Changes

|title= Black Vinyl, White Powder

|author= Simon Napier-Bell

|buy= Yes

|borrow= Yes

|pages=400

|publisher= Ebury

|date= January 2002

|isbn=978-0091880927

}}

But it is never dull. Winding a meandering path through the music and the excessive indulgences and rip-offs that went hand in hand with it, this taught me a good deal, and gave me a few chuckles. John Lennon inadvertently ruining his Greek holiday by leaving his drugs behind, for example, and moaning ''What good's the bloody Parthenon without LSD?'' Or nicely-mannered Johnny Rotten's inability to obey his manager's instructions when meeting an interviewer not to say 'please', 'thank you', or 'sorry'. Above all, three cheers for one of the very few volumes which looks at the subject from a British perspective, rather than an American one. Sometimes the author is pretty opinionated – but then it's a subject in which commentators generally come across as either opinionated or incorrigibly bland.

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