Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll?

In this exhilarating compendium, Robb (The Art of Darkness), bassist of the British post-punk band The Membranes, compiles 40 years’ worth of interviews in which he asked musicians the title question. Following the punk scene from the Hacienda nightclub in Manchester, England, to its spread across America as it morphed and mutated, Robb spoke to Nirvana about their guitar-smashing antics and “scuzzed pop-punk anthems”; Aphex Twin on his rise in the “nascent Cornish rave scene”; and Echo & the Bunnymen about their musical forebears, including David Bowie and Brian Eno. Shedding light on the role of political unrest, social change, and technological advancement in punk’s musical evolution into post-punk and grunge, Robb’s interviews capture both the genre’s dynamic history and continued relevance to music fans as an outlet for an anti-establishment ethos: “Punk is like a virus throughout history.... It’s passed on to the other generations,” according to Jordan, a trailblazing punk fashion icon who worked at Sex, the London clothing boutique owned by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren in the mid-1970s. Music fans nostalgic for the spiked hair, thrashing guitar riffs, and electric energy of the “punk revolution” will be eager to get their hands on this. (Oct.)