'but the truly great songs, the ones that age and golden-oldies radio stations cannot wither, are about our romantic feelings. and this is not because songwriters have anything to add to the subject; it's just that romance, with its dips and turns and glooms and highs, its swoops and swoons and blues, is a natural metaphor for music itself.'

I love the obsessive pop fandom done with a British accent.

okay less a review...more a brag...I have a signed copy of this!

When I put this on my wishlist, I thought it was a novel. I just read a couple of Hornby's books and decided I wanted to read them all. I was a little disappointed when I discovered it was just him talking about 31 songs he liked, especially when I looked at the list of songs and either don't know or don't like any of them.

But this isn't really about those particular songs. This is a musical journey that pretty much everyone can relate to. Even though the songs are different, they way he's gone through genres at certain stages of life, echos my own.

I laughed out loud when he mentioned starting to look towards country music, as it tends to be like heavy rock music where it's not that mainstream and you still feel like you have something special to you. I am loving country music at the moment, I must have reached that age!

Everyone who starts to notice they are getting older will relate to not understanding the music of today. My niece was playing some rap song for me yesterday, kept going 'boys, not hot'. And I was judging it for being stupid. This book has made me remember that I love the song 'Barbie Girl' and I will sing along to 'The Cheeky Girls' if it's being played. And I'm guessing my parents didn't understood why I liked those tunes, as their parents no doubt didn't understand what they were listening to.

Still can't get over that all the songs I like are now being played on 'Magic' . A radio station that used to be reserved exclusively for songs my mum liked.

Hornby injects his trademark humor into the writing and although I did try and listen to a few of the tracks on youtube, they are not my thing. But that doesn't matter. Like I said before, this is about the relationship people have with music. Very relatable.

Once again Hornby's affectionate and intelligent criticism reminds me why I bothered with him in the first place.

Hornby has a strange and anxious personality as a music critic. He often seems wounded and defensive when expressing his opinions. He offers qualifiers that don’t so much communicate humility or clarification, but of anxiety. Reading 31 consecutive chapters leaves me with the feeling that they serve to provide him with a protective shield for his opinions more than they serve to communicate any real joy or inspiration that these 31 songs ostensibly bring him. Unfortunately, the result is that it’s kind of a drag reading him.

What, exactly, is he trying to protect? I believe he is trying to establish that it is okay for him to like pop music. And what thesis could be more banal and pointless than that? While Songbook would ostensibly be for a popular audience, I get the undeniable impression that his writing is aimed at an audience that is not popular, but rather fellow critics, writers, intellectuals, literati. Clearly, it must be, because, as a lover of pop music, he has, by definition, most of the world on his side! He doesn’t need to convince the masses to love a song that is already loved by the masses, right? It’s the literati who are apparently against him (although this is only ever implied. He never actually shares any evidence of persecution by his peers [or by the masses, for that matter]). Tellingly, the last sentence in his chapter on Suicide’s Frankie Teardrop (it is the one glaring exception to the other 30 pop songs that he uses as a counterpoint), he writes “don’t try to make me feel morally or intellectually inferior” for not wanting to listen to music like Suicide (64). Who could he be addressing other than his critic peers? Surely no one who shares his love of Rod Stewart, Ben Folds Five, Jackson Browne, Rufus Wainwright, etc. (ie: popular audiences). Of course, there’s an irony here. For all of his allegiance to pop music, his book skips over popular audiences in order to reach and react to his critic peers.

In his attempts to convince his peers of the merits of say, Nelly Furtado, it’s a little comical and a little sad, because he is in a constant state of defending the status quo, the people in charge, the music companies, the radio conglomerates, the logarithms, the victors of history, if you will. And this is where Hornby’s true anxiety lies: he is trying to establish his right to both remain a member of the literati AND enjoy the radio. It’s unfair, it’s true, that his peers won’t let him (if indeed they won’t), but I’m not sure if the reader should give a shit.

The other reason why Hornby is not really writing to a popular audience, but rather his literary peers is that he is not so much defending pop music, but the Idea of Pop Music; of pop music as an institution, if you will. His very brief chapters on songs are riddled with extrapolations about the song as a stand-in for the Institution of Pop. Lauding or defending a song feels like a proxy fight for defending Pop Music itself. Again, this causes for slightly stressful, and certainly not joyous, reading.

Where is the thrill that should accompany a book ostensibly about 31 thrilling songs?

Hornby defends pop not in its own right, but in opposition to other genres, including jazz, classical, and most rap. For example, being a jazz fan is automatically a stand-in for being a snob or an inauthentic posturer. But remarkably, Hornby is not even defending ALL pop music, but only pop music of a narrow scope. After all, he has to write off SOME pop music to justify his status as a critic and not just any ordinary music listener. So even within the institution of pop, not all pop is allowed: he distances himself from anything that rocks “too hard,” and while acknowledging the greatness of critics’ choice canonical pop works (Pet Sounds), he claims that no one really listens to those anymore (Really? It’s okay to like pop, but not the Beach Boys?!). It’s not that there’s anything wrong with liking adult-oriented pop and soft rock (to use a broad stroke to characterize the 31 songs contained within his list). It’s that his trustworthiness as a music guide become questionable when that is virtually the only sound that he finds worth writing about. Frankly, what use is a critic if their ears only capable of listening to a fraction of the popular music spectrum?

The most telling (and wickedly amusing) part of the book is how Hornby resolves the dilemma of finding himself loving a Patti Smith live set, consisting of poetry with musical accompaniment (dangerously non-pop) by assuring us that a poet walked out of the performance, as if to tell us, “Don’t worry—it wasn’t that artsy—a poet walked out!” And he literally ends the last sentence of the chapter, and of the main section of the book, by trying to reassure himself, that it’s okay, that Patti Smith’s “Pissing in a River,” is actually just a pop song:

“I’m a little ambivalent about it [ending the book with recounting Patti Smith’s live performance of the song]: maybe it’s a little too High Culture, what with Woolf and Blacke and Ackroyd [who Smith references in her performance] and the chapel and all. Maybe I should close with “Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow” or “Surfin’ Bird” or “I Hate You So Much Right Now.” On the other hand, the song was called “Pissing in a River,” and it was played on guitars, and it lasted four or five minutes, and its emotional effects depended entirely on its chords and its chorus and its attitude. It’s a pop song, in other words, and like a lot of other pop songs, it’s capable of just about anything” (153).

In this passage it is remarkable how concerned he is about being a critic that likes a pop song that others would readily identify as being a bit “edgy.” After erecting walls around himself to distance himself from those other, snobbier critics, what is he to do when he can’t help but fall in love with pop of an artsy variety? What’s remarkable here is not Hornby’s claim that the song is pop—it seems pretty straightforward that it is—but rather that Hornby is so concerned about liking something that fits within the boundaries of pop music.

Hornby’s inherent critique of fellow critics (“metacriticism?”) is that they don’t give pop a fair shake. This book feels like a reactionary over-correction by his almost masochistic denial of pleasure for himself if it is drawn from music that strays to far off the middle of the road.

Hornby loves pop, and he's fascinated by how it transcends its own status to become 'pop culture'. Songbook is, in many ways, a testament to how he sees music and the function it should serve in his life. The song choices matter less than the way he writes about them. Throughout we get some wonderfully written and heartfelt stories that illustrate the power of music on the mundane. Towards the end, we also get some Hornby music criticism, which is just delightful and, as always, extremely well-observed. A breezy, good-natured book.

Tal como su título ya da a entender, '31 canciones' se trata de una disección de 31 canciones que por diversos motivos han impactado y llegado al autor. No importa que la lista que ha escogido Hornby no tenga ningún parecido con la que hubiéramos escogido nosotros, ni que ni siquiera hayamos oído las canciones de las que habla, porque consigue transmitir perfectamente el amor que siente por estas canciones en concreto, y por la música en general, con un estilo que mezcla crítica musical, ensayo y autobiografía. Hay momentos verdaderamente memorables: como cuando defiende la "música pop" ante los que la consideran superficial y simplona; cuando relata el efecto que tiene la música en su hijo autista; cuando explica lo que es adorar un grupo que nadie conoce o descubrir una canción nueva que logra emocionarnos; cuando nos cuenta cómo en su juventud sólo adoraba (y se decidía a escuchar sólo) música "ruidosa", pero que con el pasar de los años ha ido perdiendo todos sus prejuicios musicales.

Sin embargo, mi momento preferido es cuando nos cuenta cómo podemos llegar a odiar una canción que habíamos descubierto por casualidad, simplemente porque la empiezan a poner a todas partes y a todas horas. Es algo que inevitablemente nos habrá pasado a muchos y algo que yo nunca hasta ahora me había parado a analizar. Hornby argumenta que es porque es imposible "amar o conectar con una música que está tan omnipresente como el monóxido de carbono", porque la música es algo que nos habla directamente a nosotros, sobre nuestra intimidad. Y a partir de aquí también he descubierto porque siempre es tan especial encontrar en la radio esa canción que para ti es en algun modo especial, simplemente porque es la oportunidad de compartir por una vez algo que tienes muy dentro, algo que te define como persona. Y por todo esto creo que es un libro imprescindible para todos los que aman la música.

I wavered between giving this book three or four stars, but decided on three because of several essays in the middle that I didn't find particularly interesting and could have done without. In general, these essays provide an insightful look at music in general, how it plays a part in our lives and its impact on culture.

Because the essays are written by Nick Hornby, they are often quite funny, and almost always well-crafted. I love his general lack of pretension about his music tastes, and that he recognizes he's a middle-aged white man who probably isn't always the best judge of modern music (and he's okay with that).

I have not heard many of the songs he wrote about, but that didn't matter. The songs themselves were often only periphery to the main points he was trying to make about culture or music tastes or the importance of music in our lives. I thought the first few essays started off strong, and then the book started to lag in the middle, but overall I enjoyed it.

My edition also came with five extra essays reprinted from The New Yorker, but most of them were album reviews and didn't feel like they fit with the rest of the book. Still, even album reviews are quite insightful in the hands of Hornsby. And the fifth of these essays, where Hornby decides to listen to the 10 best-selling albums in the U.S. based on the Billboard charts, contains one of the best and funniest insults I've heard of a band's lyrics (but I'll let you read for yourself).

(Reposting an old review)


A few pages into book brought me to the observation. It’s not the typical Nick Hornby piece. Don’t expect to find yourself in the psyche of some middle-aged guy coming to terms with his personal foibles and neuroses. The book is a collection of essays on selected songs that Hornby relates to certain moments in his life – his personal soundtrack so to speak.

Granted, the topic is boring or, at the very least, uninspiring. His song selection is quite esoteric. Only two of the songs and a third of the artists rang a bell. And what do I care about Nick Hornby’s life? I read books to amuse myself on their content, not to catch a glimpse of the author’s adolescence or religious beliefs.

Nevertheless, there’s one thing that I could not deny. Reading the book was sheer pleasure.

I guess that’s what makes a writer like Nick Hornby so popular. He can captivate his audience even with the most mundane topic at hand.

Somewhere in the book, Hornby refers to himself as a “prose stylist”. I consider him more of a “prose stylist extraordinaire”. It is not the idea he is communicating that piques my interest, but the manner through which he communicates them. I end up reading the book for the sake of reading, as if reading itself provided a satisfaction separate and distinct from the ideas Hornby wishes to convey. Next thing I know, anecdotes on Hornby’s first visit to America or his inspiration for a particular chapter of High Fidelity have become as enticing as a tall tale of witchcraft and wizardry.

It’s like going to a restaurant and, for one reason or another, choosing the fish over the steak, despite knowing that steak has more inherent taste and flavor. You expect to be moderately sated by a bland entrée that surprisingly outclasses even the finest of beef.

That’s what Hornby does. He evokes the sublime out of the ordinary. He is a literary master chef who magically seasons a flavorless main ingredient with a spice repertoire of wit, sarcasm and an uncanny use of metaphors.

In his review of the song So I’ll Run, Hornby himself cleverly discusses this dilemma of writing about the ordinary –

“ It’s all very well writing about elves and dragons and goddesses rising out of the ground and the rest of it – who couldn’t do that and make it colorful . . . But writing about pubs and struggling singer-songwriters – well, that’s hard work. Nothing happens. Nothing happens, and yet, somehow, I have to persuade you that something is happening somewhere in the hearts and minds of my characters, even though they’re just standing there drinking beer and making jokes . . . ”

In differentiating music and lyrics in another review, he says “music is such a pure form of self-expression, and lyrics, because they consist of words, are so impure, and songwriters . . . find that, even though they can produce both, words will always let you down. One half of [the] art is aspiring towards the condition of the other half, and that must be weird, to feel so divinely inspired and so fallibly human, all at the same time. Maybe it’s only songwriters who have ever had any inkling of what Jesus felt of a bad day.”

See what I mean.

Hence, after going through the entire book once and selected chapters several times, I still find myself lifting the book from my shelf and revisiting a chapter or two – for the sake of sheer hedonism.

Rummaging through the music section of my library one day, I found Songbook by Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity and About A Boy, and immediately brought it home. There’s nothing better than coming across someone who enjoys music and can write about it with skill and verve.

Songbook is basically a collection of reflections on 31 songs, not his all-time “best of” list, but rather, songs which he’s listened to over and over again and which he wanted to write something about. Thus he has essays on everything from Nelly Furtado’s “Fly Like A Bird” and Ben Folds Five’s “Smoke” to Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan tunes. The book even comes with an audio CD containing 11 of the 31 songs he wrote about.

Hornby refrains from turning the chapters into blog-like entries and talking about what was happening in his life at the time he was listening. Instead, he waxes almost poetically on issues like the throw-away culture which outputs current pop music and how it still manages to produce intelligent, soulful compositions; he reflects on the difference between sad songs about work versus sad songs about relationships; he even talks about generational differences, and touches on music and social change. It’s not philosophy, as much as a chance to talk about pop music intelligently and insightfully.

NUGGET OF WISDOM

The best nugget of wisdom I took away from the book: “Dave Eggers has a theory that we play songs over and over, those of us who do, because we have to ’solve’ them.”

I remember doing exactly that– placing an mp3 on constant repeat over a period of time — in order to squeeze the juice out of it, to get at its message, its point, its truth. To enjoy its aural and intellectual stimulus, and allow it to carry me forward.

FAVORITE QUOTE

“A couple of times a year I make myself a tape to play in the car, a tape full of all the new songs I’ve loved over the previous few months, and every time I finish one I can’t believe that there’ll be another. Yet there always is, and I can’t wait for the next one; you only need a few hundred more things like that, and you’ve got a life worth living.”

If you love pop music and intelligent writing, then you will relish Hornby’s Songbook. It is a hopeful, insightful read with its own built-in soundtrack. Worth it!

Originally posted on my blog:
http://lionel.valdellon.com/?p=341

Last 40 pages really brought out the ‘back in my day’ old man music fan in Hornby. Gah. I’ll be doing the same no doubt.