Night Beat: a Shadow History of Rock and Roll: Collected Writings - Hardcover

From a noted music critic from Rolling Stone magazine comes an in-depth portrait of rock-and-roll and its effects on society; the musicians who become rock icons; the deaths of Jerry Garcia, Timothy Leary, and Kurt Cobain and how they influenced the world of music; and more.

sts have staked a territory as definitively and passionately as Mikal Gilmore in his twenty-year career writing about rock & roll. Now, for the first time, this collection gathers his cultural criticism, interviews, reviews, and assorted musings in one essential and illuminating book. Beginning with Elvis and the birth of rock & roll, Gilmore traces the seismic changes in America as its youth responded to the postwar economic and political climate. He hears in the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison the voices of unrest and fervor. He charts the rise and fall of punk rock in brilliant essays on Lou Reed, The Sex Pistols, and The Clash and observes its manic impact twenty years later, resurfacing in the music of a Seattle, Washington, trio called Nirvana. Mikal Gilmore describes Bruce Springsteen's America and the problem of Michael Jackson. And like no one else, Gilmore listens to the lone voices: Al Green, Marianne Faithfull, Sinéad ad O'Connor, Frank Sinatra.

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