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YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!

Name: YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!
Author: Bob Stanley
ISBN: 978-0-393-24269-0

THE STORY OF POP MUSIC FROM BILL HALEY TO BEYONCÉ

by Bob Stanley ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 14, 2014

Like the print version of an endless, time-filling BBC series—even the most interested readers will likely do a lot of...

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Exhaustive, exhausting history of pop music.

Like so many popular histories that aim for comprehensiveness, this plodding assemblage staggers under its own weight. Even though he claims that “this book is not meant to be an encyclopedia,” in trying to tell the story of pop, music journalist, DJ and Saint Etienne founding keyboard player Stanley gets so swamped in name-checking every band and song title that he loses the plot and characters. Instead of focusing at some intelligent length on key figures, genres, trends or shifts in tastes, he is more concerned with touching on everything than doing justice to anything. He’s all about connecting the dots, usually patching them together with well-worn anecdotes or conventional wisdom. The book’s real juice is in Stanley’s scattered opinions, which range from the unusual to the obnoxious. His Brit-skewed viewpoint offers less-than-reverential takes on the Clash and Elvis Costello and stirring defenses of The Monkees, Sex Pistols and Abba, and he delivers a cogent and interesting history of the Bee Gees. Among his many questionable judgments: that “New Morning” (1970) is possibly Bob Dylan’s best album or that Bob Marley’s music was as “musically simplified as the Bay City Rollers.” Stanley, however, does score the occasional apt phrase: Joy Division was “modern pop viewed through night vision goggles—grimy and murky.” Abba’s hits “sound like a music box carved from ice.” The author also writes of the Smiths’ “bedsit bookishness” and Belle and Sebastian’s “librarian chic,” and he correctly notes that “indie” has now “stretched out to become a meaningless catchall term.” Unfortunately, all these scattered perceptions fly by in a hazy, numbing blur as Stanley hits the pedal on this breakneck trip through the past 60 years, and his tone becomes increasingly grating.

Like the print version of an endless, time-filling BBC series—even the most interested readers will likely do a lot of fast-forwarding.

Pub Date: July 14, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-393-24269-0

Page Count: 640

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE STORY OF THE BEE GEES
by Bob Stanley

- BOOK REVIEW
LET'S DO IT
by Bob Stanley

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.