Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
Certainly a more relatable book for us young widowers than CS Lewis.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
medium-paced
I love learning about music through people who are obsessed with it. I can't help it I'm a social being.
The most shimmering insight Rob Sheffield gave me was his fantasy of the synth pop duo and especially that bit about how 'pop dreams are a hustle, a deception...' (137), 'bluffing', 'scamming', 'a hustle'...
Similar to this section was his elaboration on his obsession with Jackie Kennedy, really the nation's obsession...
Basically meditations on our celebrity / music / performance obsessions and what we project.
But this book wasn't really about that stuff, it was about two people in love and music.
A lot of the music stuff actually flew over my head because I'm not familiar with the 90s music scene. According to Sheffield, the brief shining moment when alternative became mainstream, and most of us know and attribute this to Mister Curt Kobain.
The last part on cassettes made me want to start buying them again. Really incredible bit there. 'MP3s buzz straight to your brain...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.' (218)
Wish there were more philosophical (maybe metaphorical?) tie-ins like this because I like pretty little champagne bubbles like this in books that make you feel all dizzy and dreamy.
Again, it's been a while so I can't recall what I thought of the bulk of the book. It was interesting to hear this story, sobering and sad to hear about the author's loss and his honesty in sharing his experience. I probably thought him and Renee were very cute and that he was very much in love with her, in the ordinary life kind of way, very sweet.
I also don't think I connected with it very much necessarily. Only other reservation is that I don't quite like the author's descriptions of women. I'll give him freedom of speech. Nothing horrid but I think two instances stand out where hmm... makes me uncomfortable. This is not to say he is a misogynist. In fact he declares the 90s scene to be the time when women took over and why it was so powerful and awesome. Also he respects Renee so much in how he describes her, especially that bit where he describes her making her own clothes and regaining control over her own body, that was something.
Maybe if I ever get into Pavement or some other 90s bands I will revisit this book. Also apparently this is one of Harry Style's favorite books.
The most shimmering insight Rob Sheffield gave me was his fantasy of the synth pop duo and especially that bit about how 'pop dreams are a hustle, a deception...' (137), 'bluffing', 'scamming', 'a hustle'...
Similar to this section was his elaboration on his obsession with Jackie Kennedy, really the nation's obsession...
Basically meditations on our celebrity / music / performance obsessions and what we project.
But this book wasn't really about that stuff, it was about two people in love and music.
A lot of the music stuff actually flew over my head because I'm not familiar with the 90s music scene. According to Sheffield, the brief shining moment when alternative became mainstream, and most of us know and attribute this to Mister Curt Kobain.
The last part on cassettes made me want to start buying them again. Really incredible bit there. 'MP3s buzz straight to your brain...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.' (218)
Wish there were more philosophical (maybe metaphorical?) tie-ins like this because I like pretty little champagne bubbles like this in books that make you feel all dizzy and dreamy.
Again, it's been a while so I can't recall what I thought of the bulk of the book. It was interesting to hear this story, sobering and sad to hear about the author's loss and his honesty in sharing his experience. I probably thought him and Renee were very cute and that he was very much in love with her, in the ordinary life kind of way, very sweet.
I also don't think I connected with it very much necessarily. Only other reservation is that I don't quite like the author's descriptions of women. I'll give him freedom of speech. Nothing horrid but I think two instances stand out where hmm... makes me uncomfortable. This is not to say he is a misogynist. In fact he declares the 90s scene to be the time when women took over and why it was so powerful and awesome. Also he respects Renee so much in how he describes her, especially that bit where he describes her making her own clothes and regaining control over her own body, that was something.
Maybe if I ever get into Pavement or some other 90s bands I will revisit this book. Also apparently this is one of Harry Style's favorite books.
“We were just a couple of fallen angels, rolling the dice of our lives. We’d heard all the horror stories of early marriages and fast divorces and broken hearts. But we knew none of them would happen to us, because as Dexy’s Midnight Runners sang to Eileen, we were far too young and clever. What if we just decide not to fall apart?"
I was first taken by the rock critic Rob Sheffield's style and tone in his Rolling Stone reviews. Whether or not I agree, I just like the way he writes. So I decided to pick up this little jam of a memoir built on the solid rock of real romance that perched above the shifting sands in his life that are popular music.
Rob and Renée, his wife of five years or so, had a beautiful, easy chemistry. Neither knew that one would become a widower in such a short time. It hardly spoils anything to tell that Renée suffered a pulmonary embolism that had her gone in a minute, and Sheffield constructs his chapters around the mix tapes that they made together and for each other during their courtship and married life.
So many spots appear in the book where Sheffield could have gone sentimental or gushy, but he maintains the tone of a grieving, realistic man almost without fail. He's also nothing if not self-aware about the powers of music: "[Personics] was just another temporary technological mutation designed to do the same thing music always does, which is allow emotionally warped people to communicate by bombarding each other with pitiful cultural artifacts that in a saner world would be forgotten before they even happened.”
Along the way Sheffield of course ruminates about certain songs and artists, often to hilarious effect (see the section where he and Renée thought up names for their would-be synth-pop duo). These digressions always find their way back, as do his spot-on song and film references.
Sheffield remarks that no wisdoms or revelations come to the one grieving the loss of a lover, but he provides some thoughts just short of astute himself, and via the subtly funny and tragic vehicles of Jacqueline Kennedy ("the most famous widow of all, our Elvis, our Muhammad Ali") and his elders ("Aunt Peggy refused to allow indoor plumbing right up to her dying day, which was in 1987. Whenever anybody suggested indoor plumbing, she always said, ‘Sure, we’ll be drowned in our beds!’").
You emerge on the other side of this read with a genuine desire to know and befriend the dear Renée. You feel the loss right along with the author. Nothing more can be asked of the reader, so he doesn't. What Sheffield does do is pull no punches in this sad but sober retelling of "life and loss, one song at a time."
I was first taken by the rock critic Rob Sheffield's style and tone in his Rolling Stone reviews. Whether or not I agree, I just like the way he writes. So I decided to pick up this little jam of a memoir built on the solid rock of real romance that perched above the shifting sands in his life that are popular music.
Rob and Renée, his wife of five years or so, had a beautiful, easy chemistry. Neither knew that one would become a widower in such a short time. It hardly spoils anything to tell that Renée suffered a pulmonary embolism that had her gone in a minute, and Sheffield constructs his chapters around the mix tapes that they made together and for each other during their courtship and married life.
So many spots appear in the book where Sheffield could have gone sentimental or gushy, but he maintains the tone of a grieving, realistic man almost without fail. He's also nothing if not self-aware about the powers of music: "[Personics] was just another temporary technological mutation designed to do the same thing music always does, which is allow emotionally warped people to communicate by bombarding each other with pitiful cultural artifacts that in a saner world would be forgotten before they even happened.”
Along the way Sheffield of course ruminates about certain songs and artists, often to hilarious effect (see the section where he and Renée thought up names for their would-be synth-pop duo). These digressions always find their way back, as do his spot-on song and film references.
Sheffield remarks that no wisdoms or revelations come to the one grieving the loss of a lover, but he provides some thoughts just short of astute himself, and via the subtly funny and tragic vehicles of Jacqueline Kennedy ("the most famous widow of all, our Elvis, our Muhammad Ali") and his elders ("Aunt Peggy refused to allow indoor plumbing right up to her dying day, which was in 1987. Whenever anybody suggested indoor plumbing, she always said, ‘Sure, we’ll be drowned in our beds!’").
You emerge on the other side of this read with a genuine desire to know and befriend the dear Renée. You feel the loss right along with the author. Nothing more can be asked of the reader, so he doesn't. What Sheffield does do is pull no punches in this sad but sober retelling of "life and loss, one song at a time."
incredibly emotional and moving. rob's honesty and bravery for showing such a painful part of his life is what makes this one of my favorite books. if it was a song i think "i know the end" by phoebe bridgers
“The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with — nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they can add up to the story of a life.”
We all have these different memories with music; good, bad, funny, heart-warming, slow dances, and so on. For a lot of us, myself included, music is our catharsis, that entity that keeps us together, awake or that breaks us into shattered pieces. I have always had this connection with music. Ever since I was a child, I would always put on a record or headphones. Sometimes I go back to old mixed CD's I would make at age 13, wondering "how the heck did I love that band?" I associate some songs, albums, artists to people or events. My first slow dance was to Feist's Let it Die or the songs that kept me sane.
This book by Rob Sheffield is about just that. It describes the author's relationship with music- and it may be yours as well. It dribbles with pop culture references backed out with playlists. Some with songs you don't even remember and some with songs that momentarily don't remind you anything. Then, it actually hits you. The memories and all of those moments.
Sheffield has this way with words that makes this sort of essay about music so amazing. He knows how to exactly look for the emotions at the right moments. This book is becoming one of my favorites that I have read.
We all have these different memories with music; good, bad, funny, heart-warming, slow dances, and so on. For a lot of us, myself included, music is our catharsis, that entity that keeps us together, awake or that breaks us into shattered pieces. I have always had this connection with music. Ever since I was a child, I would always put on a record or headphones. Sometimes I go back to old mixed CD's I would make at age 13, wondering "how the heck did I love that band?" I associate some songs, albums, artists to people or events. My first slow dance was to Feist's Let it Die or the songs that kept me sane.
This book by Rob Sheffield is about just that. It describes the author's relationship with music- and it may be yours as well. It dribbles with pop culture references backed out with playlists. Some with songs you don't even remember and some with songs that momentarily don't remind you anything. Then, it actually hits you. The memories and all of those moments.
Sheffield has this way with words that makes this sort of essay about music so amazing. He knows how to exactly look for the emotions at the right moments. This book is becoming one of my favorites that I have read.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
When I turned one, my grandparents oddly gifted me a cassette of the soundtrack of my favorite Bollywood movie at the time and I think I appreciate the sentiment behind that present and the medium of tapes a lot more after reading this book. Even though I'm too young to understand the intricacies of pretty much every pre-2000s rock-and-roll reference Sheffield makes (except for songs like "Hey Jude" and "Sk8r Boi" and artists like Elton John and Shania Twain), I really appreciate how the story lives up to its title. Sheffield keeps you invested in the soundtrack of his life and how his wonderful wife Renée helped shape it. Here's a great takeaway from the book for me: Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renée, but we don't burn each other, not always.