Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcusis an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
fall writing thinking
I was the first records editor at Rolling Stone, and there were no rules. There was nothing to fall back on as to how do you write about this kind of music, so people were trying absolutely everything with a great sense of freedom and experimentation and success and failure, and a feeling of, “My God, people are actually paying attention to this. Let’s pretend they aren’t because we don’t want to be intimidated by what somebody might think of what we’re saying.
teacher inspiration thinking
Think about how rare it is for anyone to encounter a teacher who can open you up to the notion that there is an infinite amount of meaning and possibility and inspiration in the smallest thing before you.
taken thinking wow
I never find myself even catching lyrics until something in the sound has taken me captive. Thinking about anything else is just the pleasurable byproduct of wow.
drama early escaping music mystery sang
Elvis' early music has drama because as he sang he was escaping limits, ... Mystery Train.
cross draws line
It draws a line in the sand. Once you cross it, you can't go back,
home itself top
It made itself a home on Top 40 radio.
asks courage fear puts works
It works on its own terms. It puts you on the spot. It asks of you the fear and courage that it asks of its subject.
heard meet music nerve people records somebody sound speaking unusual wanna
Records that were the sound of somebody - more often than not, a she - speaking with a voice that had never been heard before. Somebody who'd never had the nerve to speak up before. I felt: 'I wanna meet these people.' Which is unusual for me: I don't usually want to meet the people who are making music that I like. But they sounded interesting.
capacity fan formal fourth great movies
I'm a fan of Oliver Stone. I like his movies, I like his excess, and I think he has a great capacity for empathy and it comes out more powerfully in this movie than in any of his other films, even the formal 'I'm identifying with the underdog' movies like 'Born on the Fourth of July.'
clarity dried failings good hideous ideas moments novelty rock roll taste terrible utter
Rock 'n Roll is a combination of good ideas dried up by fads, terrible junk, hideous failings in taste and judgment, gullibility and manipulation, moments of unbelievable clarity and invention, pleasure, fun, vulgarity, excess, novelty and utter enervation.
head sounds
He sounds like he's been doing it for years. In his head he probably has.
culture dead-ends myth
It is a sure sign that a culture has reached a dead end when it is no longer intrigued by its myths.
trying movement youth
Every youth movement presents itself as a loan to the future, and tries to call in its lien in advance, but when there is no future all loans are canceled.
powerful writing sweat
as I write, Johnny Rotten's first moments in "Anarchy in the U.K."-a rolling earthquake of a laugh, a buried shout, then hoary words somehow stripped of all claptrap and set down in the city streets-I AM AN ANTICHRIST-Remain as powerful as anything I know. Listening to the record today-listening to the way Johnny Rotten tears at his lines, and then hurls the pieces at the world; recalling the all-consuming smile he produced as he sang-my back stiffens; I pull away even as my scalp begins to sweat.