Real Punks Don't Wear Black

With relentless analysis and reckless screaming, Frank Kogan has made a career of asking infuriating questions about popular music. A key figure among music critics for his contentious, perceptive writings, Kogan has been contributing to the Village Voice and underground music publications since the early 1970s. The first book-length collection of his writing on music and culture, Real Punks Don't Wear Black samples the best of thirty-plus years of essays, reviews, and rants, and also includes new bits written specifically for this edition.

If you're after no more than backstage dish or a judgment on whether some song is "good" or "bad," then look elsewhere. From the Rolling Stones to the New York Dolls, from Mariah Carey to the Ying Yang Twins, through hip-hop, Europop, disco, and metal, Kogan insists on the hard questions: Our popular music is born in flight, chased by fear, and heading toward unattainable glory, he says. Why is this so? What fears, contagions, divisions are we ignoring that our music cannot?

Remember, says Kogan, this is about you, too. Keep your mind alive, your hairstyle in flux, and your tongue sharpened. Whether you're a gutterpunk or a cultstud geek, you're a bigger part of the story than you realize. It's your ideas that you're hearing on the radio, it's your song that gets sung.

Author: Frank Kogan
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 02/01/2006
Pages: 347
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.13lbs
Size: 9.16h x 6.10w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780820327549
Award: IndieFab awards - Second Place

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 11/14/2005 pg. 54
Univ PR Books for Public Libry 01/01/2007 pg. 1 - Recommended/Special Interest

About the Author
Frank Kogan is the publisher and editor of the fanzine "Why Music Sucks." His work has also appeared in the "Village Voice," "Spin," "Radio On," "Cometbus," and ilXor.com.