Rock Music Icons

Robert McParland is professor of English and humanities at Felician University in New Jersey.

The 13 essays McParland has gathered look at how rock music icons influenced music and impacted culture. Rock enthusiasts might balk at Bob Marley and Madonna—who are included because they have what Thomas Kitts states in his foreword is “a rock and roll sensibility—but one cannot argue with their contributions to the genre. Also included Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Billy Joel, Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Morrissey, David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Ozzy Osbourne, Kurt Cobain, and Metallica. The introduction looks at the “king of rock” himself, Elvis Presley. The contributors to the volume include a high-school teacher; a music journalist; and university-level professors in the fields of English, communications, media and cultural studies, history, and music. All bring their own perspectives on the contributions of the artists they discuss. Scholars and fans of music, culture, and history will surely find this book both enlightening and entertaining. Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates; general readers.

• Introduction: Recreating Elvis PresleyRobert McParlandChapter 1. Made in Rockdown: Paul McCartney and McCartney IIIRichard D. DriverChapter 2. Sometimes I Turn: Bob Dylan’s Enduring IconoclasmKeith Nainby and John RadostaChapter 3. Elton John and the Mondegreen GirlsTanis MacDonaldChapter 4. Reflections on/of Billy JoelJoshua S. DuchanChapter 5. The Lion of Jamaica: Robert Nesta Marley OM as IconEric AbbeyChapter 6. Roger Waters and The Wall—Live in Berlin 1990: The Global Broadcast of a Historical ConcertClaudia BucciferroChapter 7. How the 1980s Output of Bruce Springsteen and Morrissey Captured the Working-Class Experience in America and the UKAnastasia Rose HydenChapter 8. Loving the Alien(ated) Self: Theatricality, Artifice, and the Outsider Mythos of David BowieDouglas RasmussenChapter 9. What It Feels Like for a Boy: Masculinity in Madonna’s Mid-career Music VideosDavid R. CoonChapter 10. Killer Queen: Freddie Mercury’s Communicative LongevityJulianna Kirschner