33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day
33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day
Dorian Lynskey is one of the most prominent music critics writing today. With 33 Revolutions Per Minute, he offers an engrossing, insightful, and wonderfully researched history of protest music in the twentieth century and beyond. From Billie Holiday and Woodie Guthrie to Bob Dylan and the Clash to Green Day and Rage Against the Machine, 33 Revolutions Per Minute is a moving and fascinating portrait of a century of popular music that tried to change the world.
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Bullet Proof … I Wish I Was: The Lighting & Stage Design of Andi Watson
Thousands attend stadium rock concerts around the globe and experience the artistry of lighting designer Andi Watson through his work with bands like Radiohead and Oasis. This visually arresting monograph presents a decade’s worth of his extraordinary designs through hundreds of stage photographs. The foreword by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke reveals the relationship between band and lighting designer, while other critical essays elucidate the history of stage lighting. An ideal book for devoted Radiohead followers and those interested in the intersection of contemporary art and pop culture.
List Price: $ 45.00
Price: $ 5.54
A long but ultimately worthwhile read,
We’ve all heard ad nauseam how the only people to actually get anything done in this country were the baby boomers in the 1960′s, with protest against the Vietnam War, marching for Civil Rights, put out music and movies that were culturally relevant, and so on. Conversely, there are those who thought, and still think, the 60′s were a time when America lost its moral compass, politically and culturally, and are trying to change things back when it was a “better” place. “33 Revolutions per Minute”, by Dorian Lynskey, which covers the protest song from Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit” to Green Day’s “American Idiot”, may not change anyone’s mind on what protest songs, and movements, meant to this country (as well as Britain, Chile, and Africa), but it’s a well-written history.
As the title would suggest, Lynskey, a music critic for the Guardian, picks 33 songs to write about. Along with the two listed above, it includes songs both well-known (Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land”, Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”, James Brown’s “I’m Black and I’m Proud”, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Ohio”, Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes”, which apparently got Lynskey interested in protest music) and lesser known (Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddamn”, the music of Victor Jara, a singer/protestor in Chile until he was murdered when Pinochet took over, Steve Earle’s “John Walker Blues”). Instead of merely describing the songs, however, Lynskey describes the history behind the songs (a brief description not only of the singer or band at the time, as well as what was going on in that particular country at the time), and often even a parallel songwriter whose work either complemented or contrasted the song under discussion (such as dealing with Phil Ochs in the chapter on Bob Dylan, as Ochs was more obviously political, and discussing the Clash and Sex Pistols, as while they both were the leaders of British punk they were also diametrically opposed in many ways).
While Lynksey isn’t blind to the pretensions that go with the territory when it comes to writing protest songs (he singles out John Lennon as a case in point, though I do think he’s a tad harsh when it comes to “Revolution”; its ambivalence is why, I think, it’s still potent as a song), and he also recognizes how many singers were unable or unwilling to keep up the momentum (Dylan, for one, famously backed off from making any explicit protest songs when he went electric), he also isn’t out to mock. He genuinely appreciates the intent behind many of the songs, and how they went hand in hand with the political movements of the time (though he concentrates more on civil rights than, say, feminism). While he concentrates mostly on the U.S. and Britain, Lynskey does touch on how protest music fermented in Latin America and Africa (as well as recognize how, unlike here and in Britain, singing these songs could get you killed, and did). At the end, Lynskey wonders if, as well as writing a history, he’s also written an epitaph for the protest song. That may well be true (as he also points out earlier, there were in fact a number of songs eventually protesting the war in Iraq, but they seemed independent of each other rather than unifying or galvanizing a protest movement), but a few nit-picks aside (he misses how the segregation of American radio affected African-American protest music), Lynskey has written a fitting tribute to the protest song, as well as a vital history of it.
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|Sans “And A Third”,
This is A, rather than THE, history of protest songs.
At its best, the book is informative. Even if you hate a particular song and/or artist, the author manages to keeps one’s interest in reading about it/them. In part this is due to his scatter-shot approach, encompassing eras and genres. It is also well-researched.
Where it fails is in the balance of history. There are far too many relatively recent songs included. That Phil Ochs wasn’t granted a chapter, while Frankie Goes To Hollywood was, is criminal. Broadside magazine is hardly even mentioned, while the author goes out of his way to include an obscure disco song, as well as U#2′s “Pride (In The Name of Love),” which isn’t even a protest song but, rather, a song of celebration. So why include it? I suspect it’s for the same reason that the book is so laden with relatively recent songs, that the main concern was the bottom line. Most people will want to read about songs that they’re familiar with.
So the blues, a form of music that, by it’s very nature, is a protest, is totally ignored. Part of this is probably due to the author’s definition of protest music, which he links to politics. There are, of course, other forms of revolution, such as cultural and social, but the author chooses to put blinders on concerning them. Still, I’d much rather have read something about the “Bourgeois Blues” than “Two Tribes.”
Even among the modern music the author does highlight, there is some head-scratching on my part. Does Dorian Lynskey honestly believe that Huggy Bear is more representative of Riot Grrrl than Bikini Kill? Does he not believe that Patti Smith’s song “People Have The Power” is even worth mentioning? Doesn’t he see the implicit revolutionary aspect of the entire DIY culture / “indie scene,” in which the “workers” have seized the means of production?
This is still a worthwhile book. I learned quite a bit about such artists as Crass, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Victor Jara and Feli Kuti. While I would not say that it is at all definitive, it is a good start.
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|Protest Songs Minus Phil Ochs?!!!!!,
Sorry, Dorian but a book about Protest Songs which does not include a chapter on Phil Ochs (along with Dylan, the greatest of the writers of Protest Songs) just doesn’t cut it with me,,,
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|Bullet Proof…I Wish I Was The Lighting and Stage Design of Andi Watson,
Through a series of worldwide tours from the bands Radiohead and Oasis, millions have seen the breathtaking work of lighting director Andi Watson. Watson’s light beams and computer based concert staging are both deceptively simple and memorably striking.
In “Bullet Proof…I Wish I Was The Lighting and Stage Design of Andi Watson” author Christopher Scoates unpacks the intricacies behind the effects with a series of interviews, diagrams, photographs and behind the scene details that bring life to the designs and explain the background and development necessary to create the illuminating effects that represent these bands in the live arena.
Scoates, the director of the University Art Museum at Cal State, Long Beach, has taking a welcomed leap first, by even deciding to cover what may seem like an esoteric subject and secondly, by doing such a thorough and complete job of detailing the multiple dimensions brought to bear to create the final, dramatic product. Scoates first met Watson at the Radiohead “IN Rainbows” stop at the Hollywood Bowl well into the second phase of the lighting director’s career. In backtracking, the author relates Watson’s colorful history (he worked for bands like INXS, Prince and the Cure before signing on with the nascent Oxford band Radiohead) as well as dedicating a chapter to the history of concert lighting, from the early work of Lazlo Mohony-Nagy in the 1930s to the liquid light movements of the underground 60′s to the major stadium undertakings of Pink Floyd (The Wall), the Rolling Stones (Steel Wheels tour) and U2 (Pop Mart, Zoo TV and 360 Tour).
In his analysis of Watson’s work – including Oasis, Dido, the Arctic Monkeys and others – Scoates breaks down the concepts, implementation and even the influences (Jean Cocteau, cubism, the Matrix) that create the awe-inspiring work combining laser light, mirrors, large-scale LED tubes, oscilloscopes, videos and more to create lighting and set designs that are as unique and identifiable as the bands he represents artistically. With essays by Dick Hebdige, J. Fiona Ragheb and an introduction by Thom York, Bulletproof is a completist’s monograph of one of the most significant modern day concert designers in the market today and is thus a worthy and unusual addition to the world of live art.
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|good book,
very intersting books for the photos and plots, not as much for the writing. I had the impression the writer didn’t know how to fill the pages. Too many names and cultural movements superficially and sometimes randomly mentioned one after the other.
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|Amazing stage designs!,
Andy Watson is one amazing guy! He is genius in creating amazing and unique stage lighting. I really admire his style and the designs he has done all thru out the world. It was really great to see how each stage was built with detailed designs and descriptions. Any one who is interested in stage lighting and see how the top notch LD does his art work, must check out this book.
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