•
Rating: Collective Soul—what a great band name. Self-titled album, 1995 Atlantic, but I don't know the musicians. Okay, but the name intrigues me, the cover isn't bad either, I walk in and buy it. Done deal, now at home listening.
Shitty music… Such a fantastic name, what a shame. Later I’ll try going back to the store to see if I can exchange it, let’s see what they say.
Good morning, how can I help you? the clerk addresses me. I mumble a “SHITTY MUSIC,” but I don’t even finish the sentence when I see him dash to the bookshelf, grab a book, wrap it up, and say, “That’ll be 23 euros, cash or card?”
I’m so confused that I pay and leave; I kept the CD I wanted to exchange, and I also bought a book… Mah!
The title is fantastic, he’s Canadian and lives in Toronto during the days when “Titanic” won the Oscar and Celine Dion swept up every award out there. The author hates Celine Dion, he says it openly, he hates both her— “Dion is probably the most despised superstar I can remember; I doubt she’ll ever be redeemed like the ABBA were”— and her music, even though he acknowledges that—“she’s sold 175 million albums, not counting the Titanic soundtrack. She has 5 albums in the top 100 best-selling albums in America, 23rd among top-selling pop artists ever, the most successful French-speaking voice that has ever existed.” And the critics despise her too, all of them. Analyzing the audience that loves Celine—and thus the author hates—he defines it as, “an English average of mediocrities, invisible to most. Grannies, people in evening dresses, overweight children, mobile phone salesmen, and shopping mall regulars. Pretty much the entire third class of the Titanic, who would have died in the shipwreck. Does that mean I am denying them a lifeboat?”
An amusing and accurate analysis of what shitty music means, expanding the concept to disco and country as well. A book to buy and read, preferably knowingly, not like I did, like a bloodhound on a trail. Recommended for Debaser’s reviewers, so they can precisely define what shitty music is and what it consists of, but most importantly, why.
Cultural passions and aversions—this seems the right way out (?).
Done and dusted. Two (?) reviews, better yet one and a quarter (definitely lunchtime), for the price of one. What more could you want?
Loading comments slowly
