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Disposable Culture

by
November 1997, no. 196

Crowded House: Something so strong by Chris Bourke

Macmillan, $24.95 pb, 376 pp

Disposable Culture

by
November 1997, no. 196

Pop and rock’n’roll music is essentially disposable popular culture which throws up comparatively few enduring items. For every 10,000 albums and singles released maybe only a hundred will be listenable a year later, let alone in a decade.

The same goes for literature that attempts to define or interpret the music. Sure, that Guns ’N’ Roses, Culture Club or Spandau Ballet picture/text book might have seemed pretty impressive when it first appeared and you, dear reader, thought the artists in question were the greatest thing since the invention of the toaster – but in most cases those books are clogging up bookshelves or went out for fifty cents at a garage sale five years ago.

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