In this, the first book to take a big-picture view of the entire post punk period, acclaimed author and music journalist Simon Reynolds recreates a time of tremendous urgency and idealism in pop music.
Full of anecdote and insight, and featuring the likes of Joy Division, The Fall, Pere Ubu, PiL and Talking Heads, Rip It Up And Start Again stands as one of the most inspired and inspiring books on popular music ever written.
For British music critic Reynolds, punk was the musically regressive precursor to the real revolution found in the music that followed in its wake. Postpunk served up catnip to critics, with its arty provocations, political theory and Top 40 subversions; Reynolds particularly delights in big thinkers like Gang of Four and Scritti Politti. Inevitably diffuse, Rip It Up coheres around its embrace of music with limitless possibility.
