Excellent account tying the loose ends of the last 50 years of the Detroit music scene and counter culture. Slightly ran of steam towards the garage/White Stripes era but very interesting all the same.

'We almost lost Detroit'.

A fine-grained account of what makes the Motor City so important in musical terms. A city that has borne the blows of Fordist, post-Fordist, and almost apocalyptic political and economic experiment, but which has developed and nurtured a fiercely independent approach to art enabling it to punch way above its weight in the world.

I love music history books, especially those which take a turn into more esoteric realms. This book was a fine example of that, taking a particular moment in time and drawing such a vivid picture of it that I feel as though I was there myself.

Joe Molloy's trip into music history will be released on April 11, 2023. Repeater Books provided an early galley for review.

I have been a resident of southeastern Michigan for close to a decade now, and I always enjoy learning more about Detroit and its influences. Combined with my love of music, and it makes this book an instant attraction for me.

Molloy weaves together songs and albums, artists and genres - all into a tapestry of change and evolution for the people of Detroit and their music. The stars aligned to bring about change in a place in such desperate need for it. While often folks think of the Sixties and Motown when they think first think of Detroit, Molloy shows the sweeping range of music across six decades.

This was a fairly quick read; I was rather surprised that it covers so much in such a smaller page count. I feel that perhaps the author really wanted to keep it to a concise overview, allowing readers to explore more resources on the topic if they so desired later.

There's a lot here to enjoy. Joe Molloy's theory-inflected but personal history of music from Detroit is wide-ranging and well-informed. His starting point is Mark Fisher's notions of acid communism and potentially revolutionary counter-narratives, which is well done but disappears gradually from the book as he approaches his own experience (historically). This means he only succeeds in partly delivering on Fisher's project of "restating, recontextualizing and renegotiating the past", but it's fun watching him try. Molloy is as good on Motown and particularly The Temptations as he is on John Brannon and Danny Brown. There are some odd observations - the throwaway remark inspired by Iggy Pop's time in Berlin that Detroit was "psychically twinned" with that city in the 1970s is perhaps a bit fanciful - but I'd rather read a book with these kind of assertions than a blander, more traditional history. Recommended.