Rocking the Classics (English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture) - Edward L. Macan

Advantages: Classic Deep Intelliegent Timeless
Disadvantages: At times confusing

...starring Elizabeth Taylor that garnered many Oscars. It is now often used as a set text for English Literature and is regarded as a post - 1945 classic. It caqn be found in most good bookstores and is published by Random House. ISBN 0 - 099 - 28569 - X... Read review

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Advantages: Interesting read
Disadvantages: Author rather subjective

...Britpop was the term used, very loosely, to describe a whole plethora of British bands which sprang up as a reaction to US domination of the British music scene and charts inn the early 90’s – itself largely due to grunge music and above all the antistar allure provided by Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. It wasn’t a movement with a manifesto or a set of aims. It was in no way a formal grouping and the press must assume a great share of responsibility or credit in its creation. The precursors were Suede, Elastica and Blur. The former led by Brett Anderson, tooke their lead from the Bowie/Bolan glamrock era of the 1970’s and particularly from Bowie’s cockney/mockney “Anothny Newley” enunciation… not obvious dance music, and therefore a progression from The Stone Roses and the Madchester scene…... Read review

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Advantages: Accessible and easy to read
Disadvantages: Poetry put some people off!

...movement, a loose collection of American poets and writers who managed to give an alternative voice to American youth in the early 50’s in the same way that Jazz and later Rock and Roll did in the field of music. Thom Gunn was not a fully paid up member of this literary movement but in this collection he covers the same ground. Youth angst and culture in general is the principal subject as it was for many writers of the Beat movement like Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg. A BIT OF BACKGROUND Thom Gunn was born in Gravesend in 1929 and was brought up in Hampstead North London. After leaving school, Gunn did two years of National Service and then got a place at Cambridge to read English at the age of twenty-one. This was a formative period for Gunn and during his studies he published his first book of poems ‘Fighting Terms’ in 1954... Read review

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