Advance Praise for Punk in 50 Pieces

“You think you know all about punk? Kevin Dettmar shows how much there is still to discover about the music and its era. Crackling with startling ideas and unexpected insights, juiced with surprising stories and unknown connections, Punk in 50 Pieces is a sustained feat of zoomed-in listening and zoomed-out contextualizing. As fast and fun as a Buzzcocks singles compilation, this book vaults to the top shelf in the Punk Lit pantheon.”—Simon Reynolds, author of Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978–1984

“Fast and furious like the genre it so brilliantly captures, this book creates a taxonomy of punk rock moments: bands, people, and material objects that helped define a misunderstood movement. And like the movement itself, it is fun, moving, and ultimately pointed, a much-needed reminder of the long lasting effects that popular culture can have on the world.”—Gina Arnold, author of Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana

“Here comes Kevin Dettmar’s Punk in Fifty Pieces, to join Dave Marsh’s The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles and Paul Williams’ Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles—music books disguised as lists which turn out to be love letters. As with those earlier books, I devoured Dettmar’s to learn what he thinks and found myself treated to a mosaic self-portrait, a memoir of growing up alive in a world of music and possibility.”—Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude

“It was one helluva way to discover that Kevin Dettmar had a crush on me in 11th grade—but as his fifty loving portraits of fifty singles makes clear, he crushes a lot. Punk in 50 Pieces is the perfect companion for those wishing to revisit the golden age of late-70s/early-80s pop, as well as a wonderful introduction for those new to the scene, trying to figure out what all the fuss was about.”—Jane Wiedlin, The Go-Gos

“A sharp, spirited, and wonderfully personal take on what it was like to grow up alongside the punk explosion of the late seventies and eighties. Fifty argument-starting blitzes of fury and awe, with just the right dash of playful crankiness.”—Hua Hsu, New Yorker staff writer, author of Stay True

“Punk in 50 Pieces does something I heretofore thought was impossible: Kevin Dettmar has applied a scholar's rigor (and nose for half-truths and pretense) to a book about punk-rock, one of our most lawless, disobedient, and gloriously uninhibited art forms. This book is so kinetic and edifying, I found it impossible to stop reading; as a writer and critic, Dettmar is at ease and impossibly smart. Much like the music it chronicles, this book is wild, revelatory, exhilarating. “ —Amanda Petrusich, staff writer, the New Yorker