The Nineties: When Surface was Depth [Paperback]

In the nineties, everything was being touted in quick succession as "the new rock and roll". Everything, that is, from football (the great surge of public fervour for England's chances in Italia 90), to Opera, (Pavarotti brought to the high street) to comedy, (Vic and Bob, Harry Enfield, Frank Skinner, Newman and Baddiel selling out Wembley Arena). Then came the pronouncement that contemporary art was the new rock and roll before the emergence and international success of Oasis reminded us all that "rock and roll, actually, was the new rock and roll and always had been." Bracewell knows the music scene and he tells the story of Britpop with the authority and assurance of someone who has spent a lifetime collecting records, going to concerts and writing reviews for the music papers. He also appears to be equally at home with the Britart phenomenon as well as the literary scene past and present.

Some of the material used in the book has appeared elsewhere and consequently The Nineties is something of a patchwork—but none the worse for that. A good portion of the book is comprised of a series of fascinating interviews with and/or commentary upon more or less iconic figures from the 60s, 70s and 80s as well as the 90s; from The Pet Shop Boys to Patti Smith, from Alexander McQueen to Yoko Ono. The interviews and evaluations are truly first rate and alone they justify the price of the book. But this also works as cultural analysis and right from the get-go Bracewell identifies the key ideas that were to emerge from the culture during the nineties, such Irony and Authenticity with the explosion in popular factual programme-making the defining spirit of the nineties. Books such as this are potential banana skins but Bracewell pulls it off with aplomb. Splendidly written, hugely entertaining and intellectually engaging without being too pretentious.--Larry Brown --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘It is enormously tasty – a pleasure. Michael Bracewell is Saul Bellow’s Humboldt.’ Guardian

‘An enthralling guide to our times.’ GQ

‘This cerebral hyperactive tome sprawls through Britpop, comedy as the new rock ’n’ roll, the Spice Girls, “death by cappuccino”, Austin Powers, South Park, chaos theory, shock artists, Princess Di, reality TV, New Labour et al…in a fascinating stream of reactions to our cultural semi-consciousness that has voracious depth…Its insights are startling, jagged and bright. Dumbing up against the tide, this book’s worth your time.’ Uncut

‘Bracewell does “get” the essential character of a decade that revelled in imposture. One has a sense of him as a middle-aged mariner, at the helm of a ghost ship bumping its way between chilly floes of cultural cool.’ Will Self, New Statesman

‘Bracewell’s writing bristles with perception – and irony, possibly the decade’s one lasting legacy.’ Independent

‘With a remarkable range of reference which would do credit to the most streetwise of autodidacts, or the slickest of television arts-programme presenters, his sentences possess all the shine and the glaze and the amazing roll of the glossy magazine and newspaper colour supplement…This book is a pleasure.’ Guardian

Praise for ‘England is MIne’:

‘Surely the strangest and most beautiful book on pop music ever written.’ The Big Issue

‘Bracewell’s witty, free-ranging text links artistic visions of England from the Arcadian ideal of Chaucer and Elizabethan literature to the films, youth movements and pop lyrics of today. His prose crackles with dry insight…This is an audaciously ambitious book, yoking together the sublime and the ridiculous with admirable seriousness.’ Vox