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Trouser Press, One of the All-Time Great Music Magazines, Finally Gets an Anthology: Book Review
On the 50th anniversary of its launch, Trouser Press, one of the most influential rock music magazines of all time, finally gets an anthology.
The Best of Trouser Press Magazine 1974-1984,” a sprawling 440-page 50th anniversary collection of its greatest articles that is practically a real-time history of some of the best rock music of that era — from the Who, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie to the Sex Pistols and the Clash to U2 and the Cure, and dozens more. Yet unlike the British weeklies NME, Melody Maker and Sounds; “new wave”-specific publications like New York Rocker, Slash and Zig Zag; and the much-loathed establishment rag, Rolling Stone, Trouser Press covered both worlds: The Stones and Bruce Springsteen were as likely to be on the cover as the Clash, Elvis Costello and the Pretenders, but the articles on classic rockers were more likely to be filled with little-known historical anecdotes and details about rare B-sides and bootlegs that would send readers scampering on treasure hunts to find them. The initial chapters cover classic rock — the Who, Stones, Zeppelin and the Kinks as well as Small Faces and Syd Barrett — before it moves into the magazine’s own era: Bowie, T. Rex, Lou Reed, the New York Dolls, Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Blondie, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Devo, Black Flag, the Pretenders, X, Gang of Four, U2, Joan Jett, the Cure and so many more.
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