Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives – A Celebration of Music's Unique and Transformative Inspiration - Softcover

Terzian, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061579742 ISBN 13: 9780061579745

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2009

Synopsis

Colm Tóibín on Joni Mitchell • James Wood on The Who • Stacey D'Erasmo on Kate Bush • Daniel Handler on Eurythmics • Lisa Dierbeck on the Pretenders • Clifford Chase on the B-52s . . . and other writers on the soundtracks of their lives

In Heavy Rotation, twenty of our most acclaimed contemporary writers pay homage to the record albums that inspired them. Benjamin Kunkel remembers how the Smiths' Queen Is Dead transformed him into an adolescent Anglophile. Pankaj Mishra describes how a bootleg cassette of ABBA's Super Trouper evoked a world far from his small Indian village. Kate Christensen relives her years as an aspiring novelist in Brooklyn listening to Rickie Lee Jones's Flying Cowboys. And Joshua Ferris recalls his head-banging passion for Pearl Jam's Ten.

Exploring music from the Talking Heads to the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack, this extraordinary anthology is a moving, funny, uplifting, and unforgettable celebration of the unique and essential relationship between life and music.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Terzian has written for the New York Times, Slate, the Believer, Print, the National, Columbia Journalism Review, Bookforum, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

From the Back Cover

Colm Tóibín on Joni Mitchell • James Wood on The Who • Stacey D'Erasmo on Kate Bush • Daniel Handler on Eurythmics • Lisa Dierbeck on the Pretenders • Clifford Chase on the B-52s . . . and other writers on the soundtracks of their lives

In Heavy Rotation, twenty of our most acclaimed contemporary writers pay homage to the record albums that inspired them. Benjamin Kunkel remembers how the Smiths' Queen Is Dead transformed him into an adolescent Anglophile. Pankaj Mishra describes how a bootleg cassette of ABBA's Super Trouper evoked a world far from his small Indian village. Kate Christensen relives her years as an aspiring novelist in Brooklyn listening to Rickie Lee Jones's Flying Cowboys. And Joshua Ferris recalls his head-banging passion for Pearl Jam's Ten.

Exploring music from the Talking Heads to the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack, this extraordinary anthology is a moving, funny, uplifting, and unforgettable celebration of the unique and essential relationship between life and music.

Reviews

Starred Review. Mapping out a space between criticism and personal essay, writer and music fan Terzian has invited a double handful of contemporary writers to expound on the albums that they love. Benjamin Kunkel covers the Smiths, John Haskell discusses the Talking Heads, Joshua Ferris remembers Pearl Jam's debut, Sheila Heti considers the Annie soundtrack; their stories take readers to India, Ireland, Haiti, the Upper East Side of New York and beyond with consistently thoughtful, but wildly variant results. These love letters to albums also examine the inextricable connection between art forms; of particular note are essays by Mark Greif (Fugazi's Fugazi), Lisa Dierbeck (Pretenders' Pretenders), Asali Solomon (Gloria Estefan's Mi Tierra), Martha Southgate (The Jackson 5's Greatest Hits), Clifford Chase (The B-52's self-titled album) and editor Terzian (Miaow's Priceless Innuendo). Almost without fail, these essays exhibit a perfect blend of respect and irreverence, with an intoxicating intimacy; readers who love music will devour this collection, and beg for a second volume.

A particular subset of people, including editor Terzian, play the same pop records over and over, listening so closely that they internalize the lyrics until it seems the songs were written specifically about and for them. As a suburban adolescent hearing Joni Mitchell’s Hejira (about a woman in her thirties), Terzian felt he “was learning about what it meant to be an adult, about the many different ways of living a life.” Among the contemporary writers he asked to comment on songs or albums that similarly moved or inspired them, Benjamin Kunkel writes about the Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead, Alice Elliott Dark chooses Meet the Beatles!, and John Haskell offers his take on Talking Heads’ Remain in Light. Augmented by Joshua Ferris on Pearl Jam’s Ten, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) on the Eurythmics’ Savage, Lisa Dierbeck on Pretenders, Colm Tóíbín on Joni Mitchell’s Blue, James Wood on the Who’s Quadrophenia, and Claire Dederer on the original cast recording of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, they create a must for literary-minded pop fans. --June Sawyers

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061579742
• ISBN 13: 9780061579745
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320