Ranters & Crowd Pleasers: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-92 [Hardcover]

Greil Marcus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1993

A retrospective of the punk revolution retraces the history of punk music, from the arrival of the Sex Pistols in 1976 through the following decade and a half. By the author of Dead Elvis. 12,500 first printing. National ad/promo. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rock 'n' roll critic Marcus follows the punk rock scene as well as more mainstream music in this assemblage of reviews and articles published in Rolling Stone , the Village Voice , Artforum and elsewhere. For Marcus ( Lipstick Traces ), punk was a salubrious cultural explosion, bent on a cleansing negation like the Dada movement. He likens the Sex Pistols to novelist Margaret Drabble: both grapple with the plight of people attempting to live without a belief in the future. Although his focus is on punk groups like the Clash, the Mekons, Gang of Four and the Au Pairs, Marcus ranges far afield to discuss Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan, the Go-Gos and the Rolling Stones. Fans of his previous books will enjoy having these pieces in one volume.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

What distinguishes Marcus from his rock critic peers is his innate ability as a social cryptographer to decode popular music symbols and their significance within a larger context. The big-picture-window connections that illuminate Lipstick Traces ( LJ 4/15/89), the classic Mystery Train ( LJ 4/1/75), and his recently published Dead Elvis (Doubleday, 1991) are apparent in this collection of punk and post-punk influence pieces, written between 1977 and 1991 for periodicals like New West (later California ) , Artforum, and the Village Voice. The Gang of Four, Delta 5, the Mekons, Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, X-ray Spex, and, of course, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, are prominently featured, and looming throughout in the background are the creepy specters of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. A revelatory compendium of bands, records, and performances, this work, along with Jon Savage's England's Dreaming ( LJ 1/92), significantly contributes to the evolving documentation and elucidation of punk rock. For most music collections.
- Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 438 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (April 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385417209
• ISBN-13: 978-0385417204
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,160,033 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely well-written account of exhilirating music, May 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Ranters and Crowd Pleasers (Paperback)

Marcus succeeds in articulating in print what was so wonderful about bands like Gang of Four, the Raincoats, X-Ray Spex, the Clash, etc. There is something truly significant captured in that music between 1976-late 1980s called "punk," and the author explains it unlike no other.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good read and reference book, January 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Ranters and Crowd Pleasers (Paperback)

Very readable, good essays on The Clash, Bikini Kill, Sonic Youth, etc., you'll probably be glad to have it around if (70's-)80's(-'90s) pop-rock-punk is your thing and you go hunting for info on each new-old band you discover.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Utter pomposity., May 2, 2005

By 

Todd Mason - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ranters & Crowd Pleasers: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-92 (Hardcover)

It's not so much that Marcus doesn't love his subject; it's more that he's so invested in having the Biggest Thinks possible about his subject that he comes crashing down in a litter of pompous distortion, at worst, and irritating self-congratulation, entirely too often. As with LIPSTICK TRACES, which this was tossed together to follow, if you want to feel as if you've been intellectually challenged while reading music reviews with a modicum of pop-culture history slathered in, you could do worse. But you can do much better, as well. And you won't even have to suffer through the gosh-wow celebrations of Situationism, otherwise known as the art of overstating the obvious at tedious length.