''Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984'' is a book by

Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his career at ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He subsequently worked as a freelancer and published a number of books on music and popular culture. Reynold ...

on the

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...

musical genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. Genre is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometim ...

and era. It was first released in the UK in April 2005 by

Faber & Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

. The US edition was published by

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

and released in February 2006. It is a shorter version, with several chapters either removed or condensed, and without the large number of illustrations in the UK edition. Reynolds notes this was for space and cost reasons.

Reception

Writing for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', Nicholas Lezard described the book as "startlingly thoughtful, gracefully illuminating, in command of an anarchic subject," writing that "Reynolds has reilluminated the period for us, shown us how fascinating and rewarding it was." ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

'' described the book as "a compelling reminder of a time when clever, mischievous, creative people formed bands". ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' called it "exhaustive and exhausting in equal measure." In 2006, it was also subject to criticism by writer

Clinton Heylin Clinton Heylin (born 8 April 1960) is an English author. Heylin has written extensively about popular music, especially on the life and work of Bob Dylan. Education Heylin attended Manchester Grammar School. He read history at Bedford College ...

in a book on a similar subject: "Here spost-punk - at least before Simon Reynolds decided it was All The Music That I Liked When I Was Young, a somewhat broad not to say solipsistic, view of pop". Alex Ogg of ''

The Quietus ''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics. Content ''The Quietu ...

'' noted that Reynolds was frank in his musical choices: "Reynolds was honest enough in announcing his solipsism, in so far as ''Rip It Up'' addresses those elements of post-punk that appeal to him".

Editions

*UK edition: Reynolds, Simon. ''Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984''. London:

, 2005. *US edition: Reynolds, Simon. ''Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984''. London:

, 2006.

References

External links

* Full text available at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

Excerpts from the 2009 edition
on

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

Rip It Up and Start Again Footnotes blog
chapter by chapter footnotes * sounds mentions on the book - Spotify Playlis

2006 non-fiction books Faber & Faber books Post-punk {{music-book-stub