Rotten

(Paperback, New edition)

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Description

Punk has been romanticised and embalmed on TV, in books and on the catwalk. An English youth revolt that became a world-wide fashion statement, punk's idols were the Sex Pistols, and Johnny Rotten was its sneering antichrist. Seventeen years later, John Lydon (aka Rotten) looks back at himself, the Pistols and the 'no future' disaffection of their time. More than just a music book, Rotten is a history of punk: angry, witty, poignant and crackling with energy. Malcolm McClaren, Sid Vicious, Chrissie Hynde, Billy Idol, the Britain of the late '70s, the Pistols' creation and collapse - all are here, in perhaps the best book ever written about youth culture, by one of its most notorious figures.

Reviews

"Invaluable... sheds welcome light on that short period of great music and spasmodic cultural change." --San Fransisco Chronicle "Alive at the core... Lydon's quite the humorist... (Full of) cut marks of wit and ego." --The New Yorker "A wrathful Irish poet... Lydon proves to have a keen wit and rare insight." --The Washington Post Book World "A pavement philosopher whose Dickensian roots blossom with Joycean color." --Rolling Stone