The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends an impressive impersonation of Bob Dylan
Lay it on thick
ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends a prime example of a Marxist history of popular music that entertains and inspires
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Here, Vermiglio, William Tell and Wolf Man
New releases from Thorpe and Morrison, Daria Kulesh, and Will Finn and Rosie Calvert
RINA ARYA confronts the brutal operation of Francis Bacon’s approach to portraiture
Emphasising his continuous engagement in labour movement struggles, ALISTAIR FINDLAY salutes John Foster’s contribution as activist, strategist, intellectual and defender of the Morning Star
ANDY MIAH advocates the use of AI to assist people by expanding access to global literature and culture
EWAN KOTZ relishes a veteran Glasgow band that have lost none of their verve for live performance
Mixing Pop and Politics
Toby Manning, Repeater Books, £25
THIS is a refreshing and inspiring book written by a music industry insider, author of The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd (2006) who has written for Q, NME, New Statesman, Guardian and similar media, and is now manager and producer of a band called The Idle Lovers.
He says of it himself: “This is a Marxist history of popular music, not a history of Marxist popular music — that would be a very short book.” Indeed.
In fact it is a fascinating but very large book, 565 crammed pages, a hundred of which comprise the index and notes and thus a treasure trove waiting for aspiring Phd/masters students to plunder for quotes, insights and critiques, mostly from the Stuart Hall stable of cultural studies intellectuals — Marx, Gramsci, Marcuse, Althusser, Foucault, Raymond Williams and the more recent Frederic Jameson etc.
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