England's Dreaming, Revised Edition: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond by Jon Savage Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of England's Dreaming, Revised Edition: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond
Book Review: Not an overview of Britpunk.
Summary: 1 Stars
Horribly padded. No narrative flow. Not an overview of Britpunk. Just 540 tedious pages devoted to the short career of the Sex Pistols with an occasional paragraph on other bands. Check out "Riot of our Own" and "Rotten" first.Book Review: Punk fans must buy this.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the Punk - Rock and Pop Culture Bible. Plan and simple! If you what your looking for happends to be a history of just just plan old anarchy in England in the early and late 70's. Than you are looking at the wrong soures of info. The book ties in Punk Rock music, culture and life styles in almost everything Jon Savage talks about. I think fans of the Sex Pistols will also love this very, very big and offensive book, because they talk alot about the classic Sex Pistols, and their history. Even though I am not a huge Sex Pistols fan I was not let down. Jon Savage is also a very good writer.Book Review: Pretentious account of meaningless events and people...
Summary: 2 Stars
This book is pretty bad. And so long! The worst thing about it is the cod intellectualism. It really is too much. I am not a contemporary and care nothing for punk music new or old (I can still appreciate a good yarn though!) but I still strongly suspect that most of it is justification AFTER THE FACT. I mean the philosophical stuff: situationism, social-realism and suchlike. This may not be true for the other punk-groups but as far as I can tell the Sex Pistols wanted to be old-fashioned rock stars just like the rest. The only way in which they wanted to overturn the old order is to construct it again with them at the top! What a bunch of vapid phonies. And the the reams of prose wasted on the charletan McLaren-- it's too much! Basically the guy reads too much into the Sex Pistols. You can especially tell with the foreword (which deals with events with which I am familiar). I think he suffers from that 30-something delusion that he was part of something 'authentic' whereas kids of today are part of something 'fake' and kids of his parents generation were part of something that was just the build-up to the 'real' movement which he experienced. Savage builds up the mythology of this scene so that he can then say "I was part of THAT" (it's never quite clear how...) and bask in the reflected glory. Get over yourself!Book Review: It was even wilder than it seemed at the time
Summary: 5 Stars
Jon Savage's trip through Punk begins about 50 to 60 pages in - after some early flummery on Westwood and McLaren. From there on Savage just can't tell the story fast enough. This is a cracking read and, for me, a chance to relive a childhood. What a breath of fresh air Punk was. And what a story this is.England's Dreaming really gets you deep into the madness. For that's what it was. McLaren, the egoist business man, versus Sid and Lydon versus Richard Branson and the record companies. It was a game of chicken between the lot of them. Sadly, Sid lost in a big way. McLaren and Lydon? Well, they were responsible for two of the greatest pop classics of all time...Double Dutch and Public Image. The record companies now have the internet to keep them awake at night.
As for Ronnie Biggs. Well the law finally got its revenge in 2001 as skint Ronnie flew back to Blighty on a plane chartered by the English tabloids. Chat rooms across the land debated whether England's favourite villain should serve his time or get his final wish of one last pint in an English pub. The wigs have yet to decide the ending. But what a ride it's been....
Some reviewers seem to dislike Savage's apparent closeness to his subjects. I think that this makes for even better copy - especially the passage down the Thames on the night the dream came crashing down.
England's Dreaming is, quite simply, a wonderful book of life on the edge. The UK in the early to mid 1970s was an awful place. Punk changed everything for a lot of people.
Book Review: One of the great books about pop culture, of ANY genre
Summary: 5 Stars
Jon Savage has clicked on all cylinders with England's Dreaming, a massive, but thoroughly engaging, portrait of England during the time of Punk's "Rotten" birth. All of the players are allowed to speak and Savage has done a masterful job of putting everything into an intellectual, social, cultural and political context. This is a book to be read slowly, and savored.