Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Simon Reynolds
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:608
Dimensions(mm): Height 195,Width 125
Category/Genre20th century and contemporary classical music
Rock and Pop
ISBN/Barcode 9780571215706
ClassificationsDewey:782.42166
Audience
General
Edition Main

Publishing Details

Publisher Faber & Faber
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publication Date 2 February 2006
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Rip It Up and Start Again is the first book to take a big-picture view of the wildly adventurous music created in the years after punk. Renowned music journalist Simon Reynolds celebrates the futurist spirit of such bands as Joy Division, Gang of Four, Talking Heads, and Devo, which resulted in endless innovations in music, lyrics, performance, and style and continued into the early eighties with the video-savvy synth-pop of groups such as Human League, Depeche Mode, and Soft Cell, whose success coincided with the rise of MTV. Full of insight and anecdote and populated by charismatic characters, Rip It Up re-creates the idealism, urgency, and excitement of one of the most important and challenging periods in the history of popular music.

Author Biography

Simon Reynolds is the author of Energy Flash: A Journey through Rave Music and Dance Culture, Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, The Sex Revolts: Gender Rebellions and Rock and Roll (cowritten with Joy Press), Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 and, most recently, Bring The Noise: Twenty Years of Hip Hop and Hip Rock.

Reviews

"'I had never expected there to be a book on this subject; had I done so, I would never have dared to hope it could be as good as this.' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian Book of the Week"