Book Review
Dec. 25th, 2013 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariFear of Music
by Jonathan Lethem
I found this book on Talking Heads' 1979 album Fear of Music very interesting. In many ways, this book is quite similar to Matthew Stearns' book on Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, but while I hated Stearns' work, I liked Lethem's a lot. Both writers come at their subjects from the dual stance of a serious fan and a serious critic. However, Lethem succeeds where Steans fails. Lethem had a lot of fascinating thoughts and perspectives on the album and the band, and he did a great job of interweaving his personal love of the album with a more critical approach. His prose style was appealing, too - it was dense but readable and had an engaging sense of self-observation. Even though I don't think I actually like Fear of Music as much as Lethem does, this is one of the most successful 33 1/3 volumes I have read: it succeeded in making me want to both listen to the album and read more of Lethem's work.
by Jonathan Lethem
I found this book on Talking Heads' 1979 album Fear of Music very interesting. In many ways, this book is quite similar to Matthew Stearns' book on Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, but while I hated Stearns' work, I liked Lethem's a lot. Both writers come at their subjects from the dual stance of a serious fan and a serious critic. However, Lethem succeeds where Steans fails. Lethem had a lot of fascinating thoughts and perspectives on the album and the band, and he did a great job of interweaving his personal love of the album with a more critical approach. His prose style was appealing, too - it was dense but readable and had an engaging sense of self-observation. Even though I don't think I actually like Fear of Music as much as Lethem does, this is one of the most successful 33 1/3 volumes I have read: it succeeded in making me want to both listen to the album and read more of Lethem's work.
