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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
It wasn't incredibly thought-provoking or profound in any way I expected, but it was definitely something I could relate to.
Finished Love is a Mix Tape from the previous post today. Seriously, loved it. And it’s funny how I really liked his literary voice throughout the book, but find his actual reading of it rather repugnant for some reason. Guess it clashes with my imagination’s ascribed voice and delivery.
There’s a tragedy I couldn’t have imagined here, led up to in such a way I was guessing and then it happened. Not going to spoil it but here’s an excerpt:
“I knew I would have to relearn how to listen to music, and that some of the music we’d loved together I’d never be able to hear again. Every time I started to cry, I remembered how Renee used to say real life was a bad country song, except bad country songs are believeable and real life isn’t. Everybody knows what it’s like to derive while crying; feeling like a bad country song is part of why it sucks.”
Another that I liked:
“But for me, if we’re talking about romance, cassettes wipe the floor with MP3s. This had nothing to do with superstition, or nostalgia. MP3s buzz straight to your brain. That’s part of what I love about them. But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy, human bodies. The cassette is full of tape hiss and room tone; it’s full of wasted space, unnecessary noise. Compared to the go-go-go rhythm of an MP3, mix tapes are hopelessly inefficient.”
That’s rather why I like doing the radio. Usually I break it up like two cassettes, four sides. I like the chance to switch a feeling or genre. I like an end. And I like playing vinyl next to cds and then back again and having it come out the same but different. Standing out back of the station and listening to the music I just put on coming out of the radio in the night air, it sounds different than when I play it at home. And that’s why I love mixes from other people, it sounds different than I could have ever imagined.
“No matter how hard you listen, you can’t get down to the pure sound, not as it gets heard by impure flesh-and-blood ears. So instead of listening to the pure sound, you listen to a mix. When you try to play a song in your memory, and you remember how it goes, you’re just making an imperfect mix of it in your mind. Human sound is mutant sound. You listen, and you mutate along with the sound.”
Maybe it’s just because I love to read about other music obsessed folks like myself, to immediately relate to all the references and go Yeah! I just love the buildup of something that I get so much out of.
“What is love? Great minds have been grappling with this question through the ages, and in the modern era, they have come up with many different answers. According to the Western philosopher Pat Benatar, love is a battlefield. Her paisan Frank Sinatra would add the corollary that love is a tender trap. The stoner kids who spent the summer of 1978 looking cool on the hoods of their Trans Ams in the Pierce Elementary School parking lot used to scare us little kids by blasting the Sweet hit “Love Is Like Oxygen” - You get too much, you get too high, not enough and you’re gonna die. Love hurts. Love stinks. Love bites, love bleeds, love is the drug. The troubadours of our times all agree: They want to know what love is, and they want you to show them. But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”
There’s a tragedy I couldn’t have imagined here, led up to in such a way I was guessing and then it happened. Not going to spoil it but here’s an excerpt:
“I knew I would have to relearn how to listen to music, and that some of the music we’d loved together I’d never be able to hear again. Every time I started to cry, I remembered how Renee used to say real life was a bad country song, except bad country songs are believeable and real life isn’t. Everybody knows what it’s like to derive while crying; feeling like a bad country song is part of why it sucks.”
Another that I liked:
“But for me, if we’re talking about romance, cassettes wipe the floor with MP3s. This had nothing to do with superstition, or nostalgia. MP3s buzz straight to your brain. That’s part of what I love about them. But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy, human bodies. The cassette is full of tape hiss and room tone; it’s full of wasted space, unnecessary noise. Compared to the go-go-go rhythm of an MP3, mix tapes are hopelessly inefficient.”
That’s rather why I like doing the radio. Usually I break it up like two cassettes, four sides. I like the chance to switch a feeling or genre. I like an end. And I like playing vinyl next to cds and then back again and having it come out the same but different. Standing out back of the station and listening to the music I just put on coming out of the radio in the night air, it sounds different than when I play it at home. And that’s why I love mixes from other people, it sounds different than I could have ever imagined.
“No matter how hard you listen, you can’t get down to the pure sound, not as it gets heard by impure flesh-and-blood ears. So instead of listening to the pure sound, you listen to a mix. When you try to play a song in your memory, and you remember how it goes, you’re just making an imperfect mix of it in your mind. Human sound is mutant sound. You listen, and you mutate along with the sound.”
Maybe it’s just because I love to read about other music obsessed folks like myself, to immediately relate to all the references and go Yeah! I just love the buildup of something that I get so much out of.
“What is love? Great minds have been grappling with this question through the ages, and in the modern era, they have come up with many different answers. According to the Western philosopher Pat Benatar, love is a battlefield. Her paisan Frank Sinatra would add the corollary that love is a tender trap. The stoner kids who spent the summer of 1978 looking cool on the hoods of their Trans Ams in the Pierce Elementary School parking lot used to scare us little kids by blasting the Sweet hit “Love Is Like Oxygen” - You get too much, you get too high, not enough and you’re gonna die. Love hurts. Love stinks. Love bites, love bleeds, love is the drug. The troubadours of our times all agree: They want to know what love is, and they want you to show them. But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.”
Liked the music references, liked the pop culture, liked the people, liked the love story.
I have had this book for a long time and have never read it...
I believe that books choose you and when you are supposed to read them.
I loved it. I was blown away by the writing and the honesty and the beauty of an amazing life and love that was ended tragically too soon.
Wonderful book. Even more excellent if you're a music lover!
I believe that books choose you and when you are supposed to read them.
I loved it. I was blown away by the writing and the honesty and the beauty of an amazing life and love that was ended tragically too soon.
Wonderful book. Even more excellent if you're a music lover!
This book was very well-written and obviously personal to the author. The reason I didn't give the book a higher rating is simply because I didn't understand a lot of it. I consider myself to be a "music person," so I was really excited to read this book and experience a story through music, as this memoir was described to be. Because I didn't grow up at the same time as Rob Sheffield, I found the references difficult to understand. I didn't have a personal connection to the music that the author would describe, so I couldn't connect with the book in the way that I wanted to, and this was frustrating. I wanted to be able to feel his emotions through the songs he chose to describe at specific moments, but at best the songs made me think of road trips with my parents when I was a kid, and at worst I didn't know the songs at all. I'm sure this is an amazing and touching story for someone a bit older than me, but it was not for me.
I'm a sucker for bitter sweet stories, and Rob Sheffield's book is no exception- my heart simply breaks with each chapter. Mixing music and love-filled anecdotes, he brings his sweetheart back to life, one tape at a time.
As a musicphile who grew up in the 80s and 90s and dressed like all the other grungers in the grunge rock days of the early 90s, I was drawn to this book like a moth to a flame. I didn't find it a coincidence that 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up" came on the radio just as I was finishing it, either.
Sheffield tells the story of his life before, during, and after Renee came into it - Renee of the wild fabrics, the mod shoes, the fake red hair. Renee, a one of a kind woman, the kind of person who has an effect on you and whose stamp is indelibly marked on your spirit.
An excellent book, I highly recommend it.
Sheffield tells the story of his life before, during, and after Renee came into it - Renee of the wild fabrics, the mod shoes, the fake red hair. Renee, a one of a kind woman, the kind of person who has an effect on you and whose stamp is indelibly marked on your spirit.
An excellent book, I highly recommend it.
A touching love story. I wasn't prepared for how poignant this book is.
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced