{"id":6280,"date":"2013-03-04T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2013-03-04T17:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=6280"},"modified":"2013-03-06T17:03:28","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T01:03:28","slug":"6280","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/03\/04\/6280\/","title":{"rendered":"Book: Clarke Champniss returns with Republic of Rock ‘N’ Roll<\/em> \u201980s music tome via Warner"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some, the music of the \u201980s was as cheeseball as it gets. But for music journalist Kim Clarke Champniss, it was a revolution.<\/p>\n

The former MuchMusic VJ details what he says was one of the most important decades in rock in his new e-book, The Republic of Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll,<\/i> due out in March via Warner Music Canada.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The former face of alternative music on MuchMusic has returned (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe \u201980s has been slagged for years as being a time of bad hair and bad fashion when, in fact, it\u2019s one of the most fascinating and revolutionary periods of the last 40 or 50 years,\u201d says Clarke Champniss, best known for hosting MuchMusic\u2019s classic The New Music<\/i> and City Limits<\/i> programs in the \u201980s.<\/p>\n

Clarke Champniss\u2019 new e-book details how the \u201980s were the impetus for the music industry\u2019s massive sales peak in the late \u201990s and also for its eventual decline.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our lifetime we\u2019ve seen the industry build up to unbelievably profitable heights and then have a meltdown,\u201d says Clarke Champniss, \u201cand a lot of it was set up by the \u201980s, and then the \u201990s cashed in on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the e-book isn\u2019t just about the business of music; it\u2019s also about politics and how music is intertwined with world events, such as the rise of right-wing conservatism and rapidly changing technology.<\/p>\n

According to Clarke Champniss, the economic recession that led to the rampant consumerism of the \u201980s, or the \u201cgreed is good\u201d decade, made for some groundbreaking tunes.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitically it was the rise of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan,\u201d he says, \u201cand from a musical point of view technology was coming into play, drum machines, synthesizers, giving rise to the new sounds of bands like Kraftwerk, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and even Duran Duran was toying with that kind of sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clarke Champniss, who also hosts a syndicated \u201980s radio show, aptly titled The \u201980s Radio Show,<\/i> credits the modern resurgence of new-wave-influenced music to people of the current generation\u2019s fascination with what got their parents on the dance floor three decades ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new synth bands like Crystal Castles are fascinated with what was happening with new wave,\u201d he says. \u201cThe people that were born around that time want to put their life in context. \u2018What was mom and dad listening to, what were they dancing to?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Republic of Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll<\/i> takes the music of bands like Joy Division, The Cure, U2, and REM, as well as the rise of hip-hop bands like Public Enemy and Beastie Boys, and applies it to a decade that was ripe for a musical, and social, uprising.<\/p>\n

According to Clarke Champniss, something had to give.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you boil it down, man, there was quite a lot going on in the \u201980s,\u201d he says, \u201cand we were quite willing to let the world change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some, the music of the \u201980s was as cheeseball as it gets. But for music journalist Kim Clarke Champniss, it was a revolution. The former MuchMusic VJ details what he says was one of the most important decades in rock in his new e-book, The Republic of Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll, due out in March […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-february-20-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6280"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6284,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions\/6284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}