Retromania. Musica, cultura pop e la nostra ossessione per il passato

Reynolds, Simon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8875217815 ISBN 13: 9788875217815

Publisher: Minimum Fax, 2017

The first book to make sense of 21st Century pop, Retromania explores rock's nostalgia industry of revivals, reissues, reunions and remakes, and argues that there has never before been a culture so obsessed with its own immediate past. Pulling together parallel threads from music, fashion, art, and new media, Simon Reynolds confronts a central paradox of our era: from iPods to YouTube, we're empowered by mind-blowing technology, but too often it's used as a time machine or as a tool to shuffle and rearrange music from yesterday.We live in the digital future but we're mesmerized by our analogue past.

Review:

"Amazing." --Bruce Sterling, Wired.com

"Looking back over the last 25 years you'd be hard pressed to name a music journalist more adept at tracking and defining the zeitgeist." --Dave Haslam, "The Guardian"

"Simon Reynolds, one of our most thoughtful music writers, poses a stark question for anyone who cares about the future of pop . . . A devastating critique of the way music is now consumed." --Patrick Sawer, "The Daily Telegraph"

"Bracingly sharp. As a work of contemporary historiography, a thick description of the transformations in our relationship to time--as well as to place--"Retromania" deserves to be very widely read." --Sukhdev Sandhu, "The Observer" (London)

"A provocative and original inquiry into the past and future of popular music." --"Booklist" (starred review)

"[A] mix of canny erudition, critical theory, stylish prose, and vibrant evocations." --Publishers Weekly

'For a long time, Simon Reynolds has been pretty much the most intelligent and thoughtful commentator on pop music around. Here, with rare brilliance, he investigates why, as a culture, pop is becoming obsessed with the past ... an excellent book, and not just about pop music.' --Evening Standard

Book Description:

In Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to its Own Past, Simon Reynolds asks: could it be that the greatest danger to the future of our music culture is . . . its past?