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'A triumph - compelling, seductive, delightful... After finishing it, I went out and bought a pile of Beatles CDs and listened to the songs properly for the first time in my life... Quite brilliant.' Nick Hornby 'An unprecedented critical feat... The post powerful and enlightening work on British pop since Jon Savage's England's Dreaming.' Time Out 'No book has ever taken us closer to the actual music of The Beatles... A brilliant piece of work.' Tony Parsons
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The very best pieces from the UK's finest rock journalist. His first book since the acclaimed Revolution in the Head
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I haven't read Ian MacDonald's previous book, Revolution in the Head, which others on this site have raved about, as a seminal work on The Beatles. After reading The People's Music, I shall, soon. TPM is essentially a collection of IM's writings in various magazines such as Mojo and Uncut. Each is a dissertation on its own, offering insight not just musical, but also psychological, philosophical and sociological. I strongly recommend this book to anyone wishing to expand their understanding of the place of popular music in the world, seen through the eyes of some of its major exponents over the last forty years. However it is probably of greatest value to those approaching middle age, who can remember the artists first-hand.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ian MacDonald (1948-2003) was a British music critic who wrote for NME, Mojo and Uncut and is the author of Revolution in the Head, a much-loved account of the music of The Beatles. I came across his writing through an essay he wrote for Mojo magazine on Nick Drake. A great admirer of his music and interested in the things that might have moved the man, I found the two biographies on Drake - by Patrick Humphries (1997) and Trevor Dann (2006) - frustrating and partly annoying: both are sloppily written, both offer superficial accounts of the music and Dann is guilty of claiming to have found "evidence of child abuse" in Drake's lyrics (any literary critic - especially those working on Sylvia Plath or Virginia Woolf - could have told him how much of a risky business that is).
'Exiled from Heaven', MacDonald's essay on Drake found at the end of this collection, deftly works against the romantic myth of him as an "otherworldly sage" by pinpointing the understated irony in his lyrics and tonal delivery (e.g. Poor Boy, Pink Moon) and demonstrating how Drake was more of an observer and less of a victim than many assume. In contrast to Humphries and Dann, MacDonald is very cautious about drawing conclusions about the man from his music ("There is no reliable link between Drake's work and anything we know, or think we know, about his states of mind"). Cutting through lazy mythologisation of him as a loner adrift in a sea of endless sorrow, MacDonald's analysis is much more sober and even-handed: "The unfashionable probability is that Drake was *different*...a reflective mind endowed with unusual perceptions." Although clearly a Drake fan (MacDonald even had the privilege of hearing him play whilst briefly at Cambridge), he doesn't fall into the slippery trap of blind adoration and concedes that Drake's lyrics can sometimes be "vague, awkward, even gauche".
MacDonald shows how Drake consistently deployed a series of symbols and codes in his music, almost all of which were rooted in nature - seasons, trees, rain, the stars, the sun - and how his songs were possibly influenced by Buddhism and the work of William Blake (who Drake apparently thought was "the only good English poet"). For all fans of Nick's music who want to delve deeper, this is essential reading.
This collection of essays also includes shorter pieces on Jimi Hendrix, Laura Nyro, Bob Marley, Lennon and McCartney, and Randy Newman as well as an interesting critical analysis of Bob Dylan.
'Exiled from Heaven', MacDonald's essay on Drake found at the end of this collection, deftly works against the romantic myth of him as an "otherworldly sage" by pinpointing the understated irony in his lyrics and tonal delivery (e.g. Poor Boy, Pink Moon) and demonstrating how Drake was more of an observer and less of a victim than many assume. In contrast to Humphries and Dann, MacDonald is very cautious about drawing conclusions about the man from his music ("There is no reliable link between Drake's work and anything we know, or think we know, about his states of mind"). Cutting through lazy mythologisation of him as a loner adrift in a sea of endless sorrow, MacDonald's analysis is much more sober and even-handed: "The unfashionable probability is that Drake was *different*...a reflective mind endowed with unusual perceptions." Although clearly a Drake fan (MacDonald even had the privilege of hearing him play whilst briefly at Cambridge), he doesn't fall into the slippery trap of blind adoration and concedes that Drake's lyrics can sometimes be "vague, awkward, even gauche".
MacDonald shows how Drake consistently deployed a series of symbols and codes in his music, almost all of which were rooted in nature - seasons, trees, rain, the stars, the sun - and how his songs were possibly influenced by Buddhism and the work of William Blake (who Drake apparently thought was "the only good English poet"). For all fans of Nick's music who want to delve deeper, this is essential reading.
This collection of essays also includes shorter pieces on Jimi Hendrix, Laura Nyro, Bob Marley, Lennon and McCartney, and Randy Newman as well as an interesting critical analysis of Bob Dylan.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ian MacDonald was one of the triumvirate of NME writers (the Blessed Nick Kent and Charles Shaar Murray being the other two)who shaped and sustained my musical education after John Peel had started it off. MacDonald was a writer who THOUGHT about what he was listening to and then went on to persuade us how right he was. He did it with Revolution In The Head (every home should have a copy)and he's done it again with this collection of reviews and recollections. The writing is so persuasive he sent me scurrying off to get Chic's Greatest Hits and Miles' Filles de Kilimanjaro and to dig out my vinyl copy of Laura Nyro's Eli and The Thirteenth Confession. The only quibble I have is with the publishers: I would have liked to have known where all the articles were originally published. Recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A rock writer with intellect and integrity
Ian MacDonald's style of writing was slightly different from his illustrious NME peers Nick Kent and Charles Shaar Murray each of whom took a more abrasive, argumentative approach... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Neil Kernohan
Save your money, buy Revolution in the Head
Or if you've already got that, just save your money. Revolution is the best, most profound, most articulate book on the Beatles, and must be one of the all time best pop or rock... Read more
Published on 24 Feb 2004 by P. Bryant
treading a thin line
Hmmm. Well, less a 'book' than a collection, and readers coming to this from the stunning 'Revolution in the Head' may be disappointed. Read more
Published on 2 Sep 2003 by Robert Machin
Listmania!
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