"Da Capo Best Music Writing 2003" |
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Best known as the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening started out as a rock critic. He starts this book off with a witty introduction to the best music stories of the year. These books from Da Capo come out every year and this is the fourth and latest in the series. I suspect many of the stories inclusion are overseen by editor, Paul Bresnick, but hey that’s nitpicking. Writings are selections from Spin, GQ, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Vanity Fair, The Onion, and others. The book starts out with a great look at an alternative reality of heavy metal. Bill Tuomala goes through the history of an obscure band know as Van Halen who never got the artistic and mainstream respect they disserved. The first few paragraphs confuse you until you turn the page and realize what is going on. Amazingly (or perhaps not) much in this alternative world is the same as it is now only the roles have been reversed. This one will definetly put a smile on your face. Lynn Hirschberg pens a portrait of a young would-be star that could care less about the search for self, because she has an entire creative team to do the searching for her. Her only creative thoughts are what she will wear to her photo shoot. The business and marketing team present a picture of what may really be wrong with the music industry, the music is secondary and the image and the marketing are the primary mission. This one is very telling. Post-War Jazz: An Arbitrary Road Map by Gary Giddins is an excellent Jazz primer for those who want to learn about the essential history. Elizabeth Gilbert writes a biography style short on Tom Waits. One of the most interesting stories is from Chuck Klosterman for Spin magazine. A new renaissance of Morrissey is afoot and the singer is most popular fans are Latino, inner city, males. Unlike the Tuomala story this one is not fiction. Klosterman attends a Morrissey/Smith’s convention and gets some thoughts from the people there. Morrissey himself doesn’t show up but the attendees seem to be happy with a tribute band, their reasons for their enthusiasm still confuse me, but this story proves well, you can never tell what might happen in this business. These books are though evoking and provide thoughtful insight into our culture and its history. I only hope Da Capo is publishing them in five or ten years so that I can look back at some of them and get an even better understanding of music and its implications on society. |
Book Review |