Evolution of the Rock Biography
December 15, 2007 6:39 PM Subscribe
When did the genre of "rock biography" become what it is today?
The first rock biography I read was No One Here Gets Out Alive in 1980. As far as I know, that was one of the first books of its kind.
Today major retailers like Barnes and Noble have entire sections devoted to rock biography, both individual performers and bands. Sometime between 1980 and today enough books in this genre were written to justify an entire bookstore section. When exactly did this happen? How did I miss this cultural milestone?
The first rock biography I read was No One Here Gets Out Alive in 1980. As far as I know, that was one of the first books of its kind.
Today major retailers like Barnes and Noble have entire sections devoted to rock biography, both individual performers and bands. Sometime between 1980 and today enough books in this genre were written to justify an entire bookstore section. When exactly did this happen? How did I miss this cultural milestone?
Hunter Davies first published The Beatles - The Authorized Biography in 1968.
posted by Oriole Adams at 8:09 PM on December 15, 2007
posted by Oriole Adams at 8:09 PM on December 15, 2007
Shout! (by Philip Norman) about the Beatles came out in 1981, I believe, and was followed a few years later by Peter Brown's The Love You Make. Albert Goldman's Elvis and Stephen Davis's Hammer of the Gods, about Led Zeppelin, both came out around the same time as well. So I don't think it's like Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive was that far ahead of the curve. I would guess that, by the early '80s, the idea of taking rock "seriously" enough for full-fledged analytical/biographical treatment had become widespread -- publications about musicians no longer had to be restricted to the sort of hagiographic tone of publications for fans who only wanted to hear the "official" line about a particular band or musician (such as Davies' sweet but ultimately extremely sanitized biography of the Beatles).
posted by scody at 8:11 PM on December 15, 2007
posted by scody at 8:11 PM on December 15, 2007
I read the semi-authorized Scaduto (1971) biography of Dylan in '75 for a 9th grade research paper. (Dylanology may be a special case, however. I think pitchfork called Dylan "our least representative pop icon").
Also in 1975, Greil Marcus published his seminal, although not strictly biographical, Mystery Train. Marcus applies literary analysis of a sort to the lives and music of Robert Johnson, Randy Newman, Sly Stone (likened to Stagger Lee), and Elvis Presley ("Presliad").
Further afield from biography, R. Meltzer published The Aesthetics of Rock in 1970. Meltzer prefaces the book with the lyrics from the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird" followed by 300 pages of gonzo philosophizing that owes more to Lester Bangs than Walter Pater.
I remember an early (venereal) warts-and-all tour diary from '74, Robert Greenfield's
S.T.P.: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones. Again, not strictly biographical, closer to gonzo journalism.
In short (too late), many writers (such as Langdon Winner, Marcus, Jon Landau, Ellen Willis, Lester Bangs, Dave Marsh, and others) wrote serious (and seriously berserk) treatments of pop music early in the 1970s, mainly in counter-culture magazines such as Rolling Stone and Creem, and in alterna-weeklies such as the Village Voice and the Boston Phoenix. A few of them wrote books (Marcus. Nick Tosches' Country). In the 1980s, the quantity of rock biographies grew, if not the quality.
posted by doncoyote at 1:14 AM on December 16, 2007
Also in 1975, Greil Marcus published his seminal, although not strictly biographical, Mystery Train. Marcus applies literary analysis of a sort to the lives and music of Robert Johnson, Randy Newman, Sly Stone (likened to Stagger Lee), and Elvis Presley ("Presliad").
Further afield from biography, R. Meltzer published The Aesthetics of Rock in 1970. Meltzer prefaces the book with the lyrics from the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird" followed by 300 pages of gonzo philosophizing that owes more to Lester Bangs than Walter Pater.
I remember an early (venereal) warts-and-all tour diary from '74, Robert Greenfield's
S.T.P.: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones. Again, not strictly biographical, closer to gonzo journalism.
In short (too late), many writers (such as Langdon Winner, Marcus, Jon Landau, Ellen Willis, Lester Bangs, Dave Marsh, and others) wrote serious (and seriously berserk) treatments of pop music early in the 1970s, mainly in counter-culture magazines such as Rolling Stone and Creem, and in alterna-weeklies such as the Village Voice and the Boston Phoenix. A few of them wrote books (Marcus. Nick Tosches' Country). In the 1980s, the quantity of rock biographies grew, if not the quality.
posted by doncoyote at 1:14 AM on December 16, 2007
Building on doncoyote and others, I'd say that books like No One Here Gets Out Alive and Hammer of the Gods, with their larger-than-life hero worship, emphasis on debauchery and myth-making (rather than, say, an emphasis on lit-crit-style analysis, or conventional biography or journalism), represented a backlash against the scholarly and/or writerly affectations of people like Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs. If Bangs is punk rock, then No One Here... and Hammer are the corporate arena rock, or perhaps the hair metal, that followed inevitably after.
posted by box at 9:30 AM on December 16, 2007
posted by box at 9:30 AM on December 16, 2007
Response by poster: Obviously the first books to come out in this genre were about the major acts, The Beatles, Jim Morrison, Elvis, etc. So I'm assuming that they were all filed away in "Biography". But now you go to a major retailer and you get five books on Radiohead (Not Radioheadist)...
At some point a "critical mass" of rock biographies were published to warrant a unique section. I honestly don't know when this occurred. 80's? 90's? 00's (the decade I like to call the "supernaughts").
posted by Tube at 9:58 AM on December 16, 2007
At some point a "critical mass" of rock biographies were published to warrant a unique section. I honestly don't know when this occurred. 80's? 90's? 00's (the decade I like to call the "supernaughts").
posted by Tube at 9:58 AM on December 16, 2007
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Rolling Stone Magazine probably was a pretty big reason, as well. Boomers were weaned on RS, but in 1980, it was covering Blondie and Van Halen-- not music that boomers cared about. So rock bios filled that void
This is all jus tme speculating, though. As far as I know, you're right and the Jim Morrison bio was the first really popular rock bio. Interesting that it was him and not one about Elvis or The Beatles.
posted by Kronoss at 7:00 PM on December 15, 2007