Nick Hornby - the worst music critic ever?

Its also bad for arsenal fans.

Worst examples:
- Comparing the book itself to the wholesomeness of organic food ('You pay more for less').
- Calling himself a 'genius' for writing High Fidelity, in answer to critics who'd dared to dislike it.
- Being disappointed in his son for his medical condition.

And that's before you even get onto the actual music-related writing, which as rightly noted by all posters above, is shameful, possibly the worst ever.

He is almost the negative image of Julian Cope (who I described on the headheritage thread as possibly the best music journalist there ever was).

And of course, we "hate" Hornby because he gets paid to do what we get paid to do.

He might be successful financially, but aesthetically he is wanting.

Marcello nails what I've been trying to get at - in his native land at least he's set a definition for what being a fan/critic is. No-nonsense, passionate on occasion and apologetic on others, fundamentally something one grows out of.

piffle.

If Nick Hornby wrote about his secret affair with John Major and how his record company forced him to abort their secret love child, that might be worth reading. Or at least more interesting than High Fidelity or this book...

is that supposed to mean something specific toward me, Marcello?

Like this, maybe?:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0221/kogan.php

And Simon Frith did a great piece about her in the Voice a couple years ago, as well. The real question is, how can somebody asking the question at the top of this post not realize they're spouting a completely ignorant platitude? Kogan says Celine's new album (which I sent my copy of to him without listening to it, which maybe I shouldn't have) is one of the best albums he's heard so far this year (and he's heard LOTS of albums this year). Personally, I think the idea of her doing dancehall sounds really INTERESTING. Not sure whether I'd LIKE it, but she's generally been at her best on upbeat dance stuff; best song I ever heard by her was quite possibly "Unison," back in the early-to-mid '90s, which had a rap in it. So why SHOULDN'T she try dancehall? Can't be that much duller than Sean Paul doing it, for crissakes!

he also forgot to mention B** W***** but i suspect he doesn't like him.

Fever Pitch remains one of the worst books I've ever read, and I went into it open, convinced it's success meant there was something worth reading there, hoping it would explain my father's (to me) inexplicable obession with the sport, and came out raging. He couldn't illuminate anything if you handed him the sun. It was painful, in a lot of places; you hear his brain clanking away behind almost every paragraph. For such an anti-intellectual writer, he seems to spend a lot of his time "thinking." His inability to evoke time, places or people means lends his style a vagueness that I suspect is part of his appeal, in that it's requires no leap of imagination to enter his world, and there's no alienating sense of otherness. He's very good at communicating bewilderment, though, which seems to be his natural state ((My girlfriend left. I can't understand it. I told her, like the others, that of course she was important and I'd be happy to discuss our problems but later, because the match was starting in 3 hours and I was running late. She just walked out. Women are strange. They don't collect records like I do, and they're not pleased when you take them on dates to football matches, even if it's the Cup Final. Arsenal did ok, by the way, but I'm hoping next season will be better.....). After, I remember coming across an introduction he wrote for someone else's book where he praised the writer in question for his honesty. But it's inadvisable to be too honest, he added, if you want to keep the reader on side. Says it all really. No wonder Julie Burchill likes him.

The High Fidelity movie was ok, and so was About a Boy, but I've no doubt 31 Songs is screeching. It's just his revenge for being a failed music journalist in his 20s. Which he still is. I mean, I've no problem with him not listening to Suicide anymore, or not liking Kid A; criticising him on that level is missing the point as absolutely as he does. It's the application of his dull, taxonomic little mind to things of beauty (that Avalanches song, for instance) that bothers me. Show him a Van Gogh, he'll talk about the frame. It's what he does.

But I wouldn't worry.

History's waiting, broom and carpet in hand.

Me neither, but the tone of the essay was "anyone who listens to 'difficult' or 'experimantal' music (like suicide) has had an easy life". i found that objectionable. if he'd said, "i don't listen to difficult stuff like suicide any more because...etc" that would have been cool, but the assumption he made that everyone's listening patterns will be the same as his own was pretty stupid. and i liked High Fidelity and Fever Pitch.

His dislike of experimental music is at least honest, possibly based on a gut reaction and as such, hard to fault, there being a lot to be said for gut reactions to music. And the "easy life" assertion is about as objectionable as any other generalisation pop journos habitually make, (though the popularity of say, jazz in Eastern Europe undermines that one a bit)

I still think it's better criticising the unstinting shitness of his writing though.

And what did you like about Fever Pitch? I'm genuinely curious.

That boy needs therapy.

Hornby spent most of Fever Pitch in counselling. Didn't seem to do him much good, unless crushing dullness is what they're prescribing for dysfunction these days.