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Babylon's Burning: From Punk to Grunge
Destined to become a classic on the subject alongside Legs McNeil’s Please Kill Me , Babylon’s Burning is a groundbreaking, definitive account of punk rock, one of the most influential and lasting music movements in history—a movement that ironically was built on self-annihilation. Acclaimed critic Clinton Heylin seamlessly weaves together the lives of disparate artists who had in common not the music (there was no distribution) but the pictures, words, and fashions depicted in magazines like Creem and NME . It was a sound that eschewed conventional lyrics, promoted a gutteral musicality but yet contained a keen pop sensibility. Whether exploring the work of early progenitors like Suicide, The New York Dolls, and Patti Smith or charting the progress of the bands who legitimately took up the mantle in the eighties and nineties, Clinton Heylin brings to life the strands of a global artform. From the Sex Pistols’s clarion call of a record, “Never Mind the Bollocks,” to Kurt Cobain’s songs of an alienated youth, Babylon’s Burning is the brilliant, exhaustively researched story that once and for all defines what Punk is and is not.
672 pages, Hardcover
First published February 21, 2007
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582 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 10, 2008
Surprisingly good. Some good stuff on Ohio and Australia, and he doesn't cover all of the usual suspects on the English scene. Some common ground with Simon Reynold's Rip It Up and Start Again, but Heylin apparenly hates Reynolds (he makes fun of him a couple of times). The last 100 pages, including the stuff about grunge, feel tacked on and unnecessary, but otherwise I was very happy with it.
September 21, 2009
An incredibly thorough book on punk rock, focusing mainly on the first wave (1975-78) but also hitting the pre-punk influences and the post-punk era. Sometimes it was a little too detailed, bogging down in personal details of obscure bands, and I thought he was a unfairly harsh when it came to the Clash, but this tome is a definite must for any fans of punk rock.
December 10, 2019
A very long book indeed; the section on Grunge feels like a separate tome that's been bolted onto the end and should probably have been treated as such. Some 'interesting' analysis of well-documented events, and I'm left wondering what Eater did to deserve the author's withering disapproval, especially when he makes it clear that he takes punk bandwaggoneers such as the Vibrators seriously.
September 18, 2023
A far-reaching history of the punk movement leading up to grunge, capped off with Cobain's suicide.
It's a hefty tome but Heylin keeps the narrative interesting.
It all rather undermines the idea of any cohesive movement and replaces it with a lot of related but random actions along the way, leaving others to fabricate the legends afterwards.
It's a hefty tome but Heylin keeps the narrative interesting.
It all rather undermines the idea of any cohesive movement and replaces it with a lot of related but random actions along the way, leaving others to fabricate the legends afterwards.
August 28, 2014
You may not share Heylin's tacit contention that The Clash were nothing more than the second coming of Bad Company (I certainly don't), or that "Unknown Pleasures" is an invalid statement because it doesn't replicate Joy Division's live sound, but this is a remarkably panoptic overview of the development of Punk, and it's mutations into Post-Punk, New Wave, No-Wave, Hardcore, all the way up to Grunge. Highlights are the attention paid to the scenes in Australia, Ohio, Belfast, and Los Angeles.
Heylin seems to have two definitions of "success" in describing the various bands: bands that imploded before having a chance to compromise their principles (The Adverts, Rocket From The Tomb), and bands that charted (The Jam, The Specials). And guess what? The Clash failed on both counts! (*Heylin gleefully rubbing his hands together*). Aside from Sid Vicious, The Sex Pistols are given the benefit of every doubt, which might have been different had this been written after their reunion tour, and Johnny Rotten's butter commercial.
I feel that this probably should have been split into two volumes, the first ending with Ian Curtis' suicide, the second picking up with the Los Angeles scene, and given a lot more depth and scope. As it is, the last few chapters seem rather cursory.
Heylin seems to have two definitions of "success" in describing the various bands: bands that imploded before having a chance to compromise their principles (The Adverts, Rocket From The Tomb), and bands that charted (The Jam, The Specials). And guess what? The Clash failed on both counts! (*Heylin gleefully rubbing his hands together*). Aside from Sid Vicious, The Sex Pistols are given the benefit of every doubt, which might have been different had this been written after their reunion tour, and Johnny Rotten's butter commercial.
I feel that this probably should have been split into two volumes, the first ending with Ian Curtis' suicide, the second picking up with the Los Angeles scene, and given a lot more depth and scope. As it is, the last few chapters seem rather cursory.
November 24, 2008
A bit overwhelming and occasionally tedious, but it attempts to be a comprehensive history of at least the beginning and early evolution of punk rock and it's various spin offs. Though, like a lot of these kinds of things, they lazily end with Kurt Cobain (yawn).
January 18, 2008
Meh. It's filled with jargon, and a ton of facts that kinda seem pointless. At times I felt like I was reading a 'who to like to be punk rock' handout. It's almost written with an air of arrogance.
September 24, 2020
Meh. This starts reasonably well with a concise overview that gets us to the beginning of punk proper. However, once we get to the punk part, the whole implication of the title of the book begins to break down. We are getting from punk to grunge in this book, according to the title. However, we don't even get to 1980 until page 537 (of a total of 623 pages of text proper--plus another 60 pages of sources, discography, index, etc). So, technically, we do get from punk to grunge (or, more exactly, to the death of Kurt Cobain, which is more properly speaking the end of grunge), but only after literally 500 pages of excruciatingly detailed--and yet oddly selective--detailing of the history of punk. At times, Heylin seems to be going almost literally day by day, documenting minutia as thoroughly as significant events. Bands that recorded only an album, or only an EP, or only a single, or in some cases, nothing at all, often get as much (or more) attention than bands that had long careers. Given the granularity of detial, and given how flexible at times Heylin is aobut whom he considers worth discussion, some omissions seems just perverse. Graham Parker ant the Rumour? Barely mentioned. Boomtown Rats? Barely mentioned. Psychedelic Furs? Barely mentioned. There's a whole chapter on the Australian punk scene, but Canada? Almost nothing. Joey Shithead and DOA are mentioned maybe twice, but that's it. Teenage Head isn't even mentioned, let alone many other Canadian punk bands that surely mattered as much (in Canada, anyway) as some of the bands Heylin references, bands that never even recorded. Admittedly, as a Canadian I am probably more attuned to this than other readers might be, but still, it seems like a significant omission to me. Heylin also has some unaccountable, possibly contrarian, opinions, perhaps most notably about The Clash and Elvis Costello, about whom he seems reluctant to say what few good things he does say, while mostly giving a doofus thug like Sid Vicious pretty much a bye (e.g. his murder of Nancy Spungen is merely mentioned, and called "justifiable homicide"). There's also a weird tension in the book, between respecting bands that tried to live up to the anticorproate ethos, not being interested in compromise of major label deals or sales, and lamenting the commercial failure of many a record he deems to have been brilliant. Well ... I don't know, either sales matter, or they don't, right? Heylin'c criticism of commercialism also seems selective; those he seems to have respected more tend to get treated lightly in this regard. He also has irritating writing habits. First, he often writes as if he assumes that the reader already knows all the stuff he knows, naming people but not telling you what their band was right away, or not (sometimes never) explaining what was significant about them. The text is riddled with quotations or parphrases not only from punk but from classic rock and other music sources, many of which I recognized, which leads me to believe that there are also many instances where what seems like an oddly-phrased section so seems because it tries to fold in a reference to something I don't know--again, writing for the in-group, not the general reader. This is coupled with a frequent use of cutesy language--"across the pond," "old Blighty" etc.--that to me is just distracting. Overall, not recommended.
July 25, 2023
3.5 stars.
tl;dr: A reader interested in what transpired between the breaking of punk, post-punk, and no wave would be better suited reading Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life.
With the bold subtitle "from punk to grunge" and 623 pages devoted to narrative, I expected to spend a lot more pages in the 80's than the 70's. In actuality, it takes the author 536 pages before he moves beyond 1980, having less than 100 pages to rush through an entire decade. The author's opinions are not hidden: British punk and British post-punk were more important and interesting than anything to ever come out of America. He certainly proves this by showcasing his greater depth of knowledge (and pages) on those subjects. I even learned a few things about those years of British music.
But this is neither what I expected nor wanted from the book. I already know more than the average person about US and British punk and have more than basic knowledge of British post-punk and NYC's no wave. I wanted a book that showed a clear lineage between these movements and grunge (a subject I also know quite a bit about). What the book actually does in the less-than-100 pages it allots to 1981 onward, is touch some high notes of US punk (and punk adjacent) bands that most novice punks have some familiarity with already: Black Flag, Meat Puppets, REM, the Replacements, Husker Du, and Sonic Youth, among others. And it doesn't really show how Point A leads to Point B nearly as well as another book I have read: Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life.
tl;dr: A reader interested in what transpired between the breaking of punk, post-punk, and no wave would be better suited reading Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life.
With the bold subtitle "from punk to grunge" and 623 pages devoted to narrative, I expected to spend a lot more pages in the 80's than the 70's. In actuality, it takes the author 536 pages before he moves beyond 1980, having less than 100 pages to rush through an entire decade. The author's opinions are not hidden: British punk and British post-punk were more important and interesting than anything to ever come out of America. He certainly proves this by showcasing his greater depth of knowledge (and pages) on those subjects. I even learned a few things about those years of British music.
But this is neither what I expected nor wanted from the book. I already know more than the average person about US and British punk and have more than basic knowledge of British post-punk and NYC's no wave. I wanted a book that showed a clear lineage between these movements and grunge (a subject I also know quite a bit about). What the book actually does in the less-than-100 pages it allots to 1981 onward, is touch some high notes of US punk (and punk adjacent) bands that most novice punks have some familiarity with already: Black Flag, Meat Puppets, REM, the Replacements, Husker Du, and Sonic Youth, among others. And it doesn't really show how Point A leads to Point B nearly as well as another book I have read: Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life.
August 31, 2018
Quasi-academic analysis based on a seemingly strong foundation of research in contemporary papers, periodicals and many interviews. However, Heylin clearly has his own agenda and flirts with fanzine-style statements about the legitimacy of certain acts and records. Unfortunately he does not clearly identify the yardstick he is using. There are many lists of players and these make it difficult for someone without a strong background knowledge of the "scene" to make strong distinctions. Much talk of attributes such as "buzz-saw guitars" rarely conveys to the uninitiated just what these bands sounded like (perhaps this will always be so, "dancing about architecture" comes to mind). However, lots of interesting peeks behind the scenes...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 9, 2020
I had read Clinton Heylin's book, "From the Velvets to the Voidoids" previously and enjoyed it a lot. This particular book is not as good and really suffers from too much detail that bogs down the reading. It seriously needed a good editor to trim excess material to make it read better. Each chapter jumps between different locations between the US and the UK and between different bands, without much coherence. Too much material is presented here that required better editing.
November 9, 2017
Essential reading for all music lovers really.
Would you like to be a punk? Could you be a punk?
Are you born a punk? Either way, after reading Babylon's Burning you will be better off for the experience.
Would you like to be a punk? Could you be a punk?
Are you born a punk? Either way, after reading Babylon's Burning you will be better off for the experience.
July 27, 2019
I went in hoping to understand the punk movement, even though I'm not a fan but also because of the Grunge mention. But....maybe I don't care as much as I thought I did. I find myself forcibly pushing through each page.
August 18, 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/theobserv...
(critique dans The Guardian)
(critique dans The Guardian)
February 13, 2014
Not as crucial as "Velvets to Voidoids" still good. Revised Opinion - Better than many others on "Post-Punk" both as a musical subject and as concept. Heylin blends his own analysis of the scene with first hand quotes and interviews and avoids that most irritating and lazy of musical bio trends - the Oral History.
This book really helped put rock journalism of the period (which completely fucked up this young teenaged reader who could not see the politics at work between NME, Sounds and MM. I wanted to believe but so often a band's validity was based on a journalists view of politics rather than the music)into context. This was probably an English music paper problem because the Americans seemed to take a more enthusiastic "fans" view. The whole discussion of British (English?) vs. American Punk, which can get quite convoluted and depressing, is tackled pretty well by Heylin and makes a little more sense of why so many transatlantic adventures bombed.
The period 1984 - 1990 is skipped over in one chapter and feels like an afterthought just to get Cobain in the picture which is a shame because that period has developed it's own bloated mess of rubbish as everything now gets assigned to a place in a chronology where Post-Punk develops inevitably into Grunge.
This book really helped put rock journalism of the period (which completely fucked up this young teenaged reader who could not see the politics at work between NME, Sounds and MM. I wanted to believe but so often a band's validity was based on a journalists view of politics rather than the music)into context. This was probably an English music paper problem because the Americans seemed to take a more enthusiastic "fans" view. The whole discussion of British (English?) vs. American Punk, which can get quite convoluted and depressing, is tackled pretty well by Heylin and makes a little more sense of why so many transatlantic adventures bombed.
The period 1984 - 1990 is skipped over in one chapter and feels like an afterthought just to get Cobain in the picture which is a shame because that period has developed it's own bloated mess of rubbish as everything now gets assigned to a place in a chronology where Post-Punk develops inevitably into Grunge.
February 1, 2010
A wonderfully heavy read. Littered with anecdotes, personal accounts, the infighting, the love affairs, the turncoats, and the true believers. The sycophants, and the DIYers. It took me a couple of weeks to digest this tome. But it's beauty is in the detail. And be warned, there are a lot of details.
I think it skips a little to briefly over the bands that influenced the original American and English waves of punk, and the last chapters on grunge and the Seattle scene are surprisingly and disappointingly brief. They read as if they were an afterthought.
I thought a few bands got given a bit of a free ride, while others (The Clash) were particularly harshly dealt with. And early West Coast bands were also dealt with briefly.
It was an eye opener for me. Do yourself a favour, read it.
I think it skips a little to briefly over the bands that influenced the original American and English waves of punk, and the last chapters on grunge and the Seattle scene are surprisingly and disappointingly brief. They read as if they were an afterthought.
I thought a few bands got given a bit of a free ride, while others (The Clash) were particularly harshly dealt with. And early West Coast bands were also dealt with briefly.
It was an eye opener for me. Do yourself a favour, read it.
August 13, 2012
This is a very detailed and comprehensive history of the punk genre from its origins to (as the author put it) its final mutation as grunge. However I found it a bit of slog to get through, I often found myself getting lost in forest of names, band names and places that populate each page (like I said it is very detailed) and in trying to cover the breadth of the genre it flits between various scenes and locations meaning that you never get a concentrated amount of time on any one band. I respect what the author was trying to go for in this book but it just wasn't a great read. The constant attention to the small details means the book loses perspective on the history as a whole - probably the best way to read this would be to go to the index at the back and just look up sections on any particular band you are interested in.
June 2, 2013
An excellent book, although I think it's a little falsely advertised. This is a great account or pre through post punk, that moves chronologically through the sounds and scenes pulling together and apart. It's labeled from punk to grunge, and the cover gives equal space to Kurt Cobain as Johnny Rotten, but the focus is clearly on the latter. It takes about 500 pages to get through the 70s and then 100 pages to get from there all the way through Cobain's death. Still a great read and, even if you've read these stories before, it does the best job I've read of making the chronology of the different scenes (primarily focused on NY, Cleveland, England and Australia) clear.
December 21, 2014
I'm just going to admit here that this is a book I pick up every now and then. I'm about 3/4 done but the details are so dense that it will probably be a few more years before I actually finish it (just as it's been a few years since I started). It's much more a history of punk than a flowing history of the years from (and including) punk and grunge. Nothing wrong with that, but the subtitle is a bit misleading; better to have just marketed it as a history of a few hugely influential years in rock music with a bit at the end about what followed.
August 7, 2013
A very dense, deeply researched look at the rise and fall of punk as we know it, from the mid to late 70s, all the way up through the 90s when the grunge bands took up the DIY mantle. In spite of the erudition on display, I felt the book ran on just a bit long. I would have liked to have seen a little more balance between the "old" era and the "new." The portion at the end dealing with grunge felt very slight in comparison to the many, MANY pages covering the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and their ilk.
January 10, 2008
Pretty good history of the punk movement. Especially compelling were the stories about the english bands. Some great information about west coast punk as well.
March 7, 2008
So far, an excellent Heylin examination as usual. Glosses over previous material from Velvets to the Voidoids, which is nice as a tie-in and not a repeat.
August 2, 2016
A case of loads of info but a lot of it has been written before. I didn't learn one new thing from this book.
June 7, 2012
Recommended reading for punk fans. Like the book says "From Punk to Grunge" and everything else in between.
March 17, 2015
Clinton Heylin never stops impressing me. This book is one of the most detailed accounts of punk when speaking about it in general. Just too good.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews