Rock ’n’ Roll Plays Itself
A Screen History
John ScanlanA history of rock music’s relationship with the moving image over seven decades.
When rock 'n' roll burst into life in the 1950s the shockwaves echoed around the world, amplified by images of untamed youth projected on cinema screens. But for the performers themselves, showbusiness remained in control, contriving a series of cash-in movies to exploit the new musical fad.
In this riveting cultural history, John Scanlan explores rock’s relationship with the moving image over seven decades of cinema, television, music videos, advertising and YouTube. Along the way he shows how rock was exploited, how it inspired film pioneers and, not least, the transformations it caused over more than half a century.
From Elvis Presley to David Bowie, and from Scorpio Rising to the films of Scorsese and DIY documentarists like Don Letts, this is a unique retelling of the story of rock 'n' roll – from birth to old age – through its onscreen life.
A history of rock music’s relationship with the moving image over seven decades.
When rock 'n' roll burst into life in the 1950s the shockwaves echoed around the world, amplified by images of untamed youth projected on cinema screens. But for the performers themselves, showbusiness remained in control, contriving a series of cash-in movies to exploit the new musical fad.
In this riveting cultural history, John Scanlan explores rock’s relationship with the moving image over seven decades of cinema, television, music videos, advertising and YouTube. Along the way he shows how rock was exploited, how it inspired film pioneers and, not least, the transformations it caused over more than half a century.
From Elvis Presley to David Bowie, and from Scorpio Rising to the films of Scorsese and DIY documentarists like Don Letts, this is a unique retelling of the story of rock 'n' roll – from birth to old age – through its onscreen life.
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Rock 'n' Roll Plays Itself excels in its understanding of how the music is characterized by its unique relationship to time, its seizing of the moment as an existential act . . . Rock ’n’ Roll Plays Itself understands how rock music, as a cultural form, survives not just because of the mythical lives of its stars and its own artistic recycling but also because it’s embedded in the life of the screen.
'Los Angeles Review of Books
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Rock 'n' Roll Plays Itself is a wonderful, exhaustive history. It presents everyone and everything in the history of rock on film, from the mad (A. J. Weberman, who styles himself a “Dylanologist”, but whom lesser minds might describe as “the man who picked through Bob Dylan’s rubbish”), to the bad (Elvis Presley’s movies of the 1960s) to the born to be filmed (both David Bowie and Prince are discussed at some length).
'Times Literary Supplement
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From the sublime to the ridiculous, Scanlan climaxes with Metallica's Some Kind of Monster and The Osbournes. Fascinating stuff.
'Classic Rock Magazine
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Rock ’n’ Roll Plays Itself is a huge collection of information on the many connections and feedback loops that music, musicians and movie culture established and refined over the decades, thereby appreciating the massive input (originally) rock’n’roll provided.
'popcultureshelf.com
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in Rock ‘n’ Roll Plays Itself, John Scanlan looks at the history of pop on film, from Rock Around The Clock and Elvis to
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MTV and YouTube.Choice Magazine, UK, selected as a Great Summer Read, July 2022
John Scanlan is a cultural historian and the author of several books for Reaktion including Easy Riders, Rolling Stones: On the Road in America, from Delta Blues to ’70s Rock (2015) and Sex Pistols: Poison in the Machine (2016).
