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Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, Twentieth Anniversary Edition Paperback – November 30, 2009

by Greil Marcus (Author)

4.3 51 ratings

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Greil Marcus, author of Mystery Train, widely acclaimed as the best book ever written about America as seen through its music, began work on this new book out of a fascination with the Sex Pistols: that scandalous antimusical group, invented in London in 1975 and dead within two years, which sparked the emergence of the culture called punk. “I am an antichrist!” shouted singer Johnny Rotten―where in the world of pop music did that come from? Looking for an answer, with a high sense of the drama of the journey, Marcus takes us down the dark paths of counterhistory, a route of blasphemy, adventure, and surprise. This is no mere search for cultural antecedents. Instead, what Marcus so brilliantly shows is that various kinds of angry, absolute demands―demands on society, art, and all the governing structures of everyday life―seem to be coded in phrases, images, and actions passed on invisibly, but inevitably, by people quite unaware of each other. Marcus lets us hear strange yet familiar voices: of such heretics as the Brethren of the Free Spirit in medieval Europe and the Ranters in seventeenth-century England; the dadaists in Zurich in 1916 and Berlin in 1918, wearing death masks, chanting glossolalia; one Michel Mourre, who in 1950 took over Easter Mass at Notre-Dame to proclaim the death of God; the Lettrist International and the Situationist International, small groups of Paris―based artists and writers surrounding Guy Debord, who produced blank-screen films, prophetic graffiti, and perhaps the most provocative social criticism of the 1950s and ’60s; the rioting students and workers of May ’68, scrawling cryptic slogans on city walls and bringing France to a halt; the Sex Pistols in London, recording the savage “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen.” Although the Sex Pistols shape the beginning and the end of the story, Lipstick Traces is not a book about music; it is about a common voice, discovered and transmitted in many forms. Working from scores of previously unexamined and untranslated essays, manifestos, and filmscripts, from old photographs, dada sound poetry, punk songs, collages, and classic texts from Marx to Henri Lefebvre, Marcus takes us deep behind the acknowledged events of our era, into a hidden tradition of moments that would seem imaginary except for the fact that they are real: a tradition of shared utopias, solitary refusals, impossible demands, and unexplained disappearances. Written with grace and force, humor and an insistent sense of tragedy and danger, Lipstick Traces tells a story as disruptive and compelling as the century itself.

Print length

496 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
Publication date

November 30, 2009
Dimensions

6.3 x 1 x 9.2 inches
ISBN-10

0674034805
ISBN-13

978-0674034808
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A coruscatingly original piece of work, vibrant with the energy of the bizarre happenings it maps out.”―Terry Eagleton, New York Times Book Review

“That Marcus can kick off and end his exhaustive, but always clear-headed, cross-epochal trek with the Sex Pistols―and make it all cohere―is but one indication of how fully he meshes the academy and the gutter.”―Katherine Dieckmann, Village Voice Literary Supplement

“Lipstick Traces has the energy of its obsessions, and it snares you in the manner of those intense, questing and often stoned sessions of intellectual debate you may have experienced in your college years. It was destined, in other words, to achieve cult status.”―Ben Brantley, New York Times

“In 1989, Harvard University Press published Lipstick Traces, the second book by the American writer and critic Greil Marcus. It was a dazzling creation, mapping out an untold 'secret history' which connected the Sex Pistols, the Dadaists, the Parisian événements of 1968, that legendary subversive clique the Situationist International and an Anabaptist revolt in 16th-century Germany, led by a notorious libertine named John of Leyden. Among the book's most ardent fans, it sparked real epiphanies… It stands as a singularly idiosyncratic product of a genre-cum-tradition rooted in the business of writing about musicians and the whirl of ideas that once surrounded them… [Marcus] manages some of the finest music writing ever to make it on to the page… My 20-year-old copy of Lipstick Traces is the one book I would save from my proverbial burning house.”―John Harris, The Guardian

“For anybody who wants to go deeper into the ontology of an idea that animates a kind of music, or is illuminated by that music, read Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces, just reissued in an expanded edition for the book's twentieth anniversary. I often say that Traces is the best book ever written about music, even though it's not actually about music: it is about the life of an idea.”―Sasha Frere-Jones, New Yorker online

“I first read Lipstick Traces as a penniless traveler, hiding in the bathroom of a late-night express train from Cologne to Berlin. My paranoia was considerably eased as I delved into the lives of various misfits and aesthetic revolutionaries throughout the twentieth century. As dawn broke and the train pulled into the station, I disembarked, feeling not shell-shocked from the conductor's repeated passes to my stall, but decidedly refreshed.”―J. Scott Burgeson, East Bay Express

“The 'secret' of Marcus's history is its poetry…widely separated persons and events call out to each other and 'connect' precisely because so many of ordinary history's causal and syntactic arrangements have been positively negated.”―Jerome McGann, London Review of Books

“Greil Marcus has developed an ability to discern an art movement, or an entire country, lurking inside a song.”―New Yorker

“Probably the most astute critic of American popular culture since Edmund Wilson.”―D. D. Guttenplan, London Review of Books

About the Author

Greil Marcus is the author of The Doors, Mystery Train, and other books.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; 2nd edition (November 30, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674034805
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674034808
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 1 x 9.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #410,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #127 in Punk Music (Books)
- #1,100 in Rock Music (Books)
- #1,322 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences

Customer Reviews:
4.3 51 ratings

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4.3 out of 5

51 global ratings

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Slothrop

Embrace complexity Secrets from a more intelligent era

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2013

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Without even commenting on the actual content, the style of this book is the complete opposite of our current oversimplified, dumbed down swill. The prose is dense and stream of consciousness styled, and necessarily complex. Greil Marcus drills down deeply, as far back as medieval times to synthesize an explanation of the Punk movement. He used documented but suppressed or forgotten historic events and movements to prove that Punk is not simply raw youthful rebellion, but part of a larger, self-validating philosophical paradigm. This coherency of this paradigm has evolved over the centuries, and it is never articulated in readily accessible form, but always lurking in the shadows. And it had repeatedly caused radical, worldwide change. Read this book if you dare, and if you can. Embrace complexity.

22 people found this helpful

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Vicky

Musical book of the century

Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2011

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Magnificent view on the counterculture of Punk and its influence over the years. It is far better than Simon Reynold's Retromania (although this one highlights the pop culture). I want to read it over and over again. Every detail that is mentioned adds up to a new whole. It also makes plausible connections between different movements and artists, which leads to new thoughts about music in general.

6 people found this helpful

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alex rubin

Arrival & Initial Reading

Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2014

Verified Purchase

So far, the condition & content of the book have completely met my expectations (of which there were not many but had it been a piece of crap, my rating would have reflected this). I've found no complaints, just trying to keep up with the pacing of the book that Greil Marcus has provided which is quite rapid and jumps around in time quite a lot while loading the text heavily with historical, cultural references that at times escape me. It's a lot to take in at once but I'm enjoying this product nevertheless.

5 people found this helpful

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Jason J. Seislove

Awesome!

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2020

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A heady cocktail of cultural critique on par with Lester Bangs' "Psychotic Reactions and Carburator Dung."

3 people found this helpful

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Derrick Smit

When Punk was as Punk did

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2016

Verified Purchase

It's interesting since we've became of consumers meta formerly known as the genre, retro, derivative packaging to occasionally hear tale of newness as it was experienced. Before it was clear that it was actually something.

4 people found this helpful

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X

Two Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

Kind of stupid, and I love rock. You decide.

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Kakihara

A MUST READ for today's "Hip" Kids!!!!

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2010

I feel extremely positive over the fact that this book is considered important enough to have a twentieth anniversary edition rerelease! Since it's original publication, the internet has crawled into everyone's life & spread the Spectacle to a "Matrix"-like dominance, yet there is this book which MAY offer any who read it a mere highway sign towards the exit ramp! This is probably one of my all-time favorite books since (though it took several readings) it opened my eyes to a (secret) history of things that really must become common knowledge to anyone who considers themselves somewhat intelligent & well informed and/or leaning towards what used to be referred to as the "counter-culture" (now "alternative" or "hipster" or any other tag for those that gag on what spectacular society spoon feeds them with a shovel). Greil Marcus takes the Sex Pistols 1st 45 "Anarchy in the UK" as the starting point & hopscotches free-style across centuries of the hidden & forgotten &/or purposely ignored for what informed the raw scream of that first listen. And though it may seem a tough go on your first dig into its pages (especially in today's A.D.D. world), Lipstick Traces rewards around each corner, never knowing where it will lead next. Starting with the first UK Punks back to the Situationists who took equal inspiration from the Dadaists of the Cabaret Voltaire AND the heretics of Europe's middle ages, most notably the Movement of the Free Spirit - this is an often heavy read that never fails to F#@k with your preconceptions, leaving you sometimes with the realization that everything you already know is WRONG! Very few books I've read left me with a similar effect and after rereading it several times (there is so much here that a quick run through just doesn't do it - be forewarned!), I've dug deeper into the books of Guy Debord Society of the Spectacle & (especially) Raoul Vaneigem The Revolution of Everyday Life as well as Dada, the Free Sprit The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (Galaxy Books) , etc, etc and I'm still digging many years after reading this the FIRST time. This book may change you too if you are the right person who has a deep curiousity for what is on the hidden side of our so-called "culture" and what you are NOT being told. As in the famous scene in "The Martix": which pill will YOU take??

27 people found this helpful

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Ancient Fuzz

Crayola #20

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2018

Great, amazing, wonderful book -- Marcus goes deep into aesthetics and history, providing a line of argument for punk's negation and affirmation that could be right. Or he could be wrong. It's brilliant.

But what is with this garish COVER? By gum, Johnny Rotten should be on here. These muted colors of vomit are a real turn-off and hardly befits the technicolor dustbin within.

2 people found this helpful

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Susana

Muy buen estado.

Reviewed in Spain on December 6, 2019

Verified Purchase

Llegó perfecto u muy bien estado. Subrayado y comentado a lápiz pero es lo que se avisaba antes de comprar.

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Amazon Customer

A great book I first read 25 years ago

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 27, 2016

Verified Purchase

A great book I first read 25 years ago. I bought as a Xmas present for my beautiful Colombian girlfriend and I hope she loves it as much as I did!

tiresias

to be read non-sequentially

Reviewed in France on October 10, 2015

Verified Purchase

rougher reading than some of his other stuff.
I'm no fan of punk, but he does a wonderful travel book between dada, surrealism, paris commune, punk and situationism
recommended

Rudy

The Secret History

Reviewed in Canada on December 4, 2012

Verified Purchase

This is my third copy of "Lipstick Traces: The Secret History of the 20th Century" in the past 20 years. Every other copy I owned was given away, never to be returned. And now, reading the book for the third time (am I dense?), I still - sorta - kinda get it, but I always feel like I'm hanging on by a thread as I turn the pages. And it is the telling of a history/story that is tenuously connected by a very thin thread. Fascinating. Intriguing. Perhaps a university education might have helped me navigate these pages much more easily. If you remember the days when the Sex Pistols 45 RPMs landed in your local record store, and may or may not have changed your life, this essay/book on this subject, and much more, may interest you greatly. Perhaps.

One person found this helpful

dan plopeanu

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on June 4, 2018

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Excellent!

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