"I Hate The Fucking Eagles!"

Title: I Hate New Music: The Classic Rock Manifesto

Author: Dave Thompson

Year: 2008

From the moment I saw I Hate New Music sitting on the shelves, I knew I had to read it. Not because it’s a sentiment I agree with. Not even because I have a pervading interest in classic rock. I had to read this book because it stands as the complete and total antithesis to what I stand for as a music critic. I write because I don’t want the so-called “classic” albums to continue to ossify and sink into culture until they’re completely irremovable. I want to challenge the established musical canon of masterworks and hold up unchampioned alternatives to the same old greats. Dave Thompson has written something that preaches, in no uncertain terms, the exact opposite of my own views on music. I had to read it.

It’s funny that Thompson is the one who wrote the book, since his Alternative Rock encyclopedia has influenced my taste in music more so than probably any other single piece of music writing. Yet, here he is, explaining (with, as the book’s jacket says, “tongue firmly in cheek”) how music peaked with Led Zeppelin and the Eagles. Thompson writes with a passion and attention to detail that shows how personal this subject is to him. Yet, after reading so much of his other writing, I know he’s thrown his support behind music that flies in the face of this strongly worded manifesto. Just what is going on here?

I Hate New Music is, without a doubt, intended to entertain the reader. The book is funny, iconoclastic and more than a little confrontational-just-for-the-sake-of-it. Thompson is not afraid of bold sweeping statements and will not hesitate to explain exactly why an artist sucks so much (watch out, Phish). However, at its core, Thompson is yearning for an era of music that has long since past. It makes the book slightly depressing to read, once you’ve gotten past the sting of the fifth knock against Radiohead. I Hate New Music is an intentionally provocative assault on every young hipster (myself included) who wants to tear down to past and erect statues to our own favorite music. Yet it’s also a powerful cultural document, a well-articulated glimpse into a time none of us young whippersnappers will ever experience. A time when double albums were exciting and Clapton was still God. When people actually liked Peter Frampton. These are mysteries that people my age will never understand and, in that regard, I Hate New Music has a lot to teach us.

The End Of The World As We Know It

Title: Apocalypse Jukebox: The End Of The World In American Popular Music

Authors: David Janssen and Edward Whitelock

Year: 2009

Every so often, a book will come along that feels like it was put on the shelves specifically to appeal to you. This happened to me with Apocalypse Jukebox, a book which combines my twin loves of popular music and dystopian themes. The book features some frighteningly thought-out and well-researched points, arguing the general thesis that apocalyptic imagery has been a part of American music (specifically rock & roll) since the beginning.

Janssen and Whitelock use a variety of bands as case studies, ranging from R.E.M. to John Coltrane. Each chapter is devoted to a specific band or artist (and often only a specific album by said artist). The authors identify the apocalyptic themes as either religious in tone (a la biblical revelation) or atomic, which makes sense, given that rock & roll “grew up” in a post-bomb world. Both of these have multiple musical examples supporting them, with some, like Bob Dylan, representing both.

Apocalypse Jukebox is well-written and well-argued, although the authors can occasionally get lost in their starry-eyed analysis of the music at hand. While chapters about Leonard Cohen and Sleater-Kinney are quality discussions of the themes and imagery within the music, they feel a bit forced into the overall picture “apocalypse-in-America.” However, strong chapters about Green Day and Devo balance things out. Despite getting occasionally lost in their own love for their subject matter, Janssen and Whitelock have written an impressive piece of cultural analysis.

One Of These Days...

Title: Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story Of Pink Floyd

Author: Mark Blake

Year: 2008

When I saw Comfortably Numb sitting on a bookshelf in the Borders at Logan Airport, I bought it for one reason: I wanted to understand what the big deal with Dark Side Of The Moon was. Few albums have confused me more than Pink Floyd’s legendary masterpiece. People have ranted and raved about it for years. It’s been positively drowned in critical acclaim since its 1973 release. It’s generally considered one of the finest albums of all time. But I’ve never liked it much at all. I was hoping this book would help me out.

If there was ever a book that helped you understand Pink Floyd, this is undoubtedly the one. Mark Blake takes a very systematic, logical approach to one of the most mysterious bands in history, restraining himself from wandering down every tangent of Floyd lore. Instead, he paints a very simple picture of a profoundly English band, created by a gaggle of young English lads in the 1960s. The book handles this phase of the Floyd very well, especially with Blake’s fair treatment of their over-romanticized original frontman, Syd Barrett. Blake presents Barrett as no more than what he was: a charismatic, creative young man who ended up severely damaged by excessive drug use.

From there, the story shifts towards the classic Floyd lineup, led by the maniacal Roger Waters and his guitarist foil, David Gilmour. Blake documents the progression of the Floyd’s music very well, explaining the personal and professional hurdles the band members were jumping through during their lives and how all those ended up influencing the music. Particularly interesting is Blake’s description of the late-70s, Waters-dictated era, which led to the Floyd’s most angry and iconoclastic albums. Following Waters’ departure in the early 80s, the book pulls the classic biography trick, speeding recklessly through the band’s later years in order to get to the suitably reverent conclusion. We’re left with a loving tribute to one of the most celebrated bands in the history of rock music.

Except…why are they celebrated? The one glaring issue with Comfortably Numb is that it fails to address this one very simply point. For all of his deliberate writing, Blake must have assumed that anyone picking up this book was a Floyd convert and wouldn’t need an explanation for their greatness. As such, to a lukewarm Floyd fan such as myself, the book becomes slightly confusing. Particularly around the era of Dark Side Of The Moon, the book does not explain why this music resonated so deeply with people of the time. The book makes it clear that the album marked the beginning of the Floyd as a superstar band, but it doesn’t tell us why. Because of that, I am ultimately disappointed by Comfortably Numb. Despite being well-written and very informative, it failed to answer my biggest question about Pink Floyd. Dark Side Of The Moon is still an impenetrable mystery to me.

Words, Between The Lines Of Age

Title: Shakey: Neil Young's Biography

Author: Jimmy McDonough

Year: 2003

Most rock biographies are plagued by the same problem: they don’t talk to the right people. It’s easy to ask former band members or parents, but often, the best stories to get are found in the most unexpected places. Ex-girlfriends, family acquaintances and assorted roadies can often have tremendous insight into the inner workings of famous artists. In many ways, this is why Jimmy McDonough’s Neil Young biography, Shakey (the name comes from Young’s childhood nickname), is such an astonishing success. He literally interviews everybody. No figure is too insignificant to not warrant at least a short interview. The depth of information in this book is staggering. McDonough spent over a decade compiling this biography, exhaustively tracking down anybody he felt was even remotely important in the story of Neil Young. I can only imagine the hours of work that went into this book. But it pays off. McDonough has created one of the most thorough and engaging rock biographies I’ve ever read.

The book gains strength from its combination of self-admitted adoration for Young and an open desire to show him as a real human being, complete with flaws. This second part is where the book really shines, since it exposes Young’s numerous neuroses and mental quirks without villanizing him. There’s no doubt that Young is a strange guy. Any artist who switches back and forth between gentle, country tunes and ragged, crunchy rock must be a bit unpredictable. McDonough delves into this issue, along with various others that have led people to complain about Young over the years. The final picture you’re left with is that of a man driven obsessively by his interests, who’s very difficult to work with but whose talent is both undeniable and irrepressible.

The real coup of the book, however, is the lengthy interviews McDonough finagled with Young himself. The book switches back and forth between standard biography writing, with interviews and insights from other people and lengthy quotes from Young, explaining and clarifying his own position on what others are saying about him. The result is a remarkably fair and balanced (eat your heart out, Fox News) portrait of Neil, where you can decide which version of the story you want to believe: his own or that of the other people in his life. Too often, biographies aim to reveal an artist despite what he himself might have to say about the matter. Shakey avoids that completely. Young truly gets a say here.

I didn’t expect Neil Young’s story to be this fascinating. He’s always been an artist I’ve enjoyed, but after reading this book, I have such a greater appreciation for the emotion and craft of his work. Shakey captures the details of what each album meant emotionally to Young, especially his tortured, mournful mid-70s trilogy of Time Fades Away, On The Beach, and Tonight’s The Night. This dark time, which was marked by the deaths of many close to Young, is treated particularly well by McDonough. Even Young’s 80s output, often considered the worst of his career, is given a fair and thoughtful appraisal. Having Young’s voice there to defend himself and explain what he was thinking does wonders. In the end, the reader feels they understand at least some level of this tremendously complicated man. McDonough has crafted a wonderful, exhaustively researched read, worthy of an artist as great as Neil Young.

When Biographies Go Bad

Title: The Many Lives Of Tom Waits

Author: Patrick Humphries

Year: 2007

Tom Waits is a fascinating musician (and actor), who intentionally shrouds himself in as much mystery as possible. Like many artists of his generation, he has a flair for inventing personal histories to derail overzealous interviewers. Plus, when you sit and look at his back catalogue, you’ll notice that he’s released very few albums for someone who’s been at this since the early 70s. All in all, he’s the perfect person to write a biography about. There are hoards of Waits fans yearning to know all about his early life, his thoughts, his personal growth over the years and so on. Even if Waits won’t tell you, a good biographer should be able to dig into his personal history a bit and uncover something new to tantalize Waits’ legions of fans. That book would fly off the shelves.

The Many Lives Of Tom Waits is not that book, no matter how much it wants to be. Its biggest problem is lack of original material. By his own admission, author Patrick Humphries met Waits only once, back in the early 80s. This was pre-Swordfishtrombones, pre-Rain Dogs, pre-everything that has now lifted Waits up to near mythic status. Humphries comes back again and again to that brief afternoon interview when he tries to bring something new to the table. But when that fails him, all he has to fall back on is a pile of interviews and quotes from other journalists. This leaves the reader begging for something insightful, something unexpected while reading the book. Even a few interviews with close friends or old musical collaborators would have been golden compared to those old interviews.

What this book is begging for, with big, drooping eyes, is a good editor. Being the nitpicky reader I am, I couldn’t help but notice a few inconsequential, but distracting errors throughout the book (for example, Humphries says a video was made for the title track of 1992’s Bone Machine. That album has no title track and the video was for “Goin’ Out West”). While these are understandable typos and oversights, when I, amateur twenty-year-old music historian Simon Irving, can pick these things out, it undermines the credibility of the book. Humphries also writes in a convoluted, counterintuitive style where the Waits timeline is bent to fit the needs of the author. 1987’s Franks Wild Years is discussed before 1985’s Rain Dogs, for example, which will confuse anyone with a passing knowledge of Waits’ career. These errors are better than glaring mistakes, but they’re irritating nonetheless.

Finally, on a matter of personal taste, Humphries’ assessment of Waits’ recorded works bothers me greatly. Waits’ music is generally divided into two categories: his pre-1983 balladeer work and his more experimental post-1983 albums. Humphries makes it clear he prefers the earlier stuff, which in and of itself is fine. The problem I have is that this is counter to the prevailing critical opinions on Waits’ work and Humphries never acknowledges this. He casually declares 1976’s Small Change as “Waits’ masterpiece,” as if it was common knowledge. Just reading that sentence, I could hear the ranks of Waits fans screaming in protest. For someone who writes like the biggest Tom Waits fan in the world, Patrick Humphries seems surprisingly cut off from what the rest of Waits’ fans actually think.

Ticket To Read

Title: The Beatles: The Biography
Author: Bob Spitz
Year: 2005

I gotta be honest here. I've never been much of a Beatles fan.

Ok, now that those words have sunk in and everyone’s sharpening their axes in order to lop my head off, let me explain. Let’s imagine, just for a moment, that you didn’t grow up listening to the Beatles. What if you didn’t have parents who played Rubber Soul all the time? What if, in fact, your only early life exposure to the Beatles was a little VHS copy of Yellow Submarine? Well, welcome to my wonderful, Beatle-less childhood. It wasn’t until I really started getting into music that I really encountered the Beatles. Without all those fuzzy, early adolescent memories attached to their music, they just don’t do much for me.

This is where Bob Spitz’s book comes in handy. An absolutely intimidating tome of Beatles lore, clocking in well over 900 pages, it provides a fantastic background for one of the most written-about bands in history. Although it spends far too much time tracing the family histories of anyone even closely related to the band, the sheer scope of information being offered is incredible. You also get a very strong sense of each Beatle over the course of the book. At least in my mind, I ended up annoyed at Paul and filled with empathy for George. I also learned that John Lennon was a huge asshole. These are the kinds of important facts you can learn from this book.

I’m still not a raving Beatles fanatic. They’re fine, plenty of good songs, but none that have really carved out their own special place in my heart. However, after reading this book, which provided some crucial context for their music, I find I can listen to their records and enjoy them much more. Knowing the personal circumstances and emotions that went into the songs gives you another way to look at them. Despite its length, this is an excellent musical reference book and probably the most definitive version of the Beatles story in print.

PS: I apologize for the horrific pun that I used for the title of this post. It was too tempting.

This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain On Music.

Title: Musicophila

Author: Oliver Sacks

Year: 2007

If you’re anything like me, the idea of reading a book about how music and the brain interact sounds daunting and more than a little off-putting. When I first got this book (a Christmas gift), I eyed it warily, expecting it to be full of scientific abstract concepts and medical nonsense. To my amazement, however, it turned out to be a fascinating and charmingly written read, compiling a series of glorified anecdotes Oliver Sacks has collected over the course of his forty-plus year career as a neurologist.

The strength of the book lies in its pacing. Instead of throwing example after example at his readers, Sacks lets one or two individual stories say everything he needs about a specific subject. The chapters are nice and short, making the book easy to read before bed or before classes. However, despite their brevity, the chapters always feel fully explored, with few questions left unanswered in the reader’s mind. On the rare occasions when Sacks does veer into detailed medical jargon, he makes sure he explains everything adequately. You don’t have to be a neurologist to understand what he’s talking about here.

The range of subject matter is fascinating. Connections between music and seizures, music and Parkinson’s, music and schizophrenia…it’s all here. Some of the most interesting chapters explain the biological background to phenomena like absolute pitch and synesthesia (“seeing” certain musical notes, often in the form of color. “D-sharp is yellow”, etc). As much about music as it is about brains and biology, Musicophilia definatly gives you an interesting new way to appreciate music.

1977-2006: The Playlist

Book: The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide To The Greatest Songs From Punk To Present

Author: many, edited by Scott Plagenhoef and Ryan Schreiber
Year: 2008

There are several reasons I should hate this book. Foremost among them is that this book is only about songs. I’m a diehard album-format loyalist, trying to swim against the tide in an increasingly iPod/mixtape-centric world. The idea of trying to boil down my favorite era of music (1977-present) into 500 songs, as opposed to 500 albums, is contrary to everything I believe about music.

However, music history doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with me on this matter. As the book’s preface points out, there are many excellent and influential songs that never graced an official studio album (The Specials “Ghost Town” is an obvious example). This is the case with many older songs, from the days where singles could actually be a unique thing instead of album tracks dressed up for radio airplay. Because of this, I found myself tremendously enjoying this book. There are very few books on music out there that cover single songs as opposed to albums and I think the diversity is necessary to understanding music history as a whole.

Then there’s the issue of being published by Pitchfork, probably the most beloved and hated music website around. I know a lot of people who bash Pitchfork, because the website doesn’t cover their beloved “underground post-spazzcore folk-metal” scene or some such bullshit. I don’t buy this at all. Personally, I’m a big defender of Pitchfork, mostly because there is no other place online to get quality, up-to-date music news. As for their reviews, just like with anything else, they must be taken with a grain of salt, but they’re excellent at starting discussions about any particular album. Besides, I find that my personal musical tastes dovetail with theirs more often than not. Forgive me for liking a site I agree with.

The Pitchfork 500 definitely veers strongly into the “alternative” chunk of music, something they readily admit. However deserving you think they might be, you’re not going to find big singles by Britney Spears or the Spice Girls or anything in that vein here. But, within the boundaries they draw for themselves, the Pitchfork writers have captured a colossal range of music. Punk and traditional alt-rock are represented in spades, as is hip-hop, electronic music, avant-guard and any combinations thereof. This book is an excellent primer on the huge mess of music that usually goes unheralded for a variety of reasons. Overall, The Pitchfork 500 is a very quality read and reference source.

Tangled Up In Folk

Book: Positively 4th Street

Author: David Hajdu

Year: 2001

Tackling the lives of four iconic figures of the 1960s in a single book seems insane and more than a little impossible. Nonetheless, in this monstrous, four-headed biography, David Hajdu manages to create an incredibly compelling and well-researched document of the lives of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Mimi & Richard Fariña. The personalities and quirks of these four characters jump right off the pages, especially Dylan’s mind-numbing strangeness. You definitely get a sense of just what a weird guy he is and you wonder how anyone ever allowed him near a recording studio in the first place.

The book also functions as an excellent primer on the early folk scene (something I knew virtually nothing about before reading this book). Hajdu traces the music’s evolution from traditional ballads into protest music and finally into the folk-rock of the Fariñas and Dylan circa Bringing It All Back Home and beyond. Accomplishing so much in a single book is really quite incredible. Positively 4th Street is one of the best music biographies I’ve read and I strongly recommend it.

Taking Tiger Mountain By Literature

Book: Brian Eno:His Music And The Vertical Color Of Sound

Author: Eric Tamm

Year: 1989 (Revised Edition: 1995)

Somehow, in my busy, busy life, I manage to find time to read a terrifying number of books. And while I’m certain I’d be a terrible literary critic, I do want to use Pretzel Logic to share my thoughts about music-related books I come across. I won’t be grading them, just offering a few words and recommendations.

I just finished Brian Eno: His Music And The Vertical Color Of Sound. I was very excited when I bought it, since Eno is one of my favorite musicians and probably the musician I most closely relate to (at least from what I’ve read). Eric Tamm’s book gives a very thorough overview of Eno’s career, broken down into his rock albums, his ambient albums and finally his various collaborations with other artists over the years. A great deal of time is spent analyzing Eno’s masterpiece, Another Green World (1975), with each track being broken down in impressive detail. The book also goes into the specifics of Eno’s various music-making methods, ranging from his fondness for musical experimentation to his Oblique Strategies cards.

The book's only real shortcoming is Tamm’s music Ph.D. background. He has a tendency to drag the writing a bit too far into the “we’re gonna talk about tonic-dominant relationships now” style. I feel there’s a certain level of irony in applying this style of musical analysis to a musician like Eno, who, by his own admission, can barely play a chord on anything and should really be described as a “non-musician.” That said, I encourage anyone interested in one of the most creative, unique and original musicians of the past forty years to pick up this book.