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c_reider's review
2.0
The best thing about this book is the title and the question it poses. Sadly the book doesn't really make but a cursory effort toward answering this intriguing question.
The book starts off nicely enough, setting up the reader to expect an exploration of cultural attitudes about music and art, and instead most of the book is wasted on a stunted rehashing of the history of avant-garde music, with a very biased view of the more recent developments in countercultural sound (punk: GOOD / prog: BAD).
Only in the conclusion of the book are a few pages tossed off addressing the central question, and it seems hasty and shallow.
Other reviewers have made note of the bad editing job, I'd have to echo that criticism, the weird line breaks, odd sentence construction, typos, repetitions and other errors really become distracting during the course of the read.
The writing style is... easygoing.
Might be a good book for someone new to the subject. It is an approachable piece of writing, if somewhat misleading and misfired.
ETA: Others have mentioned and I agree; that this review may is not only spot on, but may be more informative than the book itself: http://rougesfoam.blogspot.com/2009/04/review-david-stubbs-fear-of-music-why.html
The book starts off nicely enough, setting up the reader to expect an exploration of cultural attitudes about music and art, and instead most of the book is wasted on a stunted rehashing of the history of avant-garde music, with a very biased view of the more recent developments in countercultural sound (punk: GOOD / prog: BAD).
Only in the conclusion of the book are a few pages tossed off addressing the central question, and it seems hasty and shallow.
Other reviewers have made note of the bad editing job, I'd have to echo that criticism, the weird line breaks, odd sentence construction, typos, repetitions and other errors really become distracting during the course of the read.
The writing style is... easygoing.
Might be a good book for someone new to the subject. It is an approachable piece of writing, if somewhat misleading and misfired.
ETA: Others have mentioned and I agree; that this review may is not only spot on, but may be more informative than the book itself: http://rougesfoam.blogspot.com/2009/04/review-david-stubbs-fear-of-music-why.html
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