The Biographical Dictionary of Popular Music
Dylan Jones
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Dylan Jones is a literate, funny, highbrow writer with a particular take on music. While this book is described as a biographical dictionary, it's really several hundred entries of varying lengths written by Jones in which he talks about music he loves and hates. As the title suggests, he covers everything from AC/DC, Bon Jovi and the Clash to XTC, Yes and Frank Zappa.
Describing the book in his intro, he writes "Many of the people here have been included because I've found them fascinating, others because I've found them intriguing, and many more because it would have been perverse not to have included them. Some of what follows is exhaustive (some might say exhausting), some of it dismissive. Some of it macro, a lot of it micro. But on the whole, I hope it's sympathetic to its subject."
Here are a few excerpts:
- Ray Charles--He played the blues so slow, you could shave between the beats. Few homages work better than Donald Fagen's "What I Do."
- Genesis--"The Carpet Crawlers" and "Los Endos" are officially he two Genesis songs you're allowed to like.
- Katy Perry--Like the former New York Times critic Frank Rich (the Butcher of Broadway) once wrote about the stage musical version of
La Cage Aux Folles, "as shamelessly calculating as a candidate for public office." But this time with added hotness.
That represents complete listings for those three artists. There are far longer treatises, of course, and in those essays, the author is better able to explain why he loves
or hates something. This is one man's look at the world of music, and it's worth seeing it through his eyes.
Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Steven Rosen, 2013
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