Colin B. Morton & Chuck Death: Great Pop Things: The Real History Of Rock And Roll From Elvis To Oasis

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" is one of the many lasting barbs left behind by Frank Zappa, who should have occasionally heeded another of his dictums, "Shut up and play your guitar." There is an element of truth to Zappa's famous putdown of rock journalism, but it has little to do with writers. His intentionally mismatched comparison actually came pretty close to portraying the absurdity of the media's fascination with celebrity, pop music, and some combination of the two. Yet the stream of sarcasm and cynicism flows both ways: Zappa himself frequently gets zapped in the long-awaited, updated reprint of Great Pop Things, a book that compiles the astute, witty, hilarious comic strips created by Welshmen Colin B. Morton and Chuck Death (the nom d'art of Mekon and Waco Brother Jon Langford). Each strip is packed with so many puns and cultural references that even arcane in-jokes are given several levels of mirth. Led Zeppelin's Satan-eschewing bassist John Paul Jones, for example, is misnamed Jean-Paul Sartre, but rather than stop there, he's given appropriately contextual French dialogue: "Non! L'occultisme c'est un grand sac de merde!" he says in response to his bandmates' dalliances with witchcraft. Elsewhere, scatological humor is excused with the erudite disclaimer, "You will note how this cartoon strikes a fine balance between fart jokes and social anthropology… an idea we stole from Frank Zappa." An encounter between Axl Rose and his shrink leads to the breakthrough that the singer's name is an anagram for "oral sex," while a preceding page gives instructions on how to draw Guns 'N Roses' already-cartoonish guitarist Slash as all hair, hat, and cigarette. Other favorite targets include The Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, Madonna, U2, David Bowie, and Morrissey, but not even the Mekons can escape a bit of ribbing. Part of Great Pop Things' genius is the pairing of the obscure with the obvious, so the more you know about music lore, the sillier you're made to feel for knowing so much about it.