Product Description

This book is about a single, serpentine fact: late in 1976 a record called "Anarchy in the UK" was issued in London, and this event launched a transformation of pop music all over the world. The song distilled, in crudely poetic form, a critique of modern society once set out by a small group of Paris intellectuals. In this classic book on punk, Dadaism, the situationists, medieval heretics and the Knights of the Round Table (amongst others), the greatest cultural critic of our times unravels the secret history of the twentieth century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55383 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 502 pages

Customer Reviews

Good cultural history, inspite of the punk
This is a must read for any arts student. It will take whatever interest they may have in "punk" and present the phenomena in a new light. This is a far broader (and more "artistic") context then the gritty social history of Savage's England's Dreaming.

Marcus' original thesis is that the Sex Pistols were heirs to the theories of the Situationists - and were, perhaps, the concrete manifestation of their obtuse and impenetrable philosophy. This realisation of situationist thinking - it is argued - took the form of a pure 'revolt' by the disenfranchised punks. This articulated their desire to live as the "subjects, and not the objects of history".

Taking this as his Thesis, Marcus proceeds upon a fragmented "secret history" of the twentieth century - connecting the threads which led from the Free Spirit Brethen through radical "left bank" groups down to the punks. This "secret history" is that of marginal groups holding out for "impossible freedom" against the dominant discourse which would crush it. Marcus reproduces some Situationist artwork and I must confess that, for me, the Punk stuff is the shallow stuff in here. You might be drawn by the unique perspective on punk but you will leave an aspirant situationist.

NOT ABOUT MUSIC
Perhaps the subtitle "A Secret History of the Twentieth Century" should have alerted me, but with the name Greil Marcus and a picture of Johnny Rotten on the cover, I presumed that this book was about music. Not so: taking punk as his starting point, Marcus spends the vast bulk of this book talking about Dadaism, Situationism and various other philosophical/political/cultural movements I had never heard of, citing similarities between them and 1970's punk, though not suggesting the punks had any awareness of these movements.

Lipstick Traces is a tough read, making little allowance for the fact that most people will never have heard of the subjects discussed, many of which are nebulous, ill-defined and self-contradictory. I still don't quite know what Dada means, if anything. Admittedly, I skimmed rather than scrutinized much of the book, as I did not develop any interest in the subjects and felt that Marcus was ascribing more importance to them than they actually possessed, and imposing a coherent ideology on what sometimes seemed little more than juvenile bluster and meaningless soundbites. It is characteristic of Marcus to over-intellectualize the subjects he writes on, but in other books when he is speaking of subjects I was already interested in this did not bother me, as he is a good writer; here, though, some of his theorizing seems quite fanciful and the entire concept of the book is questionable. What is to be gained by seeing Punk through the prism of situationism? Is there really any link, outside of the author's mind?

I cannot condemn this book as I did not fully understand it, however I would say that it definitely has very select appeal and, most of all, is NOT ABOUT MUSIC.