Customer Reviews

Break All Rules!: Punk Rock and the Making of a Style (Studies in the Fine Arts Avant-Garde)

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I disagree with the assumption in the other Amazon reviews that Trisha Henry was an uninformed outsider, looking in on punk and getting it all wrong... She's just an academic, fercrissakes, writing for an academic audience!! I'm sure she was just as punk as you are, it's just that when you're writing your graduate thesis (which is what this book originally was) you kinda have to be a bit, um, academic. She does an admirable job translating the anti-authoritarian, pro-artist ethos of punk into scholarly jargon -- the trouble with this book isn't that she didn't know what she was talking about, it's just that hearing it all expalined so clinically is nowhere near as fun as playing a Sex Pistols album at full blast. It's worth checking out, if you want to see how DIY translates into PhD.

I can't believe the cost of this tiny book (listed at [price]!). It is very very brief, and very very dry. It glosses over and over simplifies a lot, to the detriment of anyone trying to understand punk.There's almost no mention of politics, for instance. Does have some song lyrics and sheet music, but big deal. The clinical approach is obsessive. I suppose the brevity could be useful in some cases if accompanied by other material.
Ch 1 - Velvet Underground
Ch 2 - Glitter Rock
Ch 3 - CBGBs
Ch 4 - Sex Pistols (the worst one)
Ch 5 - Zines

I disagree with the assumption in the other Amazon reviews that Trisha Henry was an uninformed outsider, looking in on punk and getting it all wrong... She's just an academic, fercrissakes, writing for an academic audience!! I'm sure she was just as punk as you are, it's just that when you're writing your graduate thesis (which is what this book originally was) you kinda have to be a bit, um, academic. She does an admirable job translating the anti-authoritarian, pro-artist ethos of punk into scholarly jargon -- the trouble with this book isn't that she didn't know what she was talking about, it's just that hearing it all expalined so clinically is nowhere near as fun as playing a Sex Pistols album at full blast. It's worth checking out, if you want to see how DIY translates into PhD.

I read this book in the course of gathering information for a research paper. Having a deadline on my tail and lots of better material at hand, if only I had known a little sooner, I should not have even opened this bland, inadiquit peice of dribble. It has no depth about the ethics or momentum to punk rock and merely inacuritely restricts it to the mid and late 70's in NYC and London. Spend your money and time on better things than a book this!

Beginning with the Velvet Underground, an American band (!), and following up through glam, punk and new wave/no wave, I don't think this book is intended as a full over gloss of punk rock. It's more interested in shaping forces behind punk and what all led up to the big Sex Pistols thang.

This book is basically a fashion-oriented view of the punk scene. Lots of pictures of people sporting safety pins and looking most stylish.
Not only that, it stops at about 1981 with almost no mention of any US bands whatsoever.

With chapters consisting of the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls, CBGB's, the Pistols, and even a chapter devoted to fanzines, you'd suspect this was a great book. Sadly, it is just a big waste of time. The book is the product of eight years of "scholarly research" into the punk rock "style." So we get such important information as: where the style came from, and she points out direct links between the New York underground and the British punk movement. You know, the important elements of punk rock. She continually emphasizes that this aspect of punk was never studied in a "scholarly" way. And upon completion of this book, I understand why. It's boring and stupid.

Printed back in 1988, it reads as though it was a project done by a high school student who had no prior insight into punk rock - and certainly never listened to the music. The primary method of her research was through previously written material in books and magazines. Of the countless sources of invaluable information she accumulated, she must have gained a wealth of information by reading not one, but two books about Boy George.

What wins me over is the comparison she makes of punk to an art form called Dada, which existed between 1916-1922 in France. "Members of the punk movement have often referred to themselves as neo-dada." I know I always do, how `bout you? Not surprisingly, key players from the early days of punk (Johnny Rotten, Malcolm McLaren, Lou Reed, etc.) declined doing interviews with the author.

At one point, she states: "To my knowledge, no sheet music of original Ramones compositions has been published, though the chorus to "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" is decipherable." She then writes out the chorus of the song. She did the same thing with Richard Hell's "Blank Generation." In the same chapter, she explains, "Punk Magazine can be categorized as a fanzine." She illustrates her point by giving us Webster's definition of a fanzine. Brilliant!

In her intro, the author states that the zines that were available (to her) weren't documented in a manner that allows extensive verification. I don't know what kind of extensive verification she was looking for, but for whatever reason, she still wrote a chapter about fanzines. Unfortunately she only had a few issues of a couple different zines to use as reference and base her statements on (a few issues of Punk, a couple Sniffin' Glues, and one Ripped & Torn). With this extensive library at her fingertips, she went on and compared the content of Punk Magazine (issue 1) to that of Sniffin' Glue (issue 3). She compared the number of pages, the amount of staff members each publication had, which one was devoted more to music than humor. I mean, come on, is that really necessary?
She continued aggravating me by stating that: "as we study the fanzines, it's important to remember that not everything the punks say can or should be taken at face value." Why are we studying fanzines!? They are written by fans of the music, because they love the music. And they are read and enjoyed (not studied) by fans of the music, because they love the music too. It's as simple as that.

In her conclusion, I read the first intelligent statement, but quickly realized it was a quote from none other than Lester Bangs. Needless to say, this is the worst book I've ever had the displeasure of reading. I can't even figure out who this could have been directed to - certainly not punks. If you made it this far, congratulations! (MS)