Article Response: City Of Sound

Lovely review.

It has a lot of good writing in it. Not many can sustain such... brio with such continuity.

It also appears wise, generous and well-judged.

'Fragmatist' is new to me - typical of the invention of the piece.

I think that PM possibly likes too much music.

i am still part way through reading W & M, so can't really comment yet on JtN's piece, esp. the last page or so (i haven't got to Morley's lists yet) - but i will revert to this thread when i'm done

it did occur to me however, based on the reviews i'd read (and before I started reading the book) that W & M is so high concept it must be the easiest book to review ever written.

Too much description, not enough drive.

I think you're reading too much into the word fabricated, Marcello. It just means "made up". I don't want to go into a metaphysical debate about finding vs inventing, but let's just say I think most things are made up, in one way or another. It doesn't mean I think they're "inauthentic".

The rather slim irony involved in the use of the word bastard in the context of a discussion "bastard pop" was evidently not as obvious as I thought.

god forbid someone liking too much!!!

I still haven't read it but this definetely gives a detailed/comprehensive picture of what the book is like.

I didn't really understand the article's references to 'Alvin': they felt like non-sequiturs. Possibly I was reading with too little attention.

I think that to accuse Stephen Troussé of a fundamentally anti-pop mindset is almost, if not quite, like saying that John Ford didn't like Westerns.

I cannot seem to find this thread save via Freaky Trigger.

The book might be easy to review, but that does not mean that every reviewer has written equally well on it. Personally I doubt that anyone has written better on it than this reviewer. But perhaps I have missed Rorty's recent write-up.

I would like someone somehow to point me to Simon Reynolds' view on this piece.

The idea that one might like too much music provokes - understandably. But as Tom E and I have said before: hatred, dislike and doubt, as well as love and enthusiasm, are part of our - certainly my - relation to pop. I don't love everything. Who does?

there you go PF.

alvin lucier - the co-subject/catalyst of the book. as would have been obv to anyone reading beyond its third line.

john ford didn't like westerns.

steven poole has written better on the book, as of course have i, but my piece was a remix rather than a review.

you're just annoyed 'cos morley didn't mention ll*yd c*le in the book. but you're free to rewrite it.

this is nonsense.

I don't understand what this means. I don't think that it gets us any further. Possibly there is no further to get. I agree with the Nipper's original response anyway.

>>> alvin lucier - the co-subject/catalyst of the book. as would have been obv to anyone reading beyond its third line.

That is true. Reasons for my not noticing it: 1) I have not read the book, 2) I am not interested in Alvin Lucier, 3) I thought the Nipper must be talking about Alvin Stardust.

>>> john ford didn't like westerns.

David Thomson doesn't like films.

>>> steven poole has written better on the book, as of course have i, but my piece was a remix rather than a review.

I have not, of course, read your piece. I have, of course, read Poole's, which was appalling, and which Troussé's has, of course, blown out of the imaginary, prefabricated water.

>>> you're just annoyed 'cos morley didn't mention ll*yd c*le in the book.

Even without having read the book I already knew that Lloyd was, of course, mentioned more than once.

I think it is sad that one of the best things that FT has published should attract such seedy carping.

But the world is sad, and this is only a sad raindrop in a big ocean.

Also, for reference: http://cookham.blogspot.com/2003_07_20_cookham_archive.html#105906784116326750

fortunately i have read/rewritten/redrawn pm's book; it is OF COURSE the greatest book ever written ABOUT music (in the physical, circumlocutory sense) and there was nothing in JtN's piece to persuade me otherwise or illuminate the lampposts more colourfully.

I also know he does. That's another reason why I said he didn't.

Why is the Paul Morley book only available in LARGE PRINT? If anyone has memorised the Lloyd Cole references, could they please reproduce them here, please?

"Very well done, Jerry."

I'm still mystified, DT surely just reckons cinema died some time around 1965... Ford meanwhile - yeah, probably, he was much more attached to his musicals...

I don't know whether he likes too much actually but Paul morley does come across as someone that likes quite a wide range of music (from the two, three reviews I have read of this book) and I think many ppl like a wide range.