The UK edition of
SHOCK AND AWE, hot from the printers - available to buy in bookstores and online from October 6th -
pre-order here
The US edition of
SHOCK AND AWE - arriving any day now - available to buy in bookstores and online from October 11th -
pre-order here
German, Italian, and Spanish translations due 2017
^^^^press release^^^^
At the dawn of the Seventies, glam smashed through the faded denim dream of the hippie era – an eruption of alien glamour, gender mayhem and thrilling music that changed pop forever.
SHOCK AND AWE takes the reader on a wild tour of the glam era, chronicling the exploits of its flamboyant personalities against a backdrop of social upheaval and political disillusion. Spearheaded by David Bowie, Alice Cooper, and T. Rex, the glam movement reveled in artifice and spectacle. Simon Reynolds explores how artists like Roxy Music, New York Dolls and Lou Reed celebrated illusion over truth and self-invention over authenticity. Probing the genre’s major themes—fame, androgyny, narcissism, decadence, fandom, apocalypse—Reynolds tracks glam’s legacy as it unfolded in subsequent decades: from Eighties art-pop icons like Kate Bush, Prince and Morrissey through to 21st Century stars like Lady Gaga, Kanye West, and Nicki Minaj.
SHOCK AND AWE is a defining work that stands alongside Reynolds's classic Rip It Up and Start Again, Retromania and Energy Flash as a milestone in cultural criticism.
^^^^the whys and hows of SHOCK AND AWE^^^^
"SHOCK AND AWE was
the title right from the start – it instantly struck me as perfect because this
is a book about the Seventies as arguably the last era when rock stars could be
genuinely shocking and awe-inspiring.
Glam’s outrages - the taboo-breaking lyrics, the gender-twisting, the extreme fashion - triggered public tremors and private thrills alike. The
kick-in-the-eye impact of the clothes, hair and make-up anticipated punk, but
rather than gritty reality, glam was about glitzy excess and alien mystique.
"My goal was to capture the shock and the awe – the sheer
excitement of the music, the images, the performances. But I also wanted to probe behind the
spectacle and examine the mechanics of hype:
the way that artists and their managers (figures like Alice Cooper
mastermind Shep Gordon, or Tony Defries, the Svengali behind Bowie) engineered
controversy and staged the star’s career as a public drama.
"To fully convey
glam’s impact in its own time involved reconstructing the conditions in which
pop existed back then, so vastly different from the instant-access,
stimulation-overload world in which we now live. Fans relied on music magazines as their
mainline to the world of their heroes. The photos, interviews, even the adverts
for records and concerts in these music papers, called out as beacons of strange fascination and
dandy elegance – and achieved their effect through the contrast with the
surrounding bearded dreariness of most serious rock at that time.
"Interviews
with the more arty and intellectual glam figures such as Bowie, Ferry, Eno, and others, and were portals
into an intoxicating realm of exotic ideas and influences – such that being a
devotee of these artists could be like enrolling in an alternative system of
mind-expanding education. For bored and isolated weirdos stranded in nowheresville suburbs or far-from-the-action provinces, the music paper interviews
– along with the infrequent TV appearances and concerts – offered glimpses of a
world of exquisite decadence and aesthetic adventure. They suggested an approach to life in which
personality was flexible and ever-changing: where your greatest creation might
not be songs, but the fashioning of a unique self.
"Even more than sexual ambiguity or freakshow theatrics, glam’s
defining themes – it seemed to me as I worked on the book over three years of research and writing– were self-invention, narcissism, and fame. Many of
the protagonists in
SHOCK AND AWE wove
a bubble of unreality around themselves and invited the fans to step inside that fantasy space, a dream-world in which the performer figured as a messianic hero and where his followers
often dressed-up as mirror-images of their idol. Songs increasingly became commentaries on pop
stardom itself. Looking at glam in this way – as a saga that showed both the
creative power but also the delusional dangers of persona construction – led me to see
reflections and echoes across subsequent decades of pop: not just obvious glam
descendants like Prince, Marilyn Manson and Lady Gaga, but less likely heirs
such as Morrissey, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, and Drake. In the book’s extended coda I look at these
aftershocks: glam’s legacy as it reverberated through the Eighties, Nineties
and into the 21
st Century."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SHOCK AND AWE features artists including
T. Rex - David Bowie - Alice Cooper - Slade – The Sweet – Mud – Suzi Quatro – Gary Glitter – Hello - Lou Reed - Mott the Hoople - Iggy and the Stooges- Jobriath - Roxy Music – Wayne County - New York Dolls - Wizzard – David Essex – Cockney Rebel - Sparks – Queen – Be-Bop Deluxe - Silverhead – Sensational Alex Harvey Band - The Tubes -The Runaways - Doctors of Madness - Ultravox - Kraftwerk – Brian Eno
^^^^^^^^^^^^^ SHOCK AND AWE tour^^^^^^^^^^^^
U.K. EVENTS
SHEFFIELD Tuesday October 4th - 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
(as part of the Off the Shelf Festival of Words)
in conversation with TBA - Q & A - video clips
venue: The Auditorium, University of Sheffield Student's Union, Western Bank, S10 2TG
tickets and info - 0114 22 33 777 – info http://offtheshelf.org.uk/
LONDON Wednesday October 5th - 7 pm - 10 pm
in conversation with Alexis Petridis (Guardian) – Q & A - film / video clips + DJ Simon Price
venue: The Forge, 3–7 Delancey Street, Camden, London, NW1 7NL
tickets and info – 0207 383 7808 - http://www.forgevenue.org/
MANCHESTER Thursday October 6th - 7 pm - 10 pm
in conversation with Bob Stanley (author of Yeah Yeah Yeah) – Q & A
showing of Marc the Bolan movie Born To Boogie
venue: Home, 2 Tony Wilson Place, First St, Manchester M15 4FN
NEW YORK EVENTS
BROOKLYN - DUMBO Thursday October 13th - 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
in conversation with Luc Sante (author of Lowlife + forthcoming book on Lou Reed) – Q & A
venue: Powerhouse, 28 Adams St., Brooklyn , NY 11201
info - 718 666 3049
BROOKLYN – WILLIAMSBURG Friday October 14th - evening
in conversation with TBA - video clips – Q & A
venue: Rough Trade NYC, 64 N 9th St, Brooklyn, NY 11249
info - http://www.roughtradenyc.com/
MANHATTAN – MIDTOWN Monday, October 17th - 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm
in conversation with Asif Siddiqi – video clips – Q & A
venue: Fordham University’s Lincoln Center Campus, Pope Memorial Auditorium
Lowenstein Center - 155 W. 60th St., New York, NY 10023 (Corner of 60th St. and 9th Ave.)
this event is open to the general public.
LOS ANGELES
LOS FELIZ Thursday, October 20, 2016 - 7:30pm
in conversation with TBA – Q & A
venue: Skylight Books, 1818 North Vermont, Los Angeles CA 90027
More US events to be announced....
