OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

I'm sure she'd be the first to admit that she doesn't really give a fuck if she's mistaken hi-energy for deep house.

it's all just music in the end really.

Her first two novels and her first essay collection have moments (I liked the essay about Obama and the English language), which made the Mitchell one all the more cloddish.

XP: Ha ha ha!

to be fair, a LOT of novelists can make you cringe when they write about music. even when characters in a novel talk about music it can make me cringe. music is funny like that. what makes me cringe in novels is when the music talk is obviously in the writer's voice and not the character's voice. sometimes its REALLY obviously just a way to talk about stuff they like.

totally otm

Yep. All the music talk in George Pelecanos books is like that. Totally intrusive and artificial.

What are the best chapters on music from novels? The stuff from American Psycho springs to mind.

But that works because it's played as absurd. There's quite a bit of straight writing about music in fiction that reads very similar.

Anyway I think all us music writers should start petitioning fiction editors to let us have a crack at short story writing. Tit for tat, right?

my dad reads this mystery guy john sandford and he was telling me about one of his books where the hero spends the entire novel thinking of the best 100 songs to put on an ipod. they don't make mysteries like they used to...(my dad thought it wss cool though.) (mystery/suspense guys are always throwing in the names of blues/jazz people they like. especially newer singers who they feel should get more recognition or something.)

http://richardlaymonkills88710.yuku.com/topic/1561/t/List-of-top-100-songs-from-John-Sanford-s-quot-Broken-Prey.html

OTM: Douglas Adams' effusive love for Dire Straits annoyed me even when I was a child.

This is a thing in fiction full stop though right? I'm not a fan of Iain Banks per se but his novel about a retired rock star Espedaire Street is particularly bad iirc.

Several xps.

In its review of Ian Rankin's latest novel Private Eye said Rankin always seemed to be applying to be editor of Mojo between the lines. Novelists who love music, especially male ones, have a hard job disguising their fandom so they try to proselytise for their cult heroes, which is kind of sweet but mostly jarring and distracting. Zadie S doesn't do that in her novels - until recently I assumed she wasn't very interested in music - so I don't know what explains this recent burst of gushy non-fiction.

my dad reads this mystery guy john sandford and he was telling me about one of his books where the hero spends the entire novel thinking of the best 100 songs to put on an ipod. they don't make mysteries like they used to...(my dad thought it wss cool though.) (mystery/suspense guys are always throwing in the names of blues/jazz people they like. especially newer singers who they feel should get more recognition or something.)

http://richardlaymonkills88710.yuku.com/topic/1561/t/List-of-top-100-songs-from-John-Sanford-s-quot-Broken-Prey.html

― scott seward, Thursday, December 27, 2012 9:58 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I dig Sandford cuz his stuff takes place in the twin cities where I grew up and is full of local detail. He didn't belabor music in the even or eight books I read. Ian Rankin, though, he namechecks way too much music.

i still have a long-brewing tumblr post about how some of the the music writing in 'visit from the good squad' is bullshit

and never forget the watchmen

https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/530435136/250px-Ozymandias.PNG

"Oh, and I've heard some interesting new music from Jamaica ... a sort of hybrid between electronic music and reggae. It's a fascinating study in the new musical forms generated when a largely pre-technological culture is given access to modern recording techniques about the technological preconceptions that we've allowed to accumulate, limiting out vision. It's called dub music. You'd like it, I'm sure."

lol

I really, really enjoy Zadie Smith's books column in Harpers. I think she's just kind of out of her element writing about music. In any case, "I didn't get X thing that most people think is great, but then one day I did" is such an uninteresting and self-involved narrative.

Really? I don't mind that narrative too much. For instance I enjoyed the. part in the Will Friedwald book on (mostly pre-rock style) American popular singers where he talks about dismissing Bob Dylan for years and gradually turning around so that he now owns and apparently listens to every album

stephen king and his springsteen/bob dylan worship to thread

On the other hand King weaving Angel of Morning into Langoliers still creeps me out. Oh and he used Eli's Coming in...the Stand maybe? I can't remember. That was pretty cool too.

Feel like I missed my chance to discuss the otherwise perfectly good Charles Willeford novel that was almost ruined when the narrator picked up a guitar and live-blogged his emotional state whilst playing. Cockfighter maybe.

Also, Hurting, isn't that the way the mind works: some stuff you like right away and some stuff requires some time and effort? Me, I'm still waiting for my Grateful Dead moment

The problem is that the J Mitchell piece is so washy it's not really about that experience, or about Mitchell, or about ANYTHING.

ysi

OK, still can't read that article but the description and the word "epiphany" in the title are worrisome.

i still have a long-brewing tumblr post about how some of the the music writing in 'visit from the good squad' is bullshit

yesssss

absolutely.

and then on the "novelists doing it right" side, there's of course this:

“So?” is Säure’s customary answer to that one. “Which would you rather do? The point is,” cutting off Gustav’s usually indignant scream, “a person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man didn’t even have a sense of humor. I tell you,” shaking his skinny old fist, “there is more of the Sublime in the snare-drum part to La Gazza Ladra than in the whole Ninth Symphony. With Rossini, the whole point is that lovers always get together, isolation is overcome, and like it or not that is the one great centripetal movement of the World. Through the machineries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power, love occurs. All the shit is transmuted to gold. The walls are breached, the balconies are scaled—listen!” It was a night in early May, and the final bombardment of Berlin was in progress. Säure had to shout his head off. “The Italian girl is in Algiers, the Barber’s in the crockery, the magpie’s stealing everything in sight! The World is rushing together. …”

I think the thing that bugged me most about Zadie Smith's Joni Mitchell piece was all of her anxiety and insecurity about not being able to understand and appreciate music in the same way she does literature. That idea might've made for a worthwhile article on its own, but since the article was basically billed as "Zadie on Joni," I was disappointed that Smith seemed too afraid to capture anything interesting about her ostensible subject.

The problem is that the J Mitchell piece is so washy it's not really about that experience, or about Mitchell, or about ANYTHING.

^Yeah, basically.

I think the depiction of the punk band and its surrounding scene in Goon Squad's early chapters is unusually believable but the later stuff about the outcast singer-songwriter redeeming a plasticised world through the magic of authenticity kind of undoes that good work. Novelists have a bad epiphany addiction when it comes to describing the music itself rather than the characters involved in making it.

Bad epiphany addiction good way to put it.

Where were you Whiney when the pinefox did his slow liveblog reading of that book? Looking forward to tumblr post

feel like all my examples of "novelists doing it right" = "novelists on classical"

Zadie, you listen to Joni, but you can't HEAR Joni

The Music Man?

is this the thread where they talk about the vice on pitchfork piece? which thread is that?

Ah yes, Q-Tip--blessed Q-tip! And his dog, who plays upon the fife! And Ali, the mussulman!

― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Wednesday, December 26, 2012 10:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ahaha

someone brought a rock 'n' roll mystery novel into the store today! weird. it originally even came with a cd of original songs to go along with the book! its looks horrible.

burn it

le guin novel that originally came with a tape of original new age folk in a made-up language is really good though if you ever see it.

it even says A ROCK & ROLL MYSTERY on the cover. worst genre ever.

for people who hate music and reading

anywayyyyyyy......

http://www.npr.org/blogs/bestmusic2012/2012/12/26/168097407/what-happened-to-music-writing-this-year

I always wanted to read one of those lord iffy boatrace books by bruce dickenson of iron maiden

and my immediate response to maura's thing is: what happened this year? what about all those other years?

i'd gladly write an overview of "all those other years" if asked

see, i was gonna point that out in the spirit of equal time: musicians often write horrible novels.

x-post

Can that genre be worse than sudoku/crossword mysteries? Probably.