Rip It up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 cover art

Rip It up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984

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Rip It up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984

By: Simon Reynolds
Narrated by: Liam Wheatley
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About this listen

In this, the first book to take a big-picture view of the entire post punk period, acclaimed author and music journalist Simon Reynolds recreates a time of tremendous urgency and idealism in pop music.

Full of anecdote and insight, and featuring the likes of Joy Division, The Fall, Pere Ubu, PiL and Talking Heads, Rip It Up And Start Again stands as one of the most inspired and inspiring books on popular music ever written.

©2009 Simon Reynolds (P)2024 Orion Publishing Group Limited History & Criticism Music
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This is a thorough yet broad ranging history of an important era of pop and rock music. I enjoyed it greatly, as it brought back pleasant memories for me, and filled in gaps in my knowledge about bands I was not exposed to as a teenager in Australia. Simon Reynolds takes a serious look at the idealogy of the time, and is not afraid to link pop with politics and philosophy.

The reader shounds good mostly and is engaging. The one thing about the read that drove me to distraction however is Liam Wheatley's repeated pronounciation of the word "says" as it is written, instead of the way it should be uttered, third person singular, (/sɛz/) "sez". Is his a peculiar British dialect? Or was the producer not bothered? The way he says Bargeld with a heavy emphasis on the second syllable "BarGELD" is Steven Toast-like in its delivery. BraVO!

Great book. Amazing history.

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