book reviews
Book reviews on music, artists, and pop culture related literature.
Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming The Beatles: 6 of X
Rob Sheffield makes the case for Ringo in the next chapter of his stellar Dreaming the Beatles, putting the question regarding Ringo as whether he was an all-time genius drummer who made the Beatles possible, or "a clod who got lucky, the biggest fool who ever hit the big time". Sheffield puts his chips on the genius.
By Paul Levinson9 years ago in Beat
Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming The Beatles: 5 of X
Rob Sheffield's short chapter in his Dreaming the Beatles (actually, they're all short, which is good) is about "It Won't Be Long," and is about as fine a piece of music journalism, or rock 'n' roll analysis, or whatever you want to call it, as you can find. It's a holographic sample of why the book as a whole is so enjoyable and important.
By Paul Levinson9 years ago in Beat
Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming The Beatles: 4 of X
I don't want to get too far into Rob Sheffield's addictive book without posting another review, so I thought I'd check in here after finishing a chapter on George, which comes after discussions of Ringo (which I talk about in my last review) and Paul and John, which are of course a part of every chapter.
By Paul Levinson9 years ago in Beat
Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles: 3 of X
In the next chapter of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles -- I just realized that the chapters are not numbered, which means that each chapter is a piece of a hologram, a snapshot of the whole, like a verse in many a song -- we get a deconstruction of "Dear Prudence," which Sheffield holds to be one of The Beatles' best, and I agree (though they have so many bests the term hasn't the usual meaning for me).
By Paul Levinson9 years ago in Beat
Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles: 2 of X
Among Rob Sheffield's many talents as a Beatles journalist -- not historian, because, as Sheffield convincingly demonstrates, the Beatles are far more important today than when they were writing and recording as a band, which back then was extraordinarily important indeed -- but among the delightful ways Sheffield makes his case is by fashioning his arguments from the Beatles' lyrics, so deftly that you don't even want a quote. Talking about John Lennon's unquenchable need to make a girl care, to make her "feel something," Sheffield concludes "Because if he doesn't reach her, the song is worthless and so is he. It's a love that lasts forever, it's a love that has no past".
By Paul Levinson9 years ago in Beat
Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles: 1 of X
I've always loved The Beatles. First as a fan, always as a fan. How much as a fan? Well, I was delighted to find a subscription to Sirius/XM Radio in my new car, early this month, and I promptly tuned it to MSNBC. Until The Beatles channel checked in on May 18, and that's what I listen to when I'm driving now. Even when I'm not driving -- I just came in from my driveway, because I wanted to hear the end of "Baby You Can Drive My Car". I'd probably still be there, if the urge to write this review had not been so strong.
By Paul Levinson9 years ago in Beat
Nat Shapiro & Nat Hentoff's 'The Jazz Makers'
Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Billie Holliday, Fats Waller, Roy Eldridge, and Charlie Christian are a few of the jazz masters whose diverse and several talents, blossoming intensely over half a century like the dramatists of Elizabeth, Charles, and James, meet in The Jazz Makers a set of critics whose gift and moment it is to capture in prose, in virtually every essay herein, some of the most precise verbal pictures of the music these writers have heard.
By Rhonda Taylor9 years ago in Beat
Christopher Makos' 'White Trash' Book Review
The organic and semantic problem of decadence is its capacity to bore; an absence of vitality, no matter how stylishly served, puts one on the nod faster than a freshly rolled one right before bedtime. Christopher Makos, photographer to the beautiful catatonics of the 1970s, assembled a not-uninteresting and widely selling collection of New Wave photo scenes.
By Arnold Seleskey9 years ago in Beat
'Rock N Roll Is Here to Pay' Book Review
Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo's Rock 'n' Roll Is Here To Pay, together with Geoffrey Stokes' equally outstanding Star Making Machinery, should be considered required reading for anyone with a serious interest in either popular music or American methods of merchandising culture. It contains an incredible amount of information pertaining to the rise of pop music as the dominant force in the entertainment industry, far too much to even attempt to describe here. But this look back on the origins of marketing in the music industry is a relevant lesson for those interested in navigating a world where Spotify has usurped the power of big labels.
By Arnold Seleskey9 years ago in Beat
