If It Ain't Got That Swing
| Author | Mark Gauvreau Judge | 
|---|---|
| Subject | Swing music | 
| Genre | American culture | 
| Published | 2000 | 
| Publisher | Spence Publishing Company | 
| Publication place | United States | 
| Media type | Hardcover | 
| Pages | 128 | 
| ISBN | 978-1890626242 | 
| OCLC | 43728944 | 
| LC Class | 00-26706 | 
| Preceded by | Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk (1997) | 
| Followed by | Damn Senators (2003) | 
If It Ain't Got That Swing: The Rebirth of Grown-Up Culture is a 2000 non-fiction book about swing music and changes in American culture, written by Mark Gauvreau Judge. Judge had previously written a memoir about his alcoholism titled Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk. If It Ain't Got That Swing chronicles the author's experimentation with swing dancing lessons, and his reluctance to do so due to his prior usage of alcohol as a way to relax himself in large social situations.
Judge ascribes the 1996 film Swingers and a 1998 Gap Inc. commercial with youths dancing to the Lindy Hop as evidentiary of the swing revival. Judge criticizes the American culture of the 1960s and rock and roll, as forms of adolescence society in the United States. The book documents the author's shift from liberalism to support of right-wing politics.
If It Ain't Got That Swing received negative book reviews from Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, The Wall Street Journal, and Reason. Library Journal criticized the book's writing style and called it a "sophomoric, opinionated diatribe". Kirkus Reviews called it a "diatribe" and wrote that it failed due to "single-mindedness and humorlessness". The Wall Street Journal called Judge's argumentation "persuasive" but "incomplete", and pointed out inconsistencies in the book. Writing for Reason, Jesse Walker also found factual errors in Judge's work.