Acknowledgments
Introduction
1
Society, Culture and Music in Britain Before 1963
2
The Beatles
3
London
4
Mods
5
Marketing a Lifestyle
6
Psychedelia
7
Folk Rock
8
The Counterculture
9
Progressive Rock
10
Heavy Metal and Hard Rock
11
Glamrock
12
The Business of Rock Music
13
Punk
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
David Simonelli is associate professor of history at Youngstown State University.
In British society's transformation since 1945 from one defined in
socioeconomic terms to those of culture, from working-class roots
expanded to educated and multicultural ones, and from transatlantic
exchanges to global interactions, the author's focus on the role of
rock and roll in all its changing forms provides valuable
historical analysis. Well-written individual chapters delineate the
culture and counterculture of Beatlemania, psychedelic and folk
rock, progressive and heavy metal rock, and glam rock to punk.
Simonelli (Youngstown State Univ.) provides profiles of individual
artists, groups, and the public receptions. His conclusion that
'yesterday's rebels are today's establishment' sums up the
evolution of artists and groups in a sociohistorical process and
the reshaping of British society. The impact on the British economy
and on individual artists and groups is an important aspect of this
perceptive study, which also places the different phases within the
context of and in comparison to the continuing influence of
19th-century Romanticism. Using underutilized BBC newspapers found
in Edinburgh and an array of printed materials, this expanded
dissertation provides informative footnotes and a select
bibliography, and is a scholarly addition to contemporary social
history. Summing Up: Recommended.
*CHOICE*
For anyone coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s, Working Class
Heroes will evoke the rock soundtrack of youthful rebellion. But
unlike the many memoirs by musicians which tend to dominate rock
music literature, awash with accounts of sex and drugs, David
Simonelli, associate professor of history at Youngstown State
University, employs the British rock scene from the Beatles to the
Sex Pistols to make important observations on the politics,
economics, and social class attitudes of Britain during the 1960s
and 1970s.
*History News Network*
Working Class Heroes objective is to explore the ways in which
popular music mediated and transformed the values of the British
society over the 1960s and 1970s. . . . The book works as a useful
overview of British pop’s trajectory. . . . Simonelli’s book serves
as a primer or a ‘way in’ to the history of rock and pop’s
interaction with the British society and British history.
*Twentieth Century British History*
If you want to learn about the many facets of the beginning of the
British rock circus, this book is just for you. I could hardly
put it down. And I still learned new facts about the Mods, the
beginning of the counterculture, the
British Folk scene, the roots of progressive rock
and the birth a complex cultural style solid enough to become a
powerful British export good. This title comes as close to my
personal 'recommended reading' as it gets.
*Popcultureshelf.com*
Working Class Heroes is a useful introduction to a thorough,
historically minded consideration of British popular music. While
established scholars, such as Matthew Worley and Marcus Collins,
have started to write about British popular music historically,
Simonelli, like Adrian Horn, has proved that the topic is worthy of
full-length monographs. . . .Simonelli adeptly explains British
rock’s domestic antecedents within the surrounding consumer and
mass culture in an extremely useful and eclectic chapter for those
who want to place rock music within its historical context. . .
.[T]he most enlightening aspects of the book involve Simonelli’s
explanations of the culture industry and consumption. . . .Overall,
Simonelli’s book is a useful addition to the literature on British
popular music. The book provides a helpful grounding in the key
protagonists and events for newcomers to British popular music
history. Those who are interested in teaching modules on British
cultural change, popular music, and rock would be well served by
including this text on reading lists. It is well positioned
for first- and second-year undergraduates, with its straightforward
but entertaining prose and relative brevity.
*H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online*
Working Class Heroes is a useful introduction to a thorough,
historically minded consideration of British popular music. . .
.Overall, Simonelli's book is a useful addition to the literature
on British popular music. The book provides a helpful grounding in
the key protagonists and events for newcomers to British popular
music history. Those who are interested in teaching modules on
British cultural change, popular music, and rock would be well
served by including this text on reading lists. It is well
positioned for first- and second-year undergraduates, with its
straightforward but entertaining prose and relative brevity. . .
.Simonelli has laid the foundations for a deeper study of rock
music and class that truly comes to grips with those individuals
and groups that took rock's messages seriously.
*H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online*
Too often the history of rock music is written for fans, and the
result is that such accounts tend to be chatty and superficial. In
contrast, this book contextualizes British rock in a wider context,
at a pivotal moment in postwar British history. Working Class
Heroes is a thoroughly enjoyable, clearly written, and nicely
researched account of British rock, which situated it within a
larger narrative of British social and cultural transformation,
while at the same time discussing a transatlantic context, which is
an absolutely indispensable dimension of any history of rock during
this period.
*Dennis Dworkin, University of Nevada, Reno*
Working Class Heroes takes an interesting direction, looking at the
disintegration of the British class structure through the prism of
rock and roll. Unlike the U.S. which has more of a distinction
based upon race, British society saw the downfall of the
traditional class structure and its left-over aristocracy through
the introduction of mass consumption, including the mass
commoditization of its music through rock and roll. The author does
an excellent job showing how rock and roll reflects this
significant cultural change in British society and offers a unique
perspective.
*David P. Szatmary, University of Washington*
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