"Simon Strange handles all this material highly skilfully and it’s a testament to both his writing and his meticulous research that he manages to cover such a far reaching subject with hardly a false step."

Louder Than War

“Strange's writing is accessible, and his point of view is clear, even as the scope of his project feels unwieldy. Art practices and postmodernism, minimalism, expressionism and amateurism, defining non-musicianship in musical terms, tracing evidence of rebellious pedagogies in commercial music products, the impact of emergent technologies and cybernetics on autonomy and aesthetics... it's a lot of tricky ground to cover. Most impressive is the way Strange is able to thread multiple emergent creative strategies and revolutionary cultural moments to a coherent narrative, identifying a set of principles that could be usefully applied to a range of creative practices today. . . . His recommendations are useful and inclusive, able to be implemented in multiple style contexts beyond pop and punk, not necessarily advocating for the rule book to be torn up, but rather for inclusive principles of collaborative cross-pollination and experimentation to be given more time, space and focus.”

The Wire