Of all the authors discussed herein, Greil Marcus is the one I can say, unequivocally, is smarter than I am. No contest. All of them are better writers, and most are better educated, but Marcus towers above us all like a hepcat colossus. Usually, even hyper-astute Robert Christgau is merely articulating things I've already intuited - and articulating them very well. But, comparing my work to Greil Marcus' would be like comparing Donovan to Bob Dylan - get real!

In many ways, Marcus set the bar for rock criticism with his 1975 opus, Mystery Train, and has continually raised it with each new book. The fact of the matter is, Marcus rarely discusses simply rock and roll. Instead, he ranges far and wide across the cultural landscape using rock and roll as a touchstone, a looking glass, or, at least, a familiar talisman. The results are can be dazzling or confusing (like I said, he's smarter than I am) or both; consistently, his keen knowledge and intuitive understanding of the music burn through his dense prose like a fuse, leading invariably to his unassailable, passionate, rock and roll heart.

Greil Marcus was born in 1945, grew up in San Francisco, and studied political science at Berkeley. Like many of his peers in the early rock press, he made a name for himself first at Creem, then at Rolling Stone (where he remains a contributing editor to this day). In a profession not renowned for its intellectual rigor, Marcus had begun to attract attention as a deep thinker with an innate sense of rock's animal essence. His reputation was sealed with the publication of Mystery Train - a remarkable book that connected the dots between rock and roll and culture-at-large, revealing what Marcus called "unities in the American imagination."

From there, Marcus began to cast his net even wider, examining the entire scope of Western civilization, often passing through narrow portals to do so. Marcus' typical methodology involves intense focus on a particular cynosure - objects as particular as one band (the Sex Pistols in Lipstick Traces), one man (Elvis Presley in Dead Elvis), or one album (Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes in The Old, Weird America). From there, he springboards to discussions of, well, whatever strikes his (duly considered) fancy. As Marcus once said, "The whole point is where it can take you, not whether you can stick to the subject."

Greil Marcus has also written about film and politics, and he compiled and edited Rock And Roll Will Stand (out-of-print, 1969) and Lester Bangs' Psychotic Reactions And Carburetor Dung (1988). He remains a vital, active journalist (for Interview, Esquire, the New York Times, and others) searching for artists who, as he puts it, know things he doesn't. His recent enthusiasms include Sleater Kinney and Pink (!), and he still writes his long standing, traveling column, Real Life Rock Top 10 (currently residing at Salon.com). Interviews with Marcus, reviews of his books, and random archival writings are abundantly scattered across the web. Among the highlights:

• In The Attic: a website maintained by Steven Marcus
• Review of Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run for Rolling Stone (1975)
• Review of Patti Smith's Horses for The Village Voice (1975)
• An interview at Powell's Books (2001)
• Do Politics Rock? An interview in Perfect Sound Forever (1997)
• Recipient of an "Evil Genius Grant" from Suck.com (1998)

In 2006, Marcus published yet another erudite, synergistic piece of connect-the-dots history entitled The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice, following a meandering route from Abraham Lincoln to Pere Ubu. In 2008, he contributed text to Pop Art Is, an art book about the impact of Richard Hamilton's 1957 letter on the subject.

Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'N' Roll by Greil Marcus
by Greil Marcus (1975, fifth edition, 2008)
Greil Marcus didn't write the first serious book about rock 'n' roll - Nik Cohn, Robert Christgau, and others can make that claim - but he wrote the one that grabbed the Fourth Estate by its flabby little throat. Mystery Train announced the arrival of a new breed of writers - thinking men and women who considered rock music a significant product of American culture - with Marcus at the vanguard. From the very start of his career, Marcus was enthralled with connections between seemingly disparate cultural phenomena (Herman Melville and Elvis Presley, for instance, to use Marcus' own example), and he makes a case here for rock 'n' roll as one thread in the rich tapestry of America's cultural legacy. By Pprofiling a handful of artists - including The Band, Sly Stone, Randy Newman, and Elvis Presley - Marcus paints a much more vivid picture of rock's significance and place in American history than encyclopedic tomes like Rolling Stones' Illustrated History Of Rock & Roll. Consequently, critiques of Mystery Train consistently place it at the top of the stack in rock literature, and it is inarguably a book all students of the form should closely read. [top of page]

Stranded: Rock And Roll for a Desert Island
edited by Greil Marcus (1979)
We record collectors are just specialized nerds, hopeless dweebs caught in an evolutionary niche that focuses our maniacal devotion on one solitary achievement in Western civilization. A common pastime of record collectors (not to mention book worms and film buffs) is which our favorites we would choose if stranded on a desert island. Obviously, this argument begs the question of where the electricity would come from to actually run our phonograph (not to mention why we were schlepping such precious cargo around the high seas), but it's a form of mental masturbation we particularly relish. Greil Marcus (and twenty of his peers in the rock press) formalized this activity in Stranded, in the process creating a book about rock records more enjoyable and informative than most scholarly tomes on the same subject. Beginning with Nik Cohn's typically careening introduction, Stranded touches an impressively varied list of records (classics all, though none were recorded by Elvis, the Beatles, or Bob Dylan) including Dave Marsh's fictional "Onan's Greatest Hits" - after all, there'll be a lot of time to kill while stranded.... Marcus concludes with an abundant "treasure island" discography, violating his own premise to the benefit of his readers. [top of page]

Lipstick Traces: A Secret History Of The 20th Century
by Greil Marcus (1989)
The Sex Pistols, the Mekons, the Slits - punk rock seemed to come spitting out of England with complete disregard for history and convention. Greil Marcus was as enthused by the music as anyone, but, in Lipstick Traces, he discerns the lineage of thought that gave rise to the punks - Dadaism, Surrealism, the Situationists, and others who attempted to turn society on its head. The author's tendency to play connect the-dots with history is readily apparent, and his methodology begins to strain the limits of believability. For instance, the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten is linked to Anabaptist John Of Leydon on scarcely more than the similarity of his real name (John Lydon). Bluntly stated, my understanding of Marcus' theory is limited by my education (more "Louie Louie" than deductive logic), but his enthusiasm and honesty shine through the dense arguments. In his epilogue, Marcus argues that the glory of the moment that could change the world is inseparable from the tragedy of the moment after - when the world has not changed. Nothing describes British punk more poignantly succinctly. [top of page]

Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession
by Greil Marcus (1991)
Greil Marcus first examined Elvis Presley in some detail in his groundbreaking 1975 book Mystery Train. Already, then, he viewed Elvis more as a symbol than a rock star. Elvis died just two short years after the publication of that book, and Marcus' Dead Elvis documents Elvis' subsequent transformation from fleshly being to cultural icon. In classic Hollywood fashion, Elvis became worth more in death than life; we slaver for boxed sets, books, posters, shot glasses, commemorative coins, and other paraphernalia in a manner unthinkable during the dark days of the King's decline. Clearly, the idea of Elvis is more resonant to us than his music ever was. How else to explain the mysterious Elvis sightings, the conspiracy theories, the annual pilgrimages to Memphis? With this book (which should have closed - but did not - the debate about Presley), Marcus documents the canonization of Elvis Presley and analyzes what the phenomenon tells us about ourselves. [top of page]

In the Fascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music 1977-1992
by Greil Marcus (1993, revised 1999)
Greil Marcus appears to have been a critic from the word 'go'. Confronted with rock 'n' roll in 1955 (specifically, Bill Haley's "Rock around The Clock"), he disliked it. He's been disagreeable ever since, and his affinity for the contrary drew him to punk rock like a moth to flame. Much of his writing about punk (well, the British version of it) is collected in the present volume, and it vividly demonstrates that there was, in fact, life after Sid Vicious. Originally published in a variety of periodicals, this is Marcus reacting to records and performances in the here-and-now, sans post-game-wrap-up philosophical dissection. For those who have read only Marcus' lengthy, studious books, the effect is bracing; this is a guy who cares about music with great passion, and this is a writer of great humor and accessibility. The 70-plus pieces included survey such punk stalwarts as Elvis Costello, the Clash, the Mekons, and the Gang Of Four (originally titled Ranters and Crowd Pleasers). [top of page]

The Dustbin Of History
by Greil Marcus (1995)
An anthology of previously published pieces addressing everything from the Beat Generation to The Manchurian Candidate to the Tiananmen Square massacre to Camille Paglia, The Dustbin Of History is pure Greil Marcus. That is, Hammer Of The Gods, it is not. Unlike his earlier Lipstick Traces, Marcus resists the urge to tie everything imaginable into a unified theory, but he comes pretty damn close with this central theme: history isn't in the past. History doesn't merely happen and get discarded (relegated to "the dustbin"). It is occurring and reoccurring right now and is being incorporated into our present and future; recognition of this fact will can only enrich our experience. Marcus examines (and corrects) history though his subjects, and such examinations are a path to a better tomorrow. That the subjects can be as varied as the music of Robert Johnson or the acting of John Wayne is another of Marcus' many lessons. [top of page]

Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes
by Greil Marcus (1997)
A virtual accident of a book, The Old, Weird America is not really about Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes. That album was recorded by Dylan and The Band while holed up in Woodstock, New York, following the singer's near-fatal motorcycle accident. Thirty years later, Marcus found himself at loose ends between books while listening to Dylan's work with renewed vigor. With Good As I Been to You (1992) and World Gone Wrong (1993), Dylan had gotten back-to-basics after some ill-advised digressions in the 80's. (These albums set the stage for a string of brilliant albums beginning with Time Out Of Mind in 1997.) Meanwhile, Marcus had picked up a 5-disc Basement Tapes bootleg and began to wonder about the story therein - not about the music per se but about the cultural spirits it channeled. Marcus heard not Bob Dylan or Levon Helm but Doc Boggs and Blind Lemon Jefferson and the deepest yearnings of a decidedly different America, one that is rarely portrayed in the mainstream media. It's an America that exists largely in our imaginations (hence, the book's original title, Invisible Republic), but it's certainly as real - perhaps more real - than Ronald Reagan and Disneyland.

As a sequel of sorts, Marcus scripted an entire book (albeit a short one) about just one Dylan song. Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan At The Crossroads (2001) functions as a defense of the song as masterpiece, a minutely detailed history, and as an analysis of Dylan's place in American history. "How does it feel?" indeed. [top of page]

Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in a Land of No Alternatives
by Greil Marcus (2001)
In his most recent anthology, Greil Marcus once again takes on the true nature of America through ostensibly unrelated cultural phenomena - Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley. Clinton, after all, had barely begun his public life when Presley expired ignominiously on his bathroom floor. Like most of Marcus' metaphors, though, I don't believe he gives a rat's ass about whether he can actually prove his hypothesis. The point is the discussion, the dizzying whirlwind of ideas that Marcus loves to conjure. The author asserts that Elvis The Pelvis and Slick Willie both represent America's "unresolved notion of what it means to be good, true, and beautiful - and evil, false, and ugly." The evidence Marcus exhibits (e.g. a commemorative Elvis postage stamp was issued concurrent with Clinton's 1992 election) is often as ridiculous as his argument is compelling. But, that's just the title piece! Marcus proceeds to take on the wider implications of P.J. Harvey, Kurt Cobain, and Pere Ubu, proving another of his basic assumptions (here and elsewhere): once you see rock 'n' roll as something separate from history, you lose all understanding of what rock 'n' roll is or ever was. [top of page]