Before It All Went Rotten

Shine a light on me...

Defying the popular 'wisdom' that the UK music scene was a stagnant wasteland before the year zero of punk changed the world, this book shows that, all along, there were thriving, interlocking scenes bubbling away.
Not so much a genre as a state of mind, pub rock was just that – music based in varying proportions on rock, knocked out unpretentiously in a circuit of under and just-on the radar venues. Rather than there being any abrupt transitions in style and form, the sixties bled into the seventies and onwards into the punk 'revolution' and beyond. Given that punk bands merely played faster and messier than before, and were often veteran musicians sniffing the wind, the notion of a sea-change is a bit overwrought. As ever, the 'year zero' hype can be traced back to that arch-arse, Malcolm McLaren, who was simply making the same old hustler moves – only with tighter trousers. It was also in a lot of old musical lags' interests to have mafia-boss style memory losses when it came to their own recent pasts. The real paradigm shift in popular music came maybe a decade later as dance music became the dominant genre for the nation's youth. Rock became rock became rock – plus ca change.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This book includes some bands that I had never heard of, and I am researching them now. In fact I had only heard of the major bands mentioned in this book and major singers, for example Cat Stevens..
Some interesting memories of how life used to be in the early Seventies. This book filled a gap in my knowledge that I was not aware of. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me a copy of the book.