Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #219597 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback

Amazon.co.uk Review
More than 20 years after its initial publication, Mystery Train remains one of the smartest, most provocative books ever written about rock-and-roll. Marcus puts his subjects--which include Robert Johnson, Elvis Presley, The Band, Randy Newman and Sly Stone--into their proper context, which is the culture-at-large. He makes you understand why these musicians matter and what they have contributed to the American imagination. In his introduction, Marcus confesses that he is no longer "capable of mulling over Elvis without thinking about Herman Melville"--to the benefit, I might add, of both parties. --Gala Brand

Synopsis
Greil Marcus's study of American rock and roll is universally acclaimed as the benchmark work of modern rock criticism. Using a handful of artists - a brace of bluesmen, The Band, Sly Stone, Randy Newman and Elvis Presley - Marcus illuminates and interprets the American Dream in rigorous prose touching on the myth, landscape and oral tradition of the continent. This comprehensive, revised edition of a milestone achievement in the effort to establish rock and roll as a fit subject for serious cultural criticism, includes a new preface by the author.

Customer Reviews

unreadable
I ask you, has there ever been a more overrated writer than Greil Marcus? I bought this book solely on the hype it has generated over the years and had high hopes - this is the man, let's not forget, who edited Lester Bangs' wonderful 'Psychotic Reactions...'. However, unlike the raw passion and unbridled power of Bangs here we have a dry, pseudo-academic (and it's this horrible so-called intellectualism that is maybe most offensive about this book), unreadable (his prose style is like wading through drying concrete)and very probably meaningless book. Frankly I hated this book and learnt little about America that was worth knowing, or didn't know before. Avoid like the plague, unless you fancy taking the pure beauty and excitement of rock 'n' roll and turning it into something dry and dead.

In Mr. Marcus, I, For One, Hear America Singing
Mystery Train is much more than just a very good piece of rock criticism, nor should it be remembered as perhaps the Father of Rock Criticism. This book is astounding because what Marcus is able to do is get inside a piece of music, an artist, a certain place in time, a brief second inside a recording studio or on a movie screen, and not only recall the moment (or what the moment might have resembled) but also manage to make the moment real for the reader. So often, when reading music criticism, one feels a distance between the work of art itself and the criticism in front of you. Seldom is the excitement, passion, or wonderful possibilities of art well discussed and analyzed, because most authors are unable to find that fine balance between salivating fan and distanced critic. In Mystery Train (and in his other books as well), Greil Marcus has found that balance - or, more precisely, he has refused to accept the balance as necessary. Whatever Marcus trains his eye upon becomes fascinating and important because he sees every possibility, every ramifcation, every opportunity to return to the overriding theme, which is America. After reading Mystery Train, I not only wanted to track down those old Harmonica Frank tapes and re-listen to my Robert Johnson record, and scrutinize The Band's "Brown Album"and Sly Stone and Randy Newman and Elvis - I also wanted to go beyond the book, to attempt to apply Marcus' vision to what I saw around me. For some reason, this book reminds me of the works of Thomas Pynchon, but not just because they're both regularly classified as "post-modernists" by critics and profs. Rather, I find that after reading Marcus and Pynchon, I find myself looking at things differently, recognizing possible patterns around me, being amazed at the myriad possibilities and variety of life. Mystery Train is not simply "a book about rock and roll." It is a work which exists on its own, a work which is both dependent upon and an improvement on the works it discusses and analyzes. Certainly, in 50 years, this book will be looked at as one of the finer moments in American criticism.

GET ON BOARD!!
Just about the best book about artists which (with the exception of Sly & The Family Stone) I've never bothered to listen to. But Marcus' choice of performers is irrelavant. What matters is his thesis on how rock & roll has influenced American culture, and vice versa. The introduction, about Little Richard's rant on Dick Cavett's early-70's show on ABC, nicely sums up what Marcus does in this book---insisting that rock & roll is THE postwar American music, no matter what the elitists tell you.