- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Open Court; 1 edition (Mar 1 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0812695003
- ISBN-13: 978-0812695007
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 136 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,043,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
Martin (philosophy, DePaul Univ.) is an experienced amateur electric bassist with two previous publications in this field (Listening to the Future and Music of Yes: Structure and Vision in Progressive Rock). Despite such ostensibly solid credentials, he misses a golden opportunity to fill a musicological vacuum with a reasoned survey of experimental rock, instead producing an arrogant, blatantly personal manifesto. His scope is ridiculously narrow, neglecting the vast expanse of his chosen subject and devoting half of the text to only five arguably significant but hardly central proponents of "experimental" rock music: Jim O'Rourke, Bj rk, King Crimson, Sonic Youth ("the 'heroes' of this book"), Yes, and, oddly, nonrocker John Cage. He further belies the scope promised in his title by devoting almost one-third of the book to jazz artists, nonrock aleatory composers, classical pianist Glenn Gould, and rappers. His book is riddled with hyperbole and unsupportable opinion, plus arcane in-jokes alongside allusions to a "rock for dummies" matrix. While Avant Rock should get some credit for reminding us that generally ignored "fringe" artists such as Merzbow and Stereolab are nonetheless vital agents in the evolution of rock music, this can be recommended to only the largest academic collections with a completist's interest in nonmainstream rock music. Jerry Lucky's The Progressive Rock Files (Collector's Guide, 1998) and Bradley Smith's The Billboard Guide to Progressive Music (Watson-Guptill, 1997, while not perfect, are each preferable to this. The second edition of Rock: The Rough Guide (Rough Guides, 1999), although not exclusively devoted to progressive rock, cogently profiles over 1000 bands including most of rock's major and minor "avant-architects" and remains not only the definitive guide to rock as a whole but also the best extant sourcebook treating the primary experimental movements, innovative recordings, and progressive performers within rock music. Bill Piekarski, Angelicus Webdesign, Lackawanna, NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Having previously inspected the band Yes (Music of Yes, 1996) and progressive rock (Listening to the Future, 1997), Martin turns to avant-garde rock. His choice of subjects follows the course of rock's experimental spirit well. Early on, he deconstructs the John and Yoko dynamic, considering whether it eventually broke up the Beatles and whether that was a bad thing. The breakup freed Lennon to pursue his more philosophical side, at the cost of McCartney's more sophisticated music making; meanwhile, Yoko became a considerable force in avant-garde rock, Martin says. No white rock critic afflicted with "overcomprehension," Martin devotes significant space to such progressive black artists as George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix, and John Coltrane. Later he labors to say something good about Brian Eno, and readers must take the good with the pompous. After assessing avant perennial King Crimson, Martin blasts into the present with "Bjork, Jim O'Rourke, and Beyond." Vital and balanced, intellectual but engrossing, this is rock criticism in which to sink one's teeth while shaking one's hips. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
There has always been experimentation in rock music, but this took off in earnest in the late 1960s. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
There has always been experimentation in rock music, but this took off in earnest in the late 1960s. Read the first page
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Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Engaging, but chock full of errors,
By A Customer
This review is from: Avant Rock: Experimental Music From The Beatles To Bjork (Paperback)
There are several facts that just aren't right in this book, and it bothered me. I mean, saying that Sterling Morrison is still teaching "to this day" should have been a showstopper (memo to the author: he died some 5-6 years before the book was published). And "Sweet Ray" ain't a VU song (though from the context it's pretty obvious he meant "Sweet Jane"). I'll stop here, but there's plenty more. Greg Kot and Jim Derogatis supplied blurbs for the back cover; did these guys actually read the book? I can't believe they would have let these obvious bloopers slide.On the positive side, I did enjoy reading it and it's great to see someone who champions new rock from Tortoise and Jim O'Rourke and is unafraid to connect them to "prog", and not just the "prog" that's considered "cool" (King Crimson) but the "uncool" stuff like Yes and ELP. One last thing: why no mention of My Bloody Valentine? "Isn't Anything" and "Loveless" were avant rock milestones arguably just as important as "Sister" and "Daydream Nation", but they didn't even merit a sentence in this book.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Avant Rock: Experimental Music From The Beatles To Bjork (Paperback)
An invigorating, broad-minded survey of pop music's experimental fringes. Martin (Philosophy/DePaul Univ.; Listening to the Future, not reviewed, etc.) attempts to define a 20th-century "music of ideas," while acknowledging the inherent difficulty in doing so for a genre originally identified with adolescence and spontaneity, and perpetually corrupted by the marketplace. He shrewdly does so by sorting a galaxy of artists into categories broad enough that most readers can find jumping-off points. He notes that, as John Cage, Glenn Gould, and Ornette Coleman found the limits of "reasonable" for classical and jazz listeners, Yoko Ono and Brian Eno did the same during early rock experimentation (c. 1966-75), when mainstream consumers were exposed to provocative music ranging from the Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, and Steely Dan, to Can and Captain Beefheart. Soon, Martin notes, conglomerate record companies disdained supporting such efforts, while what's termed "The Passage Through Punk" created a powerful, if dead-ended, ideology (and an enduring grassroots aesthetic) in the face of late-'70s social malaise, fueling artists like Patti Smith and Glenn Branca. Although important marginal figures are neglected (e.g., Peter Laughner, The Mekons, Roky Erickson), Martin addresses excellent analysis to a smart selection, including Cecil Taylor, Sonic Youth, Jim O'Rourke, John Zorn, Tortoise, the New Klezmir Trio, and Game Theory (one of many artists whose chess obsession he discusses). Martin relates their music to parallel developments in philosophy and literature, citing influences from Adorno and Debord to Nabokov and Harry Crews, and manages the neat trick of combining the sharp personal enthusiasms of underground rock's fanzine culture, with the cooler head of academic explorations, so that the reader perceives why rock enthusiasts have stuck with it all these years. He concludes with two essay-manifestoes that question the overwhelming, image-based corporate stranglehold on mainstream music (e.g., the antics of Eminem and Britney), and probe avant-rock's seemingly healthy, if fragmented, future. A trenchant and witty exploration, several cuts above typical surveys written in the wake of the "alternative" era.
5.0 out of 5 stars
From Yoko Ono to King Crimson and beyond,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Avant Rock: Experimental Music From The Beatles To Bjork (Paperback)
At first glance the term "avant-garde rock" may be a contradiction in terms, but upon further reflection it provides an umbrella term for trends which emerged through the cultural and political upheavals of the 1960s. From Yoko Ono to King Crimson and beyond, Professor Martin's Avant Rock cogently analyzes both artists and groups, offering new insights into the emerging styles of this musical genre.
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