The Washington Post hails Greil Marcus as our greatest cultural critic. Writing in the London Review of Books, D. D. Guttenplan calls him probably the most astute critic of American popular culture since Edmund Wilson. For nearly thirty years, he has written a remarkable column that has migrated from the Village Voice to Artforum, Salon, City Pages, Interview, and The Believer and currently appears in the Barnes & Noble Review. It has been a laboratory where Marcus has fearlessly explored and wittily dissected an enormous variety of cultural artifacts, from songs to books to movies to advertisements, teasing out from the welter of everyday objects what amounts to a de facto theory of cultural transmission. Published to complement the paperback edition of The History of Rock & Roll in Ten Songs, Real Life Rock reveals the critic in full: direct, erudite, funny, fierce, vivid, astute, uninhibited, and possessing an unerring instinct for art and fraud. The result is an indispensable volume packed with startling arguments and casual brilliance.

A funny, fierce, and uninhibited musical chronicle of the convulsive past six years from one of our finest cultural critics "A one-of-a-kind guide to rock music’s resonance in every aspect of our lives.”—David Kirby, Wall Street Journal “A smart set of suggestions for further reading, viewing, and listening by a most trustworthy guide.”—Kirkus Reviews For the past thirty-five years, celebrated author Greil Marcus has applied his unmatched critical apparatus to everything from music, television, radio, and politics to overheard comments, advertisements, and happenstance street encounters—an eclectic collection of what he calls “everyday culture and found objects.” This book collects hundreds of items from the crisscrossing spectrum of culture and politics throughout the tumultuous past six years of American life, an essential travel guide to the scorched landscape of recent history. Tracking the evolution of national identity during the Trump administration, Marcus spotlights the most whip-smart cultural artifacts to compose a mosaic portrait of American society, replete with unexpected heroes and villains, absurdity and its consequences, humor and despair, terror and defiance—as seen through media, music, and more. Bursting with Marcus’s effortless, no-nonsense, unapologetic verve, this book features seventy-three columns from 2014 through February 2021.

Drooling fanatic, n. 1. One who drools in the presence of beloved rock stars. 2. Any of a genus of rock-and-roll wannabes/geeks who walk around with songs constantly ringing in their ears, own more than 3,000 albums, and fall in love with at least one record per week. With a life that’s spanned the phonographic era and the digital age, Steve Almond lives to Rawk. Like you, he’s secretly longed to live the life of a rock star, complete with insane talent, famous friends, and hotel rooms to be trashed. Also like you, he’s content (sort of) to live the life of a rabid fan, one who has converted his unrequited desires into a (sort of) noble obsession. Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life traces Almond’s passion from his earliest (and most wretched) rock criticism to his eventual discovery of a music-crazed soul mate and their subsequent production of two little superfans. Along the way, Almond reflects on the delusional power of songs, the awkward mating habits of drooling fanatics, and why Depression Songs actually make us feel so much better. The book also includes: • sometimes drunken interviews with America’s finest songwriters • a recap of the author’s terrifying visit to Graceland while stoned • a vigorous and credibility-shattering endorsement of Styx’s Paradise Theater • recommendations you will often choose to ignore • a reluctant exegesis of the Toto song “Africa” • obnoxious lists sure to piss off rock critics But wait, there’s more. Readers will also be able to listen to a special free mix designed by the author, available online at www.stevenalmond.com, for the express purpose of eliciting your drool. For those about to rock—we salute you!

Now Available as an eBook Catch a train to the heart of rock ‘n’ roll with this essential study of the quintessential American art form. First published in 1975, Greil Marcus’ Mystery Train remains a benchmark study of rock ‘n’ roll and a classic in the field of music criticism. Focusing on six key artists--Robert Johnson, Harmonica Frank, Randy Newman, the Band, Sly Stone, and Elvis Presley--Marcus explores the evolution and impact of rock ‘n’ roll and its unique place in American culture. This sixth edition of Mystery Train includes an updated and rewritten Notes and Discographies section, exploring the evolution and continuing impact of the recordings featured in the book.

The legendary critic and author of Mystery Train “ingeniously retells the tale of rock and roll” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Unlike previous versions of rock ’n’ roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs and dramatizes how each embodies rock ’n’ roll as a thing in itself, in the story it tells, inhabits, and acts out—a new language, something new under the sun. “Transmission” by Joy Division. “All I Could Do Was Cry” by Etta James and then Beyoncé. “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” first by the Teddy Bears and almost half a century later by Amy Winehouse. In Marcus’s hands these and other songs tell the story of the music, which is, at bottom, the story of the desire for freedom in all its unruly and liberating glory. Slipping the constraints of chronology, Marcus braids together past and present, holding up to the light the ways that these striking songs fall through time and circumstance, gaining momentum and meaning, astonishing us by upending our presumptions and prejudices. This book, by a founder of contemporary rock criticism—and its most gifted and incisive practitioner—is destined to become an enduring classic. “One of the epic figures in rock writing.”—The New York Times Book Review “Marcus is our greatest cultural critic, not only because of what he says but also, as with rock-and-roll itself, how he says it.”—The Washington Post Winner of the Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award in Music Criticism, given by the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers

Do you have a story you’re bursting to tell the world? Are you sick of being rejected by the publishing establishment? Do you want to inject a little punk rock, DIY ethos into your indie author career? In How to Rock Self-Publishing, bestselling indie author and publishing coach Steff Green shows you how to tell your story, find your readers, and build a badass author brand. As a self-published author you’ll learn how to: Define your measure of success and set attainable goals. Create an exciting author brand you want to write under forever. Tame your monkey mind and consolidate your gazillion ideas into a solid plan. Choose the best platforms, editors, designers, and tools to create a high-quality book. Plan a compelling book series in any genre that will have your readers chomping for more. Write faster, release more often, and enjoy what you create. Spot trends and gaps in the market where you can add your unique voice. Publish your book in print, ebook, and audio with all the nuts and bolts. Launch with a BANG! – including handy launch checklists. Create an engaging author platform to turn your readers into lifelong fans. Find unique and emerging opportunities in self-publishing to build your audience and earn a living. Steff breaks down the 11-step process that’s seen her go from failed archaeologist and obscure music blogger to a USA Today bestseller with a six-figure income. With dozens of examples from across the publishing landscape and real-talk from her own career, Steff shows how imagination, creativity, and perseverance can help you achieve your dreams. How to Rock Self-Publishing isn’t just a book about writing, it’s about grabbing your dreams by the balls, living faster, harder and louder, and cranking your art up to 11.

In this concise and engaging analysis of rock music, music theorist Ken Stephenson explores the features that make this internationally popular music distinct from earlier music styles. The author offers a guided tour of rock music from the 1950s to the present, emphasizing the theoretical underpinnings of the style and, for the first time, systematically focusing not on rock music's history or sociology, but on the structural aspects of the music itself. What structures normally happen in rock music? What theoretical systems or models might best explain them? The book addresses these questions and more in chapters devoted to phrase rhythm, scales, key determination, cadences, harmonic palette and succession, and form. Each chapter provides richly detailed analyses of individual rock pieces from groups including Chicago; the Beatles; Emerson, Lake, and Palmer; Kansas; and others. Stephenson shows how rock music is stylistically unique, and he demonstrates how the features that make it distinct have tended to remain constant throughout the past half-century and within most substyles. For music students at the college level and for practicing rock musicians who desire a deeper understanding of their music, this book is an essential resource.

For the generation coming of age in the years from 1987 to 1994, RIP magazine was every bit as crucial as Rolling Stone. Life on Planet Rock describes how Friend, the editor of RIP, became the Zelig-like chronicler of the biggest musical moments of that time—from introducing Guns N’ Roses (in nothing but a top hat, underwear, and cowboy boots) to sitting in during the making of Metallica’s "Black Album." Life on Planet Rock provides revealing portraits of artists as varied as Kurt Cobain, Gene Simmons, Alice Cooper, Axl Rose, James Hetfield, Steven Tyler, and many more. Part oral history, part candid and humorous memoir, it is a wormhole back to a fast-moving time in music that saw tastes flash from new wave to hair metal to grunge, told as only someone who was there through it all could tell it.

A rock 'n roll classic back in print updated and revised. One of the funniest rock memoirs ever Al Kooper's legendary Backstage Passes is available again] Al's quirkly life from would'be teenage rocker to crashing Bob Dylan's recording session an