Brit.Cult: An A-Z of British Pop Culture

by Andrew Calcutt (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $3.29

  At the millennium Britain stands at a cultural cross-roads. There's been endless talk of cultural regeneration - a brave new Britain of Cool Britannia and Brit Pop. In an age of cultural cross-pollination and pop cultural imperialism from the USA what can we really call our own? and why? In this book, Andrew Calcutt takes a lively and opinionated look at the real movers, shakers and innovators, the cultural icons, touchstones and shrines of what could truly be called British pop culture. Stretching over the past 30 years it includes everyone and thing from The Kinks to The Fall, mods and rockers to rave culture. It also looks at the roots of each entry to see what they have taken from even further back in British culture. Altogether it paints a picture of a multi-cultural tapestry recycling the past in search of the new.

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $5.86

  From Acid Jazz to Peter Sellers, a quick-take who's who of British pop culture

  From the Swinging 60s and the mods, from the seventies and the punks to Generation E, Britpop and Cool Britain--the past 50 years have seen a steady stream of world-sweeping movements, trends, and styles come out of the British Isles.

  In this hip, fast-paced look at who's who and what's what of British popular culture, cultist Andrew Calcutt explores more than 200 key people, products, and phenomena in British popular culture. Calcutt deftly deconstructs hundreds of Brit Cult icons--such as Monty Python, J. G. Ballard, Nick Hornby, Martin Amis, Doc Martens, E-Type Jaguars, glam, and goth, Malcolm McClaren, Blur, Oasis, The Kinks, The Who, and the Stones--and identifies who or what they are, what they represent to us, and what they have, in turn, inspired.

  Each entry is a brief, stand-alone essay providing biographical details, analysis, observation, and opinion; but, taken together, the essays add up to a revealing portrait of the good (The Beatles), the bad (racist skinheads) and the ugly (football hooligans) of British pop culture in all its many facets.