Retromania
Have you noticed that every once in a while, music seems to stop moving forward and ends up in a nostalgic period?
This has been happening for decades. There was a time in the 70s when everyone pined for the 50s. In the 80s, it was all about remembering the 60s. We didn’t get halfway through the 90s before we started hearing about retro 80s nights.
Why do we go through these eras of retrospection? Good question. Simon Reynolds, a very good British writer, has come up with a book called Retromania where he looks at the last 50 years of music in order to understand why we often go backwards before we start going forwards again.
But I’m warning you once you start this book, you’ll end up on YouTube and Google exploring all these songs, artists and genres that you’ve never heard of before. It can be dangerous.
Retromania by Simon Reynolds is published by Faber and Faber.
Nice. I've read 3 other Simon Reynolds books. He writes about post-punk really well. I'm excited to read Retromania.