Any kind of modern media consumer has their own idea about the pillars of culture, and where it all comes from, and what's really important. I certainly have my own version of it, and am convinced we live in a culture built on the work of people like Kenneth Anger and Marie Severin and Dr Dre. It makes sense to me.
Lipstick Traces opened this kind of thinking up for me. Greil Marcus' secret history of the 20th century was the best book I'd ever read about music when I was 18. After endless biographies about wankers who just took too many drugs, this was the first book I ever read to say something about what the music means. The first to tell me that music was more than just a good way to fill a couple of minutes while you were working in the factory or driving around town, it was something embedded in culture, part of everything.A reflection of the self and of society.
It gave me the idea that the Sex Pistols weren't just a loud novelty during their brief life, they were the descendants of a loud and discordant reaction to the ills of society, and it blew my fucking mind.
I read it a decade later after reading many, many more books and articles that mined the same fertile grounds and thought its connections and links were dubious and facile. To be fair, I was in my late 20s at his time, and thought I fucking knew everything, so no wonder I came into again with an antagonistic attitude.
I'm giving it another go now, nearly 20 years after that last time, to see where it stands. I don't expect anything mind-blowing this time, but I'm always up for it.
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