Songbook

Rating:
Summary: Nick Hornby's Mix Tape to the World
Review: *sigh* this is the kind of stuff you'd like to write about every mix tape you ever made. this is the kind of stuff you try and try and try to say but since you can't find the words you just add a song to the tape that most closely reflects what you're trying to convey. hornby's so admirable. it's not easy to come up with words about songs written by other people, and hornby does it so well.

Rating:
Summary: CD Playlist
Review: 1 Paul Westerberg - Born For Me
2 Teenage Fanclub - Your Love is the Place Where I Come From
3 The Bible - Glorybound
4 Aimee Mann - I've Had It
5 Rufus Wainwright - One Man Guy
6 Rod Stewart - Mama You Been On My Mind
7 Badly Drawn Boy - A Minor Incident
8 Teenage Fanclub - Ain't That Enough
9 Ben Folds Five - Smoke
10 Mark Mulcahy - Hey Self Defeater
11 Ani DiFranco - You Had Time

The book is genuinely more engaging than his pop music criticism for The New Yorker as he is obviously writing with his heart as opposed to his head.

Rating:
Summary: Essays on music from a music lover
Review: Anybody who has read (or seen the movie of) High Fidelity knows that Nick Hornby knows his music. Well, he's just proven it again with his writing in Songbook.

Songbook is a collection of short essays describing his thoughts and feelings (often tangential associations) regarding songs by Teenage Fanclub, Nelly Furtado, Aimee Mann and Ani Difranco, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, Suicide, and others. There aren't 31 essays because Hornby often combines linked thoughts about two different songs in one essay. He delves deep into his personal likes and dislikes and, in the process, has produced a book that is almost a "how-to" of cool. He feels no shame in liking pop music, as long as it's good pop music. What that consists of you'll have to read to find out.

If this were just a book about music, that would be good enough for it to find a place on my music reference shelf (where it fits in quite nicely next to my Billboard Book of Number One Hits, Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll and my Rolling Stone Record Guide), but it's also--as good reviews are--a portrait of the man himself and the state in which he experienced the songs.

Hornby tells us how he doesn't like to listen to depressing music anymore because life's depressing enough--the only people who can afford to listen to it are those to whom nothing really bad has happened to, he says. He also mention how his book About a Boy--which was inspired by, but is not about, his son--led to a song being on the soundtrack of the movie adaptation that somehow managed to be precisely about his son. It's these kinds of musings that give you entry into the mind of an artist and make him into a real person, not just someone who is paid to entertain you. I found that in many ways, I identified with Hornby and the place he was in his life when he wrote these essays. And that made the reading experience all the more real for me.

This paperback edition is lacking the CD that accompanied the hardcover edition, but in its place are five new essays not appearing in that printing, including another about Aimee Mann--focusing on her album, Bachelor No. 2--and an album review of a Los Lobos boxed set that are just as good as the others. Then, at the very end, he lists some particular recommendations that any music fan would do well to take into consideration.

Songbook isn't just a book of music criticism, it's one man's autobiography in time. Pick it up.

Rating:
Summary: High Fidelity's non-fiction companion
Review: Elvis Costello once declared that "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do." Anyone who shares this sentiment obviously hasn't been exposed to enough good examples of exceptional music writing, Mr. Hornby's "Songbook" a case in point. As mentioned elsewhere, many of the 26 essays are only marginally concerned with the songs highlighted. "J. Geils Band * First I Look At The Purse" chronicles Nick's first visit to the U.S., an English teen's initial immersion in our country's consumer culture; "The Velvelettes * Needle In A Haystack" is a lament on the inability of white men to dance, while "Butch Hancock & Marce Lacouture * So I'll Run" details the origin of the character Marie LaSalle in "High Fidelity." Ultimately, this makes "Songbook" a much more durable read. Hornby's prose is gregarious, humourous, opinionated and offtimes quite personal. It is liable to be quoted elsewhere for years to come. The book's format is warm, hip and inviting, notably due to the appearance throughout of Marcel Dzama's odd little caricatures and creatures. A pity that all the songs mentioned are not included on the CD; the eleven featured generally share a more somber tone, which may or may not lend itself to repeated listenings, or an extended residency on your carousel. Regardless, Nick Hornby fans and pop music afficiandos have little excuse to avoid this book and much to gain from securing one and placing it on their coffee table. A leisurely reading pace is suggested, to allow a savouring of its varied pleasures and insights.

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Summary: Why Rock Is More Than Music
Review: For some rock 'n' roll is literature for living, while for others it simply fills the air when they're not on cell phones riding in their cars. Mr. Hornby is the former, and so am I. While I don't agree on all his philosophical conclusions in this book, at least he makes an effort to offer solutions; and that alone places him near the top of his class in the current generation of writers. Don't read this book for music. That's why the CD is included. Read it to understand how the power of rock 'n' roll can impact a person's perspective through the years.

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Summary: The journal I should've written
Review: For years I have kept a journal of my thoughts and gripes, actually more my gripes than anything, for the sake of posterity if nothing else. Actually it helps me sort out my life, make sense of my mistakes. I often wince at older entries. I also often write about music, because music is something that has touched my life in a way that nothing else has. Some of my best entries, or the ones I kid myself into thinking of as possibly slightly profound, are ones where I describe how I am feeling by means of discussing what music I am listening to currently.

This book reminds me of my journal. It feels, in fact, like Nick's journal. No, he doesn't always use the music to describe how he is feeling about his life, nor should he necessarily. But what he does is show us his soulful side, the best part of himself, which the music brings out. I always love that side of people, when someone gets excited describing a song they love and what it means to them. It's an expression of soul that rarely comes to the forground in the world of "hey howzit goin" small talk and no time for lunch at the office.

I redeveloped my love of pop music from reading and watching "High Fidelity" (book and movie respectively) at a time when I was losing respect for it. I owe a lot to Mr. Hornby. So I can't ever say a bad thing about this book. It's his self-expression, his place to expound on his ideas. No mention of your favorite song here, or even something you recognize? Well, that's not what this is about. It's Nick's journal, let the man express himself.

Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: His writing is wonderful. It helps that we have similar taste in music, but I think this book would have made a wonderful read even if he spent all his time writing about Britney Spears and Tuvan Throat Singing (Case in point: his New Yorker article for the 2001 music issue). Nick Hornby is a delight to read no matter what he writes about.

Rating:
Summary: Love Music
Review: Hornby loves music. He expresses his love in this short book of essays. When he talks about music, he means pop, but not in the narrow sense of the term. Pop by his definition includes rock, reggae, country, R&B, rap, and so on. Through examining 31 songs, Hornby explores the many facets of pop. Some people would claim that pop is just junk or throw-away music, but Hornby claims this is actually one of the good points of pop music. Pop doesn't reach for immortality because it has the maturity to admit that immortality is impossible. Hornby is particularly critical of classical music. He claims it makes no sense to listen to music that has already been over-analyzed and has had the life drained out of it. There's nothing new to learn or experience. Whereas pop fans will always find something new or refreshing. Fans of pop enjoy the mystery of "figuring out" a song and when they're done, they move on to the next one. The puzzle is never complete. The challenge is eternal.

If you're a fan of music, you have to read this book. Even if you don't agree with Hornby's opinions, you'll think about pop music in a different way. You'll find new life in your CD collection. Rediscover your love of music.

Rating:
Summary: Love Music
Review: Hornby loves music. He expresses his love in this short book of essays. When he talks about music, he means pop, but not in the narrow sense of the term. Pop by his definition includes rock, reggae, country, R&B, rap, and so on. Through examining 31 songs, Hornby explores the many facets of pop. Some people would claim that pop is just junk or throw-away music, but Hornby claims this is actually one of the good points of pop music. Pop doesn't reach for immortality because it has the maturity to admit that immortality is impossible. Hornby is particularly critical of classical music. He claims it makes no sense to listen to music that has already been over-analyzed and has had the life drained out of it. There's nothing new to learn or experience. Whereas pop fans will always find something new or refreshing. Fans of pop enjoy the mystery of "figuring out" a song and when they're done, they move on to the next one. The puzzle is never complete. The challenge is eternal.

If you're a fan of music, you have to read this book. Even if you don't agree with Hornby's opinions, you'll think about pop music in a different way. You'll find new life in your CD collection. Rediscover your love of music.

Rating:
Summary: my awesome mix tape #38
Review: I bought this book, sight unseen, simply because of the description, which was: Nick Hornby, one of my favorite writers, had written a book about a bunch of his favorite songs. That's all I needed to know, that sounded great to me, I was sold.

I've been a Hornby fan since Fever Pitch. When High Fidelity (the book) came out, I was amazed: it felt like Hornby had been eavesdropping on my mind, because I tend to agree with a lot of his opinions about music and music lovers. Similarly, I'm a big fan of the reviews he wrote for The New Yorker a few years ago.

So I ordered the book and it showed up in my box and I immediately turned to the table of contents to see: which songs did he write about??? And I was surprised, and a bit disappointed, to see that I only recognized about a dozen of the titles. And there wasn't one song in the bunch that I considered a personal favorite. And when I listened to the songs I didn't know (included on a handy-dandy CD)... they didn't blow me away. But that's the beauty of a mix tape and, despite the fact that it's printed on paper, this is a mix tape.

And this one comes with great liner notes. Hornby's a smart, entertaining, intuitive writer. I may sound like a disappointed fan trying to make the best of a book that didn't satisfy me 100%, but even when Hornby's writing about music I haven't heard, it's still enjoyable, it's still worthwhile, it's still exposing me to things I previously didn't know about.

Even when he's confessing to not being a huge Dylan fan and confesses to preferring a Rod Stewart cover of one of my favorite Dylan songs to the original (which is, of course, the true road to enternal damnation), he does so in a way that's completely relatable even to a Dylan fanatic.

Even when he's extolling the virtues of a song I find to be "sad bastard" music (like he does in his essay about Mark Mulcahy's "Hey Self Defeater") he manages to include a great, conversational subtext about the virtues of small, privately owned, slowly-becomming-extinct record stores with a personal touch.

This is also a beautifully designed McSweeny book, with a beautiful "Maxell XL-II" mix-tape cover and with clever illustrations by Marcel Dzama. The book also benefits Treehouse Trust and 826 Valencia, organizations that are extremely worthy of the extra money.

Hornby should do one of these a year, I think. And next time, it'd be nice if he'd touch on his favorite Stones songs, his favorite Stax songs, his favorite Steve Earle songs, his favorite blues, his favorite jazz, his favorite Clash songs, etc, etc. If he'll write it, I'll read it.