Review by New York Times Review
MUSIC FANS LOVE LISTS. Top 10s, count-downs, rankings, best/worst, most/ least - music magazines and websites are filled with them, increasingly so in a post-Buzzfeed, data-driven media world. Maybe ballet aficionados are keeping track of "The 10 Most Overrated Swans" or art lovers are debating "The Greatest Moments in Post-Impressionism," but the populist side of pop-music fans' squabbles often sounds more like last call at a sports bar. Steven Hyden's "Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me" and Bob Boilen's "Your Song Changed My Life," while never offering actual ratings, both tap into this fascination with quantifying music. Even the second-person construction used in both titles reflects the dynamic of discourse, the start of an argument. Hyden - a consistently insightful and funny writer best known for his work at the late, lamented site Grantland - focuses his attention on pop's grand tradition of head-to-head rivalries: the Beatles versus the Rolling Stones, Biggie versus Tupac, Oasis versus Blur. Sometimes he concentrates on a specific and finite confrontation (Kanye West versus Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards), and sometimes he concocts a more generalized contrast (Axl Rose versus a long list of other rockers and journalists whose butts he threatened to kick). Beyond the often hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking circumstances behind these feuds, though, "Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me" is really about the allure of our obsessive duality. "Loving Oasis and hating Blur was a way for me to work out my aesthetic preferences at a formative age," Hyden writes. "I was using these bands to help me figure out who I was and what I stood for (and also who I wasn't and what I didn't stand for)." He is under no illusions, though, about the actual, real-life impact of such notions: "Getting overly wrapped up in an album is basically a socially acceptable version of having an imaginary friend." So Hyden approaches each of these musical battles looking for the larger theme they represent. The bad blood between the White Stripes and the Black Keys is a way to examine the difficulties that men have making and maintaining friendships. Contemplating the choice between Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as the ultimate guitar god is really a meditation on mortality and maturity. Every chapter swings for the fences, especially since Hyden makes clear that he is setting out to challenge any conventional wisdom or unquestioned paradigms. As a result, when he misses, he misses big. The chapter on Michael Jackson versus Prince reduces their rivalry to Jackson's pop dreams contrasted with Prince's outsider weirdness - though Prince hardly lacked in commercial ambition and Jackson's freaky side was pretty hard to ignore. Also, it's tough to imagine Hyden's recent-vintage web-speak ("See what I just did there?," "YMMV") wearing well. Mostly, though, "Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me" connects the dots on music history in new and intriguing ways. Hyden reminds us why we invest so much in these competitions, how they help shape identity for so many of us, while never losing sight of how silly they can be. "Overanalyzing pop rivalries is enjoyable escapism," he concludes his chapter on hip-hop's ultimate conflict. "But thinking about Biggie versus Tupac gives me no pleasure. ... Two young men died for no good reason, and their murderers will likely never be brought to justice. There's nothing deep about it. It's as empty as empty can be." AS THE CREATOR and host of NPR Music's "All Songs Considered," Bob Boilen has become one of the premier tastemakers in American music (so much so that he recently had a cameo appearance on "The Simpsons"). With "Your Song Changed My Life," he began with a very simple concept: asking musicians - from legends to emerging artists - which one tune had the biggest impact on them and their work. The book's list of subjects is impressive and diverse, representing the range and open-mindedness that characterizes Boilen's radio appeal. Ultimately, and maybe inevitably, the results are a mixed bag. The first issue is that not everybody plays by the rules; many of the participants pick an album, or an artist, rather than a song - which everybody who's ever gotten into a fight over a list knows isn't fair. Though David Byrne's musings on various musical favorites and Lucinda Williams's reflections on Bob Dylan's LP "Highway 61 Revisited" are interesting enough, they take us outside the construction Boilen created. They feel like cheats. Hey, guys, if you can't choose, don't play. Also, the format of the book makes each entry reliant on how much the subject actually has to say about his or her selection; Smokey Robinson selects his own song "Shop Around" as the one that changed his life, but then offers one paragraph's worth of thoughts about it - leaving Boilen stuck filling in with a fine, wholly unnecessary five-page biography of this musical giant. It's not always clear who the intended audience is for "Your Song Changed My Life" (would the kind of music obsessive who might be interested really need to be told that the Sex Pistols "helped define the look of punk"?), and an impulse to transcribe the musicians' quotations verbatim doesn't always do them favors. "At some point, I'm not saying that I am already, but I'm saying - I feel vocally, now, I'm getting to a point where I'm solid," mumbles the British electronic artist James Blake. But in those cases when a thoughtful voice discusses a surprising, pivotal work - like Conor Oberst's impassioned tribute to Don McLean's "American Pie" or the mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile's account of discovering Glenn Gould's recording of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" - Boilen's book gets at something real and rare about the power of music. "I had a great job with the railroad, a good salary," the country upstart Sturgill Simpson says about the day he heard "Wayfaring Stranger" by the bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe. "I was like, I'm gonna quit this and gonna be a songwriter, because that's what I'm supposed to do." ALAN LIGHT'S books include "Let's Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of ?Purple Rain'" and, most recently, "What Happened, Miss Simone? A Biography."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 5, 2016]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Freelance pop-culture writer Hyden puts his knowledge of pop music and pop culture on full display in his first book. Though the premise of debating the merits of one band or artist over another may seem a bit contrived, Hyden notes in the preface that he is "not interested in settling these arguments," which allows him to take his deliberations in fun and original directions. For instance, investigating his own dislike of Blur and his love of Oasis leads Hyden to quote early 20th-century sociologist Charles Cooley, so that he can talk about "how a person's indemnity is shaped by... the ways in which that individual thinks he or she is perceived by others." In another example, Pearl Jam versus Nirvana evolves into an exploration of what's more important: sacrifice or survival. If Nick Hornby's writing had a love child with Chuck Klosterman's, the result would be Hyden's clever prose, as evidenced by his funny-because-it's-true line about Eric Clapton: "He's the Vince Carter of guitar legends." By combining music journalism and pop psychology with some of his own life lessons, Hyden has created a literary mix tape that will be music to pop-culture junkies and the music-obsessed. Agent: Anthony Mattero, Foundry Literary. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
For those who have argued late into the night with their friends about why one band is better than another, this title will grab them from the minute music critic Hyden (Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation?) starts with Oasis vs. Blur. He -covers 19 rivalries going all the way back to the obvious Beatles/Rolling Stones, but the majority of the chapters examine bands that have been prominent during the past quarter century. The author uses the rivalries as a jumping-off point to talk about not only the musicians, but also the meaning of the conflicts, skillfully applying the arguments to a discussion of his own experience. Even the most knowledgeable music fan will learn from Hyden's musings, and anyone with a sense of humor will find his prose laugh-out-loud funny. There's also a surprising amount of poignancy, such as his exploration of the odd relationship between the White Stripes' Jack White and the Black Keys' Dan -Auerbach. This is a wide-ranging, hilarious, and smart look at both expected and surprising matches mixed with autobiography. VERDICT An outstanding piece of pop culture writing for readers who consider music an important part of their lives.-Craig L. Shufelt, Fort Erie P.L., Ont. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
What we talk about when we talk about the Beatles vs. the Stones, Hendrix vs. Clapton, and Biggie vs. Tupac.In his first book, music critic Hyden makes a whimsical, semiserious, somewhat wearisome personal attempt to plumb famous musical rifts for deeper truths, and he succeeds a little more than half the time. In some cases, the showdown between major acts reveals the assumptions of the audience. Is Oasis the conventional band and Blur the more discerning one, or is Oasis honest and straightforward while Blur struggles under the weight of its own pretentiousness? Is Jimi Hendrix more popular than Eric Clapton because he died young, while the surviving guitar god is doomed to shrink into mediocrity? Hyden also focuses on how musical acts are formed by their struggles and rivals, such as the way Pearl Jam was pushed in new directions by Nirvana. The author makes a fascinating case that Jack White's famous public loathing for the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach is really about male one-upmanship and that the dustup between Miley Cyrus and Sinead O'Connor represents a generation gap between very different types of rebels, each talking past the other. Unfortunately, Hyden has less to say as the book goes along, and his attempt to make ever more off-the-wall connections becomes desperate, such as when he compares Roger Waters and his estranged band mates in Pink Floyd to Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien; or when he decides the Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan and Pavement's Stephen Malkmus are kind of like Nixon and JFK. There's certainly an autobiographical element to all this, as Hyden tries to squeeze life lessons of maturity from every battle, but he ultimately comes off sounding older rather than wiser. Other rivalries explored include Taylor Swift vs. Kanye West, Toby Keith vs. the Dixie Chicks, and Prince vs. Michael Jackson. A pop-culture journey to self-realization that makes some intriguing stops before it runs out of gas. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
