Funniest Book on Popular Music Ever Written
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A terrific read for two reasons. Firstly, it will make you laugh until you wet yourself. Secondly, it contains lots of excellent musical information about the songs in question. Just ordered his latest book, 'Touch Me I'm Sick: The 52 Creepiest Love Songs You've Ever Heard'.
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GLARING OMISSION
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I don't think that some of the bands and songs were obscure. It is important to cover the whole breadth of (rock) music. (there's certainly some classical pieces that are depressing too).
He left out the ultimate in exploring the human condition and orchestrating doom: the no-wave band, swans. All of their repertoire could have been included. They were the masters of that large looming sound with waves of repetitious epic arrangements. As bleak and harrowing as lead singer Michael Gira's life. Look at the titles: "Raping A Slave", "Failure", "Turned To Stone" etc. Apparently so loud that they caused members of the audience to vomit.
I realise it is his list of what he finds depressing and there's different kinds of sadness. Phil Collins, who's music you wouldn't necessarily describe as depressing, depresses me greatly for instance.
I did enjoy his flowery descriptions of his response to THE CURE's Prayers For Rain although I wouldn't class them as one of the most depressing bands. They after all do a lot of pop songs.
I think he missed GG Allin too right?
Anyway, an entertaining if flawed book.
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Wot, no Pink Floyd?
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He left out Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall', and the daddy of them all, the Moody Blues' 'Forever Autumn'. When that one comes on the radio I have to turn it off. I agree with the other reviewer that some of the songs are a bit obscure but then he was writing it from a very personal standpoint. Otherwise, a great read. (Oh, forgot 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'!
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tears (and fears and beers) of laughter
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Rarely do I read a book that makes me cry with laughter on the train home. This book is for anyone who is or used to be into Hard Rock, Metal or Goth. Or for that matter The Carpenters. It's all in here from Tell Laura I Love her and Teen Angel to My Immortal (where thye inspiration to my header comes from ) and Bonnie Tyler's "masterpeice" Total Eclipse of the Heart. So why not 5 stars? Well some of the songs are a little obscure, and the musical deconstruction gets very technical. As another reviewer said, a CD would be great and including one in the book (difficult I know for permisson purposes) would have been an excellent touch. Nonetheless for 10 quid you really cant go wrong.
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Dark, funny and educational!!!!
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Being the morbid little person I am, I saw this book and it just seemed to reach out it's grubby hands to me. I was expecting something dark and (surprisingly) depressing. What I received was a very witty and amusing book, I found myself laughing out loud numerous times. How could I have got this book so wrong. Tom Reynolds covers a whole host of genres in this book, covering five or so decades. It was interesting to jump from The Carpenters "Goodbye To Love" to Metallica's "One". If like me, you like to learn about musicians and artists. Then you will be pleased with this book. While it goes into detail about the meaning of the songs and how they came to be. For instance Tom explains the meaning of the Kiss song "Beth". Apparently, one of the band members wives became obsessive with phoning her husband during their rehearsals, thus resulting in the band writing a song about the experience...like you do. With other titillating musical facts and dark humour, this is most likely a book that you will pull out of the bookcase to read again. Or else recommend to a friend.
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