Heavy Rotation:  Twenty Writers On The Albums That Changed Their Lives, edited by Peter Terzian

I have to admit that most of these essays were not very worthwhile to read, at least not in bulk, though there are certainly some of these essays that certainly would have stood out more on their own rather than being covered in the sameness that is hipster culture.  Indeed, almost all of the essays included here about various albums can be summarized with a few statements:  seminal albums reflecting personal identity (race, gender, sexuality) and struggles to be oneself in the face of perceived pressures to conform, and ironic looks at popular music because such much is too uncool to appreciate unironically.  I can’t say this surprised me, because if there is any population that has its head up its own posterior more than music critics, and any sort of realm of people whose opinions are so narrowly defined by hipster concerns, it is hard to imagine such a group.  In some cases the authors don’t even claim to like these albums anymore, just to have considered them vital in changing their lives and opening their perspectives about the sort of music, even if in many cases the writers appear rather narrow-minded about their present musical interests.

One can learn a lot by looking at the sort of music that people view to be life-changing.  For example, here is a list of the albums discussed here, in order as they appear:  The Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead, the Annie soundtrack, The Beatles’ Meet The Beatles, Fugazi’s self-titled album, Talking Heads’ Remain In Light, American Primitive Vol. II:  Pre-War Revenants (1897-1939), Kate Bush’s The Sensual World, the Topless Women Talk About Their Lives soundtrack, Pearl Jam’s Ten, Eurythmic’s Savage, the self-titled B-52s album, the self-titled Pretenders album, Gloria Estefan’s Mi Tierra, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, ABBA’s Super Trooper, Rickie Lee Jones’ Flying Cowboys, The Who’s Qudophenia, The Jackson 5’s Greatest Hits, Miaow’s unreleased Priceless Innuendo, and the original cast recording for Hedwig And The Angry Itch.  In the essays about these albums the authors, none of whom I know about nor particularly care to read anything more from, talk about coming out of the closet, give catty reviews to popular albums and glowing reviews to more obscure hipster choices, and drone on about how their teenage years and young adults years were a hard knock life, as if it wasn’t for everyone.

Even so, although there is a great deal that is irritating and annoying about this book, I left this book with at least a few albums I want to check out.  For example, the Pre-war Revenants collection that shows some obscure blues and gospel artists is one I definitely want to check out, even if it is obscure.  Some of the albums I am already somewhat familiar with, given the popularity of Meet The Beatles, Blue, Super Trooper, and Qudophenia, for example.  In some cases, as was the case with the woman who write about the discrimination she faced as a black American visiting the Dominican Republic, I felt a certain sense of compassion, as I did for the Indian writer who had to deal with the lack of choice of popular music in his home area due to India’s socialism and resulting poverty of culture and choices.  In other cases, though, I simply wished the authors would get over themselves and find within themselves the freedom to enjoy what other hipsters would consider lame and uncool.  Why should we care so much about what narrow-minded hipster elites like in the first place?  If one cannot unironically appreciate music like ABBA or Pearl Jam or the Eurythmics, what is the point of writing about music anyway?