Sources & Further Reading.

The Bureau holds that an archive that does not name its sources is, at best, an opinion in a costume. This page documents the works the Bureau has consulted in compiling the entries elsewhere in the site, and recommends them, with annotation, to readers who want to push past the form-summary level into primary documents, critical histories, memoirs, and the periodical and fanzine archive that the genre's actual textual record sits inside. The list is selective rather than exhaustive. The Bureau has read all of the items below; the Bureau has not read everything ever written on these topics, and is constitutionally suspicious of any archive that claims it has.

The categories are conventional. Manifestos and primary documents first, because every form in this archive begins with a piece of writing someone insisted on signing. Critical histories and monographs next, because the academic and journalistic record is the route by which most readers will encounter the genre at length. Memoirs and insider accounts after that, because the people who made the records have, in several cases, written about making the records, and the Bureau holds that primary testimony, where it exists, is worth more than secondary inference. Single-album studies, fanzines and periodicals, digital archives, and audio-visual reference close the page.

The Bureau notes that the genre's textual record is, like its discographical record, distributed across small presses, self-published books, defunct fanzines, label-run websites, message boards, and occasional academic monographs. No single bibliography is defining; readers who want a complete picture should consult the page as a starting point and follow citations outward. Where an item on this list is cited directly elsewhere in the archive, that cross-reference is noted in the entry.