Customer Reviews

Great Pop Things: The Real History of Rock and Roll from Elvis to Oasis

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Chuck Death, aka Jon Langford of the Mekons, has been poking his finger into the eyeball of rock 'n' roll for the better part of the past 20 years. Now, with the aid of equally cynical Colin Morton, we find out what really matters to Langford. And what we learn is that what matters is unpretentious, true-believer rock. Death and Morton have no time for hair bands.

This collection of cartoons is consistently visually interesting, with the writing equally challenging. Highly recommended for anyone who realizes that just maybe Pink Floyd isn't as relevent we all once believed. The punk years are presented as well as any history to date - the complete antithesis to Greil Marcus' magnum opus "Lipstick Traces" (ironically, Marcus pens the forward).

"Great Pop Things" is a great book.

I remember looking forward to Great Pop Things in the LA Weekly. It's great to have them compiled in a single volume.

Even if you don't get all or even most of the references (and they explain many of them, such as Morrissey's chin), if you have any interest in (and yet at least a bit of detachment from, ironic or not) popular music such as Elvis, David Bowie, The Sex Pistols, Dylan, The Stones, Lou Reed, The Fall, Springsteen, Oasis, U2, Madonna, etc, you will find many a knowing laugh here.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but one band not mentioned, surprisingly enough, is The Beatles. No, wait! They do cover their early days on the German Reeferbahn (sic), and possibly more.

It's bloody brilliant. That's all that needs to be said. This book may well have changed my life. Also, Colin B. Morton is a very nice man.

What at first appears to be a collection of simple (?) comic strips turns out to be denser than a dictionary, and just as thickly packed with facts. Or are they facts? Nope, actually they're Facts: a stew of historical reality, wishful thinking, mythology and just plain lies. And what's more, an historical account built of this sort of creative factualizing turns out to be WAY more interesting than the drab documentary many of us lived through and barely survived ... and what's in this book may come a lot closer to portraying the frayed remnants of our chemically-altered and misremembered memories than the most objective journalism possibly could.

So what that a great part of its contents is a huge pack of lies, objectively considered? Even so, this book in its meanderings takes us into a much broader mytho-poetic stream of consciousness; which is pretty funny considering that the object of its affection is nothing more (nor less) than Pop Music itself.

Its subject matter could not be better served or more truly portrayed even if it were historically accurate ... Or is that "hysterically"? -- because it's terribly funny, too, in its perverse nuttiness and irreverence.

Surprisingly, reading this book requires a bit more concentration than you would need for, say, Garfield. And I like Garfield. (But then, I like <Maus>, too.)

This book features humourous comic strips about rock and roll music. Fans of pop culture should dig it. Some of the jokes may be too British for Americans, though.