The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs

"No writer puts you inside the experience of music the way Greil Marcus does. His descriptions of songs, especially, unfold like thrillers or romantic rhapsodies, sucking you in and revealing aspects of each beat or vocal trill that you’d never have noticed on your own. As the most esteemed music writer of his generation, Marcus has made a career of challenging conventional wisdom on everything from Elvis to punk to Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes. Here, he re-imagines the very idea of rock history as a series of associations rather than chronological events. You may have never thought to connect Joy Division’s “<a href= “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dBt3mJtgJc” target="_blank">Transmission” to Buddy Holly’s “ Crying, Waiting, Hoping,” or Christian Marclay’s video- and sound-installation Guitar Drag to the Teddy Bears’ “<a href= “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCnUsInBQws” target="_blank">To Know Him Is To Love Him,” but you’ll think of music differently because Marcus did. It’s so much fun to let him drag your brain onto the dance floor."

""The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs," by Greil Marcus, was also pretty great."