risque as the radio was prepared to play you, but of course there were other markets where a certain licence was allowed. For instance – how about this delightful lyric “Sixty Minute Man” by Billy Ward, and sung by his group The Dominoes in 1951:

If you don't believe I'm all that I say
Come up and take my hand
When I let you go you'll cry "Oh yes,"
"He's a sixty-minute man”

Chorus

There'll be 15 minutes of kissing
Then you'll holler "please don't stop"
There'll be 15 minutes of teasing
And 15 minutes of squeezing
And 15 minutes of blowing my top!

A big R&B hit and, somewhat surprisingly, a crossover pop hit (No 19). There would have been some tut-tutting I think. And I was quite surprised when I actually listened to the lyric of Sh-Boom, the great doo wop from 1954 :

Now every time I look at you
Something is on my mind
If you do what I want you to
Baby, we'd be so fine oooooh
Life could be a dream!! (sh-boom)
If I could take you up in paradise up above!! (sh-boom) ….

Now what could he have on his mind which would lead to that paradise for his young lady?

We’re familiar, though with the stereotype of r&b with its uncouth turns of phrase :

Get out of that bed and wash your face and hands
Get out in the kitchen, make some noise with the pots and pans

(Shake, Rattle & Roll)

And we know that these lyrics were often cleaned up by white producers. Here's the Smiley Lewis original of "One Night" :

One night of sin
Is what I'm now paying for
The things I did and I saw
Would make the earth stand still

And here's the Elvis remake

One night with you
Is what I’m now praying for
The things we two could plan
Would make my dreams come true

(in fairness Elvis did record the original lyrics, but the clean version was the single).

Then again, pop music being just as contradictory as people are, sometimes the references were right in your face – Elvis again :

Don’t, don’t, that’s what you say
Each time that I hold you this way,
When I feel like this and I want to kiss you,
Baby, don’t say don’t.

“This way” – what way would that be?

And Brenda lee

My baby whispers in my ear
Mmm, sweet nothin's
He knows the things I like to hear
Mmm, sweet nothin's
Things he wouldn't tell nobody else
Secret, baby,I keep ‘em to myself

There was a continual subversive attempt by songwriters and singers to as it were smuggle sex into the charts, under the noses of the censors, in the manner of the young girl opening the bedroom window for her night visitor as Grandma drowses in the front room. The Beatles managed it in their first No 1 :

Last night I said these words to my girl
I know you never even try, girl
Come on (come on) come on (come on)
Please, please me, whoa yeah
Like I please you

You don't need me to show the way, love
Why do I always have to say love
I don't wanna sound complaining
But you know there's always rain
In my heart (in my heart)
I do all the pleasing
With you, it's so hard to reason
With you, whoa yeah
Why do you make me blue

It's not deathless poetry for sure, but once again, it’s not hard to surmise what that’s all about. Perhaps not too surprisingly a lot of these coded songs about sex are complaints that Andrew Marvell would have instantly recognised:

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may

The Kinks put it more tersely:

I'm so tired, tired of waiting
Tired of waiting for you
I'm so tired, tired of waiting
Tired of waiting for you

I was a lonely soul
I had nobody till I met you
But you keep-a me waiting
All of the time
What can I do?
It's your life
And you can do what you want
Do what you like
But please don't keep-a me waiting
Please don't keep-a me waiting

But sometimes there’s a joyful celebration of what had in those days to be a little hurried, flurried and surreptitious. There’s the Platters singing “you’ve got the magic touch”(!) and there’s the beehived Ronettes :

And when he walked me home
Da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron

I remember some stupid interviewer asking Veronica what da doo ron ron meant and she said "Well, you know, everybody knows what da doo ron ron means. he walks her home and then da doo ron ron. You know?"

And finally here’s a splendid use of the common food-as-sex metaphor from the mid 60s. I love this one:

He likes bread and butter
He likes toast and jam
That`s what his baby feeds him
He`s her loving man

Well, I like bread and butter
I like toast and jam
That`s what baby feeds me
I`m her loving man

Well, I got home early one morning
Much to my surprise
She was eating chicken and dumplings
With some other guy

No more bread and butter!
No more toast and jam!
He found his baby eating
With another man!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMlSS8...

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the few heirlooms in my family is a set of books about the First World War by Frank R. Cana. They were dashed out as soon as the war ended so include some factual errors, such as that Samsonov was killed by a German shell at Tannenberg, when, in fact, he committed suicide.

There are similar things here, a book about the history of 'pop' (somewhat loosely defined) written in 1969. Buddy Holly died in Iowa, not North Dakota, and Eddie Cochran did not die on the A1, he died on the A4 traveling back from Bristol to London. Such mistakes are to be expected from a book knocked out pre-internet in deepest Connemara, but it is odd that proof-reading missed them and none of the book's immediacy would be lost by correcting them now.

There are questions of interpretation besides those of fact. Cohn is often contemptuous of novelty acts but P.J. Proby, who built a short career on splitting his trousers onstage, gets extensive favourable coverage. Also, some of the trends discerned in pop turned out to be only partial. The Stones were not finished in late 1966, and from Beggar's Banquet onwards released a series of the greatest albums ever recorded.

But I suppose 'immediacy' is the keyword here. This is how pop looked in 1969 to a shrewd observer with extensive knowledge and a talent for writing. It would have looked different to him had he written any later. But, of course, then he wouldn't have been the first to write it.

[Alec Downie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bowie loved this book, as it was almost a documentary insight into the mind of teenage music fans, as well as a blueprint to stardom.

As irritating as Nik Cohen (and 1000's of other teens) can be when essentially writing a procession of judgemental statements saying, "I like" or "I don't like" or passing cutting comments about, levels of ugliness, it still is a fascinating read.

It is surprising he ever wrote another word after publishing this as it is brutal about individuals, and the industry is an unforgiving best, though much of the observations he makes about the future of "pop" or certain artist, were scarily accurate.

It is also easy in hindsight to pick holes in his assertions but this remains essential reading for anyone who wished how we got from blue Suede Shoes to Anarchy in the UK.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nik Cohn, a man who was short changed of letters at birth, in the year 1968 at 20 years of age, published the first serious critique of Rock (n Roll). At whizz bang speed he captures the relief of the last 15 years or so of popular music’s cultural climate, how key figures and influencers changed music for their musical descendants, and the naissance of Pop.

Everyone who mattered, from the great icons to those whose influence was behind the scenes, is mentioned in this book. Cohn manages to make this not interminably boring by inflicting his opinion with the incisiveness of a Cat O’Nine Tails, and much wit and humour besides. He also helps the reader digest this ancestry of music with his slice of life like narrative, cutting between the lives of bands and artists, his own brief meanderings, and the feeling of the teenyboppers (the hip thrusting young people) at the time.

Cohn engages the reader with his pithy recollections of various artists styles and quirks that will often give you a chuckle. Cohn calls it as he sees it, which is an invaluable asset in going through so many artists, and for that reason this book could never be written now. One such humourous example that would crucify him today was his naked admiration for Tina Turner’s posterior (and the flagrant ostentation of its prurience) as much as her singing talent.

If like me, you have the (mis)fortune not to have been alive for any of this, then this book makes an excellent starting point to piece together those big names you’ve heard about, and the 100s of others you haven’t.

If any of this seems remotely interesting, then I recommend you go and order it faster than you can say Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom!

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in 1969, this remains for me one of the best books about rock and pop music between 1955 and 1968. It documents the rise of Rock & Roll, the Beatles and the Stones, flower power, psychedelia and so on, all of which has been very well done by others, too, but Nic Cohn was *there* and had been there recently. Not only that, but he has a wonderful writing style and a sharp, incisive take on things.

Cohn's style is fairly hip, cool and opinionated. I like it a lot, like his summing up of the difference between music in Britain and the USA in the early 60s: "Elvis became a god. Tommy Steele made it to the London Palladium." Or, on hearing Little Richard: "The message went
'Tutti frutti, all rootie,
Tutti frutti, all rootie,
Tutti frutti, all rootie,
Awopbopaloobop alopbamboom.'
As a summing up of what pop is really all about, this is little short of masterly."

Or try this more extended example of his style, describing Tina Turner (remember this was in the mid 60s):
“I remember seeing them [Ike and Tina Turner] in a London Club one time and I was standing right under the stage. So Tina started whirling and pounding and screaming, melting by the minute, and suddenly she came thundering down on me like an avalanche, backside first, all that flesh shaking and leaping in my face. And I reared back in self-defence, all the front rows did, and then someone fell over and we all immediately collapsed in a heap, struggling and cursing, thrashing about like fish in a bucket.
“When I looked back up again, Tina was still shaking above us, her butt was still exploding, and she looked down on us in triumph. So sassy, so smug and evil. She’d used her arse as a bowling ball, us as skittles, and she’d scored a strike.”

If you like that, you'll like the book. You certainly won't agree with everything he says because he's opinionated, slick, controversial and sometimes downright wrong, but I think this is a fascinating, funny and really enjoyable read. 45 years on it's still very rewarding and I recommend it very warmly.

[Darcie K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it! This is a survey of pop through, roughly, 1968, by the first believable rock critic. He writes clearly and is able to capture the excitement of each group and musical movement. He communicates effectively about music with the written word, something that not very many people can do well. If you're rusty on popular music from Elvis through Hendrix, this will catch you up and might even help you sound like you know what you're talking about.

[Kimley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tosh and I discuss this on our Book Musik Podcast.

Initially written in 1968 and revised in 1972, Awopbop… is one of the earliest books to tackle the history of rock ‘n’ roll, both in front of and behind the curtain, and this is back when everyone still thought it was a passing phase. Fifty years later and now this book is essential reading in the music writing cannon. Cohn developed a writing style that was completely in sync with his subject matter – brash, visceral, in your face, with loads of attitude. He doesn’t mince words and will happily tell you that The Beatles sucked. You may not agree with him but you’ll still be smiling as you attempt to muster up a few choice words of your own for the writer.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the birthplace of snark in music criticism. Thoroughly enjoyable thoughts by someone who thought rock music was dead and buried in 1972.

[Jason Kron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read several of the books on David Bowie's favorite books list and haven't cared for a few of them (this being one), which made me feel like I must be wrong. This is also praised by Greil Marcus (who I love), so I feel like I must be missing something. But this reads too much like a sloppy high school English paper, even if the subject matter is interesting. Maybe it's unfair that I read this at the same time as reading a music book by Lester Bangs, who is otherworldly good.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to this book as many did, I suspect, because it featured on that list of David Bowie's 100 favourite books which circulated a couple of years ago. (The list also is explored in a podcast, if you're interested.)

It makes sense that Bowie would be a fan of this work, given that it's an enthusiastic, bitchy exploration of early rock. After all, the work is titled for Little Richard's protean good-time yawp from 'Tutti Fruitti', the song that made Bowie "see God".



After a couple of years of looking, I found a copy replete with terrifying cover. It was written in 1968 and revised in 1972. Kit Lambert, erstwhile manager of The Who introduces the work and sets things rolling: the text covers a brief period in music, but one of supreme importance for everything rock-related that came afterwards. All that's covered is the period from Bill Haley's initial popularity until 1966 - that's it.

But that's all it has to do, because Awopbopaloobob Alopbamboom exists solely to highlight how transformational this scant 16-odd year space was. From the outset, Cohn makes the case that rock and roll, an amalgam of "coloured beat and white sentiment" – a combination that the UK in particular would run with (into the ground, some might say) - was a break from the safe, acceptable cocoon of doo-wop, of the crooners, and of the Second World War. Indeed, in exploring this theme, Cohn has an encyclopaedic knowledge, the sort that a stupidly young music freak has in spades. And it's tuned towards this new mixture:

...the musical ingredients that made pop happen – the white ballad tradition, the exhibitionism introduced by Johnnie Ray, the elaborate sentimentality of country and western, the amplified gut-beat of R&B...

Cohn pulls no punches in his retelling of the genesis and glory days of rock 'n' roll, and the insurgence of pop music. He describes 'Rock Around The Clock', considered the ur-single of the genre (though Ike Turner would have a problem with that) as "a dog" before noting that its lack of competition was what made it a success. He describes Elvis as the equivalent of losing one's virginity, of screaming at a concert as being as good as confession or psychoanalysis. But he's also aware of the inherent silliness of the genre, critiquing Little Richard - who he loves - as a creator of "non-songs", before noting that those same playroom tunes were liquid gold when it came to crowd reaction.

The history of rock and pop is seen Transatlantically. Cohn provides the main beats from the US, but observed from the perspective of a kid waiting for it to hit the UK, for the tour to finally tread local stages. We hear of Haley touring in his decline, of Domino and Checker, of the importance of Cliff Richard, Buddy Holly, of Dick Clark for fuck's sake. There's hints of Phil Spector's vileness at this early point, and a criticism of the rot at the heart of the '60s hippie movement that would (albeit outside the scope of this book) lead to Altamont and the death of the era.

There's a lot more in here – Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles are covered in depth, as is their role in making the genre "grow up", particularly in Dylan's case – so there's something in here no matter what music of the era you're interested in. It's told with a brashness and a certainty – and a bitchiness – that's impossible to deny.

In the end, this is a book that was written by a bloke in his 20s about music he loved. He still believed, when revising the work, that he'd seen the best there was and there would be. And it all comes back to that primal energy, that eruption that powered Little Richard and inspired Bowie. Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom. It doesn't matter what it means. What it makes you feel is more important.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

#DavidBowieBookClub No.5
Loved this! Albeit written in 1969, Cohn is passionate about music and gives us insights into the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Elvis, The Who but also lesser known artists like PJ Proby, The Animals, Sonny and Cher to name but a few.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was written near 50 years ago now, a series of short chapters - almost columns - by a young critic on the development of pop music. It's pop criticism for pop music, essentially, and not objective at all but that's the charm. Cohn's focus is always brought back to how pop music has affected him, how it makes him feel, and his judgment of the various successes and failures of groups and songs is intensely personal, and often has nothing to do with how well they've been received by other people in general. The book can in some places feel like a fleshed-out list rather than a sustained argument for anything, but the real appeal of this is in Cohn's voice, which is just so accomplished. It's a mix of passion and cynicism and really biting, skewering wit, and it's very entertaining to read.

[Guy Bartlett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Awopbop-aloobop alopbam-boom: Pop from the Beginning was written by 22-year old Nik Cohn in 1969 as a retrospective of the then-15 year history of pop music.

Cohn was writing just after the relative monoculture of pop music was cleaved into the different fandoms that would later redefine what was meant by the term. He sees pop music at a crossroads, and wonders about its future in a way that is both prophetic and quaint.

Broadly, posterity hasn’t been kind to Cohn’s conclusions.

He laments that Ray Charles “committed virtual hara-kiri by cutting a slop Country ‘n’ Western Ballad, ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’”. That was the first single off “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music”, now widely regarded as Charles’s finest work.

He says that “Lennon has heavy talent and McCartney really hasn’t”, calling ‘Yesterday’ “horribly mawkish”. That view of McCartney has staying power and some validity, but read this excellent piece by Ian Leslie about why Paul is underrated before taking Cohn’s view as gospel: https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/64-reaso...

He says the Rolling Stones “most likely won’t last”. Their next four albums were Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St, ranked 185th, 41st, 104th and 14th respectively on Rolling Stone’s most recent chart of the best albums ever. Not that this should be taken as gospel – but the Stones certainly rose to the challenge. They’re still touring more than 50 years later.

Generally speaking, he’s too pessimistic about the future. 1969 was famously a pretty good year for music. David Bowie released Space Oddity, and Led Zeppelin, the Velvet Underground and the Stooges all released self-titled debuts which paved the way for the Glam Rock, Heavy Metal, Art-Rock and Punk movements of the 70s. There was also Woodstock (though Cohn does identify Monterey ’67 as pop music’s last hurrah, so probably wouldn’t have been all that impressed).

Not that Cohn should have seen any of these individuals coming. But, weirdly for a love letter to pop music, he underestimates its power for reinvention and for capturing the public’s imagination. He writes that “entertainment always turns soft when times turn tough”, holding up Englebert Humperdinck and Tom Jones as examples. But the aggression of punk and the transgression of glam rock were responses to the toughness of mid-70s Britain. It’s strange that a man who so clearly understands that pop emerged from teenagers demanding a voice would fail to see that those demands would become louder when the voice they demanded was denied. Teen-age was never going to be a passing fad that would die off when the kids grew up; it was always bound to be a shape-shifting genie that couldn’t be put back in the bottle that would respond with new creativity and rage.

Cohn underestimates teenagers:

“The way I like it, pop is all teenage property and it mirrors everything that happened to teenagers in this time, in this American twentieth century. It is about clothes and cars and dancing, it’s about parents and highschool and being tied and breaking loose, it is about getting sex and getting rich and getting old … but after the Beatles and Bob Dylan, [bands] have got into Art and so they’ve wallowed in third-form poetries, fifth-hand philosophies, ninth-rate perceptions. And, who’ve lost out? Teenagers have”

There’s an assumption here the pop can be pretentious and intellectual, or it can be fast and loud and sexy, but it can’t be both, and if it’s the former, then it’s not for teenagers. Which certainly doesn’t align with today’s teenagers, and probably didn’t align with the teenagers of the late 60s either. Cohn should have realised this. If he didn’t, he is guilty of being ignorant of his own audience – the same charge he levels at contemporary musicians.

He does have a point about pop getting too credulous of its own mythology. He says that, for pop to survive, “musicians have to stop playing games, stop winking at each other’s cleverness … go back on the road and start reaching their audience all over again”. Which lots of musicians didn’t listen to, and we ended up with Prog Rock.

But pop music as collective expression is a delicate dance of leading and following. Ignore your audience and you disappear into your own navel. But listen to them exclusively and you end up with a parade of derivative sameness, the corporate computerisation of which Cohn is equally critical.

All of these criticisms concern Cohn’s failure to appreciate pop’s power and reach, which is only discernible in hindsight and for which he can be forgiven. But I struggle to forgive his adolescent forthrightness. He has his favourites and those he scorns. But there’s rarely much justification other than whether a band adheres to his own archetype of what pop should be, which is roughly “appealing to teenagers, and not too pretentious”. The blurb for my edition says that Cohn “unknowingly engendered a new form: rock criticism”. This must be right; there’s no other way a professional music critic could get away with saying (of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) “there’s not much to say on them, they’re not analysable. They’re perfect, that’s all”. I wish I could be a professional music critic with writing like that.

Cohn would later find fame with the article "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", which was the source material for the movie Saturday Night Fever. Cohn later revealed the article to have been a complete fabrication.

This is a really interesting book for a music and pop culture nerd as a piece of cultural history of how the pop music landscape looked to a young music critic in 1969. But as a work in its own right, hindsight has been less kind to this book than it has to most of its subjects.

(PS. I went into this book wanting to dislike it, so maybe I’ve been unfair. That’s what you get when you sh*t on Bruce Springsteen on the first page.)

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This lives up to its fame. It was written by a 23-year-old guy in 1968. And it tells the story of pop music. And amazingly how and why everything was better in the past. This alone is illuminating. The Beatles were still around, Elvis had a comeback still to come. And yet it is not only a curiosity. Cohn really has something meaningful to say about music. “So it isn’t really their fault, you could hardly blame them, but, indirectly, the Beatles have brought pop to its knees.”
He does not like Highschool pop or does he? But he certainly loves a guy called P.J. Proby.
It is unlikely that there ever will be a better book on pop music.

[John Levon · Rating 3 out of 5]

To some the "original" rock criticism writing. He's a big fan of music I don't like much, but it's an interesting and enjoyably opinionated read, and he's prescient in spotting the rise of prog rock in the 70s.

[Géraldine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le rock avant les Beatles. Très curieux.

[Cronicadelibros · Rating 5 out of 5]

📖 Con casi 70 años a la espalda, el rock (y la música popular) tiene libros de sobra que lo definen, lo estudian y se sumergen en sus estrellas, sus estrellados, sus mitos a golpes de voz, guitarra o por muertes jóvenes más o menos accidentales. Pero cosa diferente es tener una oda, esa obra prodigiosa nacida del mismo movimiento, en el mismo momento, surgida casi de la espontaneidad pero que define a la perfección esos frenéticos inicios donde todo valía para triunfar mucho más allá del talento. Y eso es este Auanbanboluba Balambanbu, la oda primigenia del rock, con la misma velocidad e intensidad con la que se vivieron esos primeros años.
⚡ Ya el título del libro es toda una declaración de intenciones. Extraído de una canción de Little Richard, el autor considera que estas palabras son la esencia misma del rock. No es casualidad que el libro arranque y cierre con ellas.
💥Escrito a finales de los 60, este libro no es una biografía clásica ni un estudio académico, ni una historia neutral. Es una mirada personal, descarnada, y sin concesiones, narrada casi como si estuviera ocurriendo en el momento de escribirla.
🎤 Para Cohn, la música popular no es solo entretenimiento, sino la manifestación cultural de una generación que, tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, se encuentra de repente con dinero en el bolsillo y sin un lugar propio en la sociedad. Sin espacios pensados para ell@s, la juventud convierte la música en su vía de escape, una forma de expresarse y de desafiar lo establecido. Pero, como fenómeno juvenil, está condenada a ser efímera: cada artista tiene un breve ciclo de gloria antes de caer en la decadencia. El autor ve en el éxito el principio del fin: el dinero, la fama y la adulación convierten a los músicos en figuras endiosadas, incapaces de seguir creando con autenticidad. Para él, la música que define a una generación no puede perdurar, porque su esencia es el cambio constante.
🎶 Su análisis es ácido y mordaz. Para él, la música se vuelve aburrida en cuanto un artista triunfa, se ablanda y empieza a repetirse. Idolatra a algunos solistas y grupos en sus inicios, pero pronto los condena a su irrelevancia.Las bandas que han cambiado la historia del rock tampoco se salvan: ni los Beatles, ni los Stones, ni siquiera Bob Dylan : se imagina un posible final para los Stones (si fueran capaces deberían terminar en un accidente aéreo antes de los 30)
🔊 Cohn no solo juzga la música; también retrata físicamente a los artistas con una crudeza sorprendente. Define su aspecto, su actitud en el escenario y hasta su atractivo (o la ausencia de él) con frases cortas y muchas veces duras. Y cuando habla de su música, lo hace sin rodeos: m**rda, porquería, se ha vuelto aburrido, sensiblería, cursiladas son algunas de las expresiones de uso habitual en el libro para hablar de ello.
🏭 Sin embargo, entre sus críticas y sentencias categóricas, también tiene momentos de lucidez sorprendente. Acertó al prever la industrialización de la música, su conversión en un producto calculado y mecanizado. Lo que él vio como una amenaza a finales de los 60 no haría más que amplificarse en las décadas siguientes. Sin embargo en su visión y predicción de algunos artistas se queda muy alejado de lo que nos dio el futuro.
🔥 Pero lo que realmente hace que Auanbanboluba Balambanbu sea un libro único es su estilo son las frases cortas, rápidas, que golpean sin descanso. Sin adornos innecesarios ni academia de por medio, directo a la yugular. En muchos momentos recuerda a los escritores de la generación beat, a los que menciona en numerosas ocasiones, pero también se adelanta al espíritu del punk en su manera de romper con todo y no casarse con nadie. Realmente me parece un escrito totalmente prePunk.
🎸 Es un libro que cualquier amante de la música debería leer, aunque solo sea para enfrentarse a una visión brutalmente honesta, alejada de la mitificación y el revisionismo. No es un libro complaciente ni equilibrado, pero sí una lectura imprescindible para entender el rock como fue en sus primeros años: frenético, visceral y, según Cohn, condenado a desaparecer en cuanto el dinero y la fama lo tocaban.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first encountered Nik Cohn while collecting information on movies from the 1970s. I discovered that Cohn wrote the original New York magazine article that became Saturday Night Fever, and as an added bonus, the article had its own backstory - it was presented to the public as a piece of journalism, but was later revealed to be a complete fabrication.

Cohn, however, was no beginner when he took the magazine assignment to write about Disco in New York. In fact, was already something of a legend among the emerging clique of rock critics. In 1968, he wrote Pop from the Beginning, the very first book of criticism. When it appeared in an updated paperback edition a while later, it was called Awopbopaloolbop Alopbamboom.

I came to the book having already read the 8,500 word "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" and its (fictional) chronicle of Vincent, "the very best dancer in Bay Ridge—the ultimate Face." Vincent eventually became Tony Manero, and, as played by John Travolta and his white suit, helped launch disco into the stratosphere.

Picking up Awopbop, the voice and style are recognizable. This time, the story of teen starts in the mid-50s and tells the story or rock (or pop) from the earliest days to the early 70s. It's a history, but more of a personal history than a blow-by-blow account of the birth and development of rock.

Nik Cohn was 10 years old when Little Richard turned up on the jukebox and captured his soul. He wrote Awopbop when he was 22, and then made some revisions and corrections when he was 25. He lived his entire life as a teen at the exact age when the industry first created music just for his age group.

He lived it as a fan and as a journalist. Both are important elements of the book. As a fan, he follows his own tastes and interests. We learn all about what he likes and doesn't like, and where his personal biases run. As the title suggests, he likes pop that doesn't strive for meaning and certainly not for the idea of Art. The Beatles peaked before they got serious. The Stones, seemingly his favorite of all the rock acts, also grew boring and unadventurous. Bob Dylan revolutionized pop by making lyrics important for the first time - a development Cohn seems to respect and resent in equal measure.

As a journalist, he had the opportunity to interview the artists he covers in the book, giving him insight a regular fan would never get. That work appears to substitute for genuine research, but at least it's something. He clearly had the opportunity to see most of the bands in the book live at some point. probably more than the average fan would have.

The book's great strength is the tone. He's petulant at times, but always energetic about the material he's covering. He feels what he's saying, and combined with the raw enthusiasm of youth, it comes across most engagingly. He says exactly what he thinks, without a shred of self-consciousness. There is a person there behind the writing, and it's a person whose opinions on the topic are consistently interesting.

I'd read that Cohn finished the book in a writing marathon of seven weeks. The speed of the writing shows, He often refers back to himself and his writing in transitions, commenting on his own narrative. And yet it adds to the endearing quality of the work.

Cohn's point, over and over, is that rock and pop are not to be mulled over at great lengths, but enjoyed for what they are. The book captures that spirit. It's a sincere attempt to explain something whose value is almost entirely in its sincerity.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the supposed godfather of rock criticism, Nik Cohn has a lot to answer for. You can here his opinionated confidence echoing through the decades to the glorified NME of the 21st century, the idolisation of 'rock' not as music but as a way of being, a way of acting, in which the music is sometimes irrelevant. But Cohn has got a point to prove here and plenty of evidence to back him up; he lived through the rock & pop revolution of the 50s and 60s, he was there at the concerts where girls wet their pants and rockstars smashed everything up with rampant meaninglessness. He was there to experience the freedom, the anarchy, the booming drug culture and all the innovation that went with it. In short, he's allowed to have an opinion. With the irritatingly titled document here, Cohn documents two decades of unprecedented musical novelty with first hand accounts and plenty of wit, charm, humour and a deft hand for a sharp description or turn of phrase. It's not hard to imagine that his lexicon and influence infiltrated deeply into how we, and especially the music press, think about rock music.

That doesn't mean you have to agree with him that the Beatles created pop music and shortly after ruined it, or that you think Dylan sounds like a whiny moron, or that the Stones and the Who were really as cool as he thought they were, or even that you've heard of PJ Proby, but there's a certain validity and pleasure in listening to someone who was really there and really cared. He starts with Little Richards and works his was through two decades of fascinating characters, many of whom he met and even interviewed, most of whom he saw live in concert. Like the plague of superlatives that infests modern reviews, Nik Cohn is not afraid to say that a dozen different artists changed the world and equally not afraid to utterly destroy artists later efforts. I do it when reviewing books. It was no doubt fresher at the time but the saturation of music/literature/film in popular and unpopular culture means it's hard to avoid. These things provoke emotional reponses in us. It seems okay to me to rant and rave about the art that strikes us to the core, whether positively or negatively.

What Cohn does very well is turn his music criticism into a very concise and interesting history. He might say five different bands invented pop music but he explains himself and elaborates on the elements they brought to the table; for example he quotes Dylan's influence on raising the importance of lyrics in pop music, something which he is not interested in at all. He also maps the cultural, fashion and style changes - from rockers to mods to hippies and everything inbetween. He focuses on the vital role that rock musicans played in the emancipation of young people, teenages with sudden freedom and money to spend. He characterises the movers and the shakers, not just the bands and singers but producers, DJs and other innovators as well and places, at times, equal importance on them. Towards the end he even looks towards the future with startling accuracy as he predicts the continued development of manufactured pop with characteristically dry sarcasm and pessimism. He doesn't predict the positive developments in rock music - for him, at that point in time, the only way was downhill.

All this gives the book a great freeze frame in time feel to it. The Golden Age of Rock - it's hard not to believe Cohn, whatever your tastes. He is a sharp, funny journalist and he backs it up with passion and first hand experience. Some of his descriptions, particularly the negative ones, are wonderfull (of Liverpool for example) and his dynamic imagery of artists on stage is full of the energy and surprise of the era. It doesn't feel dated. In fact it feels surprisingly modern. It's no doubt modern music journalism that hasn't managed to progress from this. 7

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just imagine: this is the kiss-off written by a 22 year old pop music critic to his erstwhile love as he prepares to move into a new, more writerly, life where the music is no longer with him at all hours of the day like it has been since he was six years old. Indeed, it seems almost like an addict leaving behind his tipple of choice, except that what we have is a clear-eyed and highly opinionated view of rock n' roll and its various offshoots since the Big Bang that was Rock Around The Clock, with some highly subjective and highly memorable descriptions of a number of the artists who define the 1950s and 1960s still to this day.

The writing is manic and driven, the descriptions often contentious but always clear on their own criteria. The distinctions Cohn makes between the attitudes behind different approaches - say the wild men of rock n' roll against what he calls "highschool" - are enlightening. Indeed it is a neat moment - in fact two neat moments - that he chooses for the writing of this book. The first edition came out when rock was retreating from the wig out of the psychedelic era and going back to basics. The second, revised, edition came out in 1971 when the Beatles were gone, the Stones were in their junkie pomp and What's Going On was about to broaden the palette of black music.

It is amazing how quickly rock mythologised itself. Nik Cohn, Charlie Gillett and Lillian Roxon, together with the magazines Rolling Stone, Creem, NME and Melody Maker forged potent myths around a whole slew of artists such that by the early 1980s, a 25 year history was fleshed out in the minutest detail as if centuries had passed. In part that was because there was such an intense relationship between musician and fan that lay beyond the mere transaction. Everything was changing so quickly, just keeping up was an act of the utmost faith. Yesterday's mods were today's psychedelic crowd were tomorrow's heads and country freaks. Jazz flowed in and around this miasma, adding spice. Cohn gets a lot of it really right, and what he doesn't get quite so right is still enormously interesting. The way he panned the Beatles, while grudgingly allowing them a tag of genius, allows us to see the gear change that was the end of their touring in 1966 and their much-touted releases. We almost get it in real time, free of record company guff. Just for that this book is worth the price of admission. Some of his descriptions of artists like Sandie Shaw are irreverent and hilarious. He is overly harsh on Hendrix's year searching for a new band and sound, but captures the essence of the explosion that the wild man's style supposed for the London scene.

It's a great moment from which to view rock and roll, losing its early innocence and taking the shilling. There would be great music to come, but the ecstatic rush of 1963-70 would not be repeated in the same way. Consider that most big name bands would only release two or three albums in the span of 7 years now. At that time it was a whole career with album releases in doube digits. And the stories were wild and protean, where now they are often manufactured and manicured. It makes it easier to understand why Nik Cohn got out of the game he was in.

[Michael O'sullivan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oof.
I bought this on a whim because the amazing cover by Matt Broughton caught my eye with its vibrant but simple design. The fact it's a book on early rock history felt like this would be right up my alley.

It wasn't.

I appreciate the inclusion of more recent introductions by Nik Cohn who admits to being embarassed by the Cohn who wrote this book. It gave an interesting and possibly unintended depth to the book which I took as a reflection on a young person's passion over time, especially as that passion wanes and what was once exciting and new becomes alienating and dull.

That being said, some of the opinions from the young Cohn are just flat out wrong. I'm not talking about music opinions, everyone is entitled their own tastes. It's the general asides, in passages where Cohn discusses some of his idols' personal lives and the scandals which followed (Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 13-year old cousin or Chuck Berry sleeping with a 14-year old girl and taking her cross state lines) where Cohn decides to glamorize morally reprehensible things as being "pure rock 'n' roll." Jerry Lee Lewis in particular is egregious because Cohn chooses to condemn the British press for being outraged of Lewis which in turn forced Lewis to have to cancel his UK tour.

Likewise, there's a real lack of finesse when it comes to discussing the awkward early history of rock music and its heavy "borrowing" of black R&B music from the 40s. Cohn acknowledges the roots of the genre but never really can argue as to why it is that the high-octane and abrasive nature that he loves of rock is in any way different from what came 20 years before. It makes the antiquated terminology in the book a bit more difficult to read as a result.

For such a short book, there's a lot to unpack. There's a passion for music that comes across unquestionably, but I'd be lying if I said it in any way sounded dissimilar to an enthusiastic fanboy. It lacks the self-awareness to see that even if he loves something like rock music as passionately as he clearly does, that it isn't all roses and sunshine.

On a side note, I can't help but wonder what he made of the punk movement when that arrived a decade after this was written.

[James Askari · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it very interesting to read this book and get a sense of exactly what came after what, what was derivative of, or an attempt to cash in on, what, in the first fourteen or so years of pop and rock in Britain and America. Cohn wrote it aged 22 as he was leaving the scene, confined by his publishers to a cottage in Connemara--it was that or become compromised, a salesman himself. His sympathies were always with rock in its primal energy, its inarticulacy and pure noise, than with anything sophisticated from 1964 on--with The Beatles inasfar as they had artistic pretensions, or with Dylan as he was a poet or social commentator. He grants this with self-knowledge and self-mockery (of which there is a lot in the book--the Monotones' 1958 Book of Love means more to him than all of Dylan's corpus. (Partly he can rate Dylan as a songwriter; he just dislikes his harmonica playing and the sound of his snotty voice).

A surprising amount, perhaps, of what Cohn chronicles has lasted. His critical judgment, more instinctive than anything else, and admittedly not his strong point, was good. (Maybe only The Velvet Underground of the groups he mentions are lauded in a way that seems unimaginable to him). His analysis is that pop, or whatever mutation it took, would be lasting, because it sprang from the social conditions of post-war prosperity. Teenagers from almost all social classes had money to spend as never before, and wanted something that was theirs--that would alienate or frustrate their parents. By the time of Beatlemania in America, he estimates, approximately 30% of American youth bought into their 'soft' critique of capitalism as wasteful and inhuman. This line is perhaps the most acute and irony-laden in the book.

[Ella Schilling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would like to start this off by quoting his two absolutely surreal documented encounters with Bert Berns, the man who, if you know him at all, you know him for writing “Twist and Shout”, which the Beatles perfected, and that's about it. I like to joke with people by telling them Bertrand Russell wrote this song. Since that is indeed the real name of Bert Berns. And naturally, they confuse him with the famous English philosopher. Anyway, for some reason Cohn is infatuated with this tunesmith:

Really, I bring him in only because I never met anyone who understood pop so well. Who agreed so much with me, that is. He was an identikit American recordman, canny and tough and flash, always moneyconscious and he wasn’t a beautiful person but he was intelligent, articulate and he made some good lines. One time, in my innocence, I asked him what pop was about. At the time, we were sitting in some restaurant, and, straight off, Berns swung round at our table and yelled the one word: ‘Waiter!’ Immediately, three waiters burst out of the wings at a canter and dashed to our table. Berns asked for a match and was faced by a sudden wall of flame, by three flickering hands. When the waiters left, Berns looked at me and wasn’t even smug about it. ‘Wouldn’t you say,’ he asked, ‘that’s what pop’s about?

And later on:

It is hardly their fault, you could hardly blame them directly; but the Beatles brought pop to its knees. Finally, Bert Berns summed them up better than anyone. One afternoon, halfway through 1965, he sat in a decaying West Hampstead caff and looked gloomy over a picture of the Beatles. Then he shook his head in infinite sage sadness. ‘Those boys have genius,’ he said. ‘They may be the ruin of us all.’

Written in a rambling and scattershot style that conjures up romantic notions of frenetic midnight clacking at a typewriter, you get the sense of a journalist carrying too much weight on his shoulders, having bitten off more than he can chew. The first of his kind, his attempt is naïve: like an amateur painter throwing whatever he finds at a canvas, thinking it’s good if it sticks. It comes across like the desperate spiel of a man on death row. Occasionally he offers nuggets of insightful wit:

Looking back through what I’ve written, I’m struck hardest by two things - just how good the best of rock really was and just how sadly most of its practitioners have ended up. I suppose the trouble was only that rock was such committed music, such a very specific attitude, so tied to its time, that it wasn’t possible for real rockers to ever move on. Of course, this is a stock problem in any field - revolution so quickly becomes boring - but the thing about pop is that its generation cycles last five years at the very most. Never mind: the best rock records stand up still as the most complete music that pop has yet produced. Everything about it was so defined - all you had to do was mix in the right ingredients, stir well, and you had a little rock masterwork on your hands. It was that simple, that straightahead and, finally, that satisfying.

And:

His big stumbling-block has been the problem that every major pop success faces and hardly anyone solves: when you’ve made your million, when you’ve cut your monsters, when your peak has just been passed, what happens next? What about the fifty years before you die?
(On Phil Spector)

And sly, wry, dry, humour:

He was polite to journalists, helpful even, but had nothing much to tell them. I was once told that he had a deep interest in toads but I have no evidence on it. He was nothing special. He just came and went.
(On Eddie Cochran)

Just as he was at his peak and had won an English poll for World’s Best Male Singer, he was killed in a plane crash, along with his backing band. He was said to be only twenty-six. Maybe it was true.
(On Otis Redding)

To this end, he assembled his Mother freaks and loosed them. On their first album, cutting a track called The Return of The Son of Monster Magnet, he went into the studio with a small army of auxiliaries and the whole lot of them banged, strummed, pounded and thrashed any musical instrument they could lay hands on, the total effect being a bit like a small army banging, strumming, pounding and thrashing any musical instrument they could lay hands on. It worked, what’s more. It made you wish you’d been in there yourself, banging and thrashing with the rest of them, and so it carried a sense of real release, exorcism.
(On Frank Zappa)

Because this was written mostly in 1968, and only lightly revised a mere 4 years later, we have the truly fascinating vantage point of someone who doesn’t know what the majority of the 70’s will hold. He bravely and brazenly makes predictions. With the benefit of hindsight, 2020 vision: Some are breathlessly prophetic. Some hilariously miss their mark. Regardless, this kind of in-the-moment writing is a true novelty nowadays, when most books on music are cushy retrospectives, rather than scruffy field reports.

Here he basically predicts MTV and YouTube:

Very soon, you’ll have pop composers writing formal works for pop choirs, pop orchestras; you’ll have pop concerts held in halls and the audience all sat in rows, no screaming or stamping but applauding politely with their hands; you’ll have sounds and visuals combined, records that are played on something like a gramophone and TV set knocked into one, the music creating picture and patterns; you’ll have cleverness of every kind imaginable.

Overall, I found his writing too callous, crass, and opinionated to enjoy enough of the time to give this a higher rating. I will warn readers that this is guaranteed to offend them, by icily, uncaringly, slagging off some of their favourite artists. Still, especially given its context, it was an ambitious project, and an innovative, futuristic one at that. It is quite dated, i.e. nowadays black people are not referred to as “negroes”, and female artists aren’t primarily evaluated for their sex appeal. All in all, it is a decent 50’s/60’s pop music (or really, rock music) crash course, that is about as cuddly, patient, and forgiving as the training and drills that the army puts their soldiers through. When Cohn melodramatically mourns the demise of good pop music, you really get a sense that he was indeed living, breathing, and writing, in “The Golden Age of Rock”.

[Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the owner of several hundred books on pop and rock and blues, I was astonished, or maybe just appalled, that I was not aware of this little volume by Nik Cohn, written in 1968 when Cohn was 22 and arguably the first critical book of its kind. It's a good one, unique and idiosyncratic and full of insights, skewed toward a British point of view, which I think makes it even more interesting.

Cohn's writing style here reminds me of Bob Dylan's autobiographical "Chronicles" - though obviously if there is a relationship, Cohn's book came first. There's a kind of charming, disarming inevitability about the writing, as if Cohn is saying, "You see where this must inevitably lead, don't you?"

Occasionally, Cohn's taste runs off to now forgotten artists like P.J. Proby, which makes no sense at all to American listeners, but in the main he covers the rise of rock and roll and the decisive points in its - at the time - short evolution. He makes an interesting observation that the Beatles were so good they caused less brilliant artists to try to follow them, which unhinged rock and pop and gave us bad art, instead.

When the book (including its 1972 update) ends, Cohn, perhaps without realizing it, has set the stage brightly for the rise of punk music, which followed in 1975 in Australia (The Saints), America (Ramones) and the UK (Sex Pistols). Instead, and accurately, he frets about the corporatization of "super pop," which pretty much happened anyway. Damn good book.

[Jeremy Walton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Psychedlephia?
I found this in a remaindered bookshop a few weeks ago. It's a pleasant read, being a fairly brisk survey of the history of pop music from the point of view of the end of the sixties. Cohn quickly introduces each performer (e.g. "Gene Vincent had a bad leg.", "Eddie Cochran was pure rock.", "Paul Simon was a small, serious, fuzzy-haired man..."), before sketching in their origins and achievements. For a critic, he shows a commendable lack of objectivity in his assessments, even betraying a certain impatience with some artists as he admits that he can't be bothered to say much about them.

For the most part, I think his assessments have held up very well over the forty years since this book was written, although it's inevitable that some of these no longer fit with current views of this period: I was surprised to see a whole chapter devoted to PJ Proby, for example, and I don't think anyone would still believe that Cliff Richard's "Living Doll" was "by far the most influential British single of the whole decade" (p68); although such an argument could perhaps be made for "Move It", which is ignored by Cohn.

Finally, there are an interesting couple of neologisms in the text which I don't think I'd come across previously: I think "schnide" (p201) and "psychedelphia" (p257) might have been synonyms for "snide" and "psychedelia", but they don't seem to have caught on.

Originally reviewed 15 August 2008

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read. I will remember neither all of the musicians nor all of their songs, but the increased understanding I hoped for was provided: how teen culture developed earlier in the U.S. than in the UK. It’s a theme of David Bowie’s - Absolute Beginners; Jon Savage’s Teenage; other books and films in his top 100. Without background, people think of teen culture arriving here from Britain with the Beatles, Stones, and Twiggy. However, the antecedents to pop (teen) culture went the other way and in the ‘50s, well before the British sensations. Elvis, Chuck Berry, Eddy Cochran, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, even Frank Sinatra, moved music beyond the Big Band years (which overstayed because of WWII). Fashion for teens developed in the 50s in the U.S. - there was more prosperity and teens had $ to spend. Julie Christy said that well into the 60s, girls in England were screaming to the Beatles while wearing tweed skirts, hand knit cardigans, and pumps with Bobby socks.
Nik Cohn wrote this in 68 at age 22, off the top of his head. This is a revised edition, edited by him a few years later when Pop music wasn’t progressing as he predicted and when he had a deeper perspective on the contributions and legacies of some musicians he covered.

[Ron Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great fun, covering the early history of rock and roll from Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock (1954) to the death of Jimmy Hendrix (1970), with a short appendix bringing things up to 1972. I’d like to make a YouTube playlist from this material; I could amuse myself for days! Though not essential, including photos would have been a nice touch.

Nik Cohn was an early originator of rock journalism, setting the tone and pace of writing for those that came later. He’s British, so readers also get a look at the evolution of British music, including skiffle and other things North Americans don’t hear much about. I had to look up the meaning of some British slang along the way, but not too much. E.g., “Scouse (/skaʊs/; formally known as Liverpool English or Merseyside English) is an accent and dialect of English associated with Liverpool and the surrounding county of Merseyside.”

I don’t always agree with his assessments but I happily recommend this to anyone with an interest in Rock history; it is a perfect first book to read on the subject.