Sweet Dreams

The Story of the New Romantics

by Dylan Jones

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Pub Date Oct 06 2020 | Archive Date Nov 06 2020

Faber and Faber Ltd | Faber & Faber

Arts & Photography | Biographies & Memoirs | Entertainment & Pop Culture

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Description

The definitive oral history of the New Romantics.

Sweet Dreams charts the British cultural explosion that happened in the ten years from 1975-1985 — the rise of the New Romantics. Growing out of the remnants of the post-punk period, the New Romantics introduced club culture, ska, electronica, and goth to the world.
One of the most creative entrepreneurial periods since the Sixties, the era had a huge influence on the growth of broadcast media. Not only did it visually define the decade, it was the catalyst for the Second British Invasion, when the US charts would be colonized by British pop music, making it one of the most powerful cultural exports since the Beatles.
For fans of Jon Savage's 1966 and Lizzie Goodman's Meet Me in the Bathroom— SWEET DREAMS is the fascinating story of how The New Romantic movement was born in the British clubs of the late 1970s and flourished on the radio and television airwaves of the early 1980s.
Sweet Dreams were made of this.

Advance Praise

"In this colorful and sprawling oral history, Jones (David Bowie: The Oral History), editor-in-chief of British GQ, stitches together quotes from over 100 interviewees on the aesthetic revolution that birthed New Wave." Publishers Weekly

"Jones' style - part testimony, part documentary - sheds light on one of the most unanticipated and misunderstood shifts in popular music and street fashion, that sudden lurch towards the swank and ostentation of New Romanticism, a style that seemed arrogant and contrary in its origins but would define the nature and direction of music for at least a decade. Compelling reading for those who lived and breathed the indulgence of the era without realising its significance or contemplating its legacy." Simon Armitage

"The marvellously suave Mr. Jones rehabilitates the scenesters' scene a time and place once dismissed by rain-coated puritans like me, only to be brought gloriously to life years later - like a peacock's fanning tail - in this definitive oral history. It's all here: the swishing, the androgynous preening, the sweetly-dreamt synth-pop splendour of early '80s Britain. Something was happening, and Mr. Jones knew what it was." Barney Hoskyns

"In this colorful and sprawling oral history, Jones (David Bowie: The Oral History), editor-in-chief of British GQ, stitches together quotes from over 100 interviewees on the aesthetic revolution...