Examples, please: Pop culture references in novels that aren't embarrassingly Nick Hornby-esque.

I'm specifically after references to music, bands, pop stars, etc (real ones -- though a discussion of fake ones might be interesting, too).

Are they out there?

The concert has been dragging on now for maybe twenty minutes. I hate live music but everyone around us is standing, their screams of approval competing with the racket coming from the towering walls of speakers stacked over us. The only real pleasure I get from being here is seeing Scott and Anne Smiley ten rows behind us, in shittier though probably not less expensive seats. Carruthers changes seats with Evelyn to discuss business with me, but I can't hear a word so I change seats with Evelyn to talk to Courtney.
"Luis is a weasel," I shout. "He suspects nothing."
"The Edge is wearing Armani," she shouts, pointing at the bassist.
"That's not Armani," I shout back. "It's Emporio."
"No," she shouts. "Armani."
"The grays are too muted and so are the taupes and navies. Definite winged lapels, subtle plaids, polka dots and stripes are Armani. Not Emporio, " I shout, extremely irritated that she doesn't know this, can't differentiate, both my hands covering both ears. "There's a difference. Which one's The Ledge?"
"The drummer might be The Ledge," she shouts. "I think. I'm not sure. I need a cigarette. Where were you the other night? If you tell me with Evelyn I'm going to hit you."
"The drummer is not wearing anything by Armani," I scream. "Or Emporio for that matter. Nowhere."
"I don't know which one the drummer is," she shouts.
"Ask Ashley," I suggest, screaming.
"Ashley?" she screams, reaching over across Paul and tapping Ashley's leg. "Which one's The Ledge?" Ashley shouts something at her that I can't hear and then Courtney turns back to me, shrugging. "She said she can't believe she's in New Jersey."
Carruthers motions for Courtney to change seats with him. She waves the little twit away and grips my thigh, which I flex rock hard, and her hand lingers admiringly. But Luis persists and she gets up, and screams at me, "I think we need drugs tonight!" I nod. The lead singer, Bono, is screeching out what sounds like "Where the Beat Sounds the Same." Evelyn and Ashley leave to buy cigarettes, use the ladies' room, find refreshments. Luis sits next to me.

Is that Ellis? Ugh.

I like BEE :(

...she shouts.
"Ask Ashley," I suggest, screaming.
"Ashley?" she screams

WHY NOT JUST USE ALL CAPS, LIKE ANY ORDINARY 'WITH-IT' NETIZEN** WOULD?

**Netizen is an outdated neologism formed upon analogy with the word citizen and indicating a user of the internet. It's first traceable use was on Usenet, a nearly defunct application of the internet that rose to popularity in the 1990s. It's popular use declined soon after the year 2000 AD. roughly coterminus with the term "information superhighway". Similar examples from this period abound and would be numerous to discuss here.

Joe Pernice's novella 'Meat is Murder': see http://www.bookslut.com/small_but_perfectly_formed/2005_03_004678.php

basically don't like BEE but noodle otm

http://www.bookslut.com/fiction/2008_09_013426.php

Quickly now, as if even he participated in the excitement over the unknown, he greedily assembled himself into - into a movie of Ray Charles. Then he enlarged the screen, degree by degree, like a documentary on the Industry. The moon occupied one lens of his sunglasses, and he laid out his piano keys across a shelf of the sky, and leaned over him as though they were truly the row of giant fishes to feed a hungry multitude. A fleet of jet planes dragged his voice over us who were holding hands.

-Just sit back and enjoy it, I guess.

-Thank God it's only a movie.

Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

murakami's good, although a little odd, with his -- the guy who decides to spend his last day before losing his mind listening to dylan and rereading stendhal (n.b. why do we never say 'relistening'?), say. the beatles and jazz fetishes. mozart being good music to cook spaghetti to.

there's some noted academic paper (jameson?) on the impossibility of making fake art actually convince in fiction -- tho whether he applies it to popcult stuff i can't remember.

this is actually something i'm really curious about why no one ever gets it right: i think there's talk about it on the lethem thread too--

The poem in Pale Fire is pretty convincing. On the other hand, I've always felt like the blank verse in Possession is a bit of a cop-out and strikes a false note.

http://strangebeautiful.net/muse/leyner/leyner_01.jpg

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0679750452.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Murakami's a good example, though I'm not really a fan.

Sometimes when Murakami brings up the beatles I cringe, but I pretty much do that whenever somebody brings up the beatles

The musical references in some of the earlier George Pelecanos novels weren't too horrible.

William Gibson's newer stuff ranges from blank drops of product names to product names as a character-definer to straight up product whorage, all with varying success, but none of it seems Hornby-ish. Not that I've read all that much Hornby.

the ex-musician character in gibson's latest -- formerly of a pixies-like cult band -- was well drawn, I thought.

Pelecanos overdoes the music references at times but I loved the way his middle-aged characters kick back to 70s soul while sneering at hiphop. what happened to that guy with the record store?

Star Trek ref shows up in _Anathem_

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b67/maelstrom_2005/WMHNBIG.jpg

ugh

Don't have the books with me here at work but Caprice Crane throws in little references in an interesting way.

I liked how the references were used in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (direct refs and similes using all kinds of nerd stuff, Star Trek to random 70s apocalypse movies to Dragonlance books, for the most part unexplained, you get them or you don't), but that's a little different from referencing music stuff.

what is it with crime writers and their music collections? my father was just telling me about some guy he has started reading and in the back of the book is a list of the 100 greatest records of all time. apparently the cop or detective or whatever spends the entire book putting records into his ipod.

on that note, andrew vacchs totally turned me on to judy henske in the 80's. his anti-hero burke was always listening to her and i went out and bought all her records. i became a huuuuuge fan.

( i totally didn't buy the hero of motherless brooklyn's Prince fixation for some reason. or it just seemed dumb to me. and nobody has ever thrown Prince into a book like Kathy Acker did in Don Quixote. it's the one thing i'll never forget about that book.)

pelecanos uses music references as a total character-building crutch, it's so annoying

what's his ilx name

i get it

lol. i was just going to say something similar about pelecanos.

i did not like the references in oscar wao

i have never read beyond the first sentence of don quixote (nb. it is a great first sentence) but now i wish i had

totally awful: narrator in BEE's 'glamorama' telling us what yo la tengo album he is buying

Anything by Chris Brookmyre - tends to be scathing of the overuse of references to music in pop culture (see the opening chapter of "Be My Enemy" in which they discuss 'A Flock of Seagulls').

totally awful: narrator in BEE's 'glamorama' telling us what yo la tengo album he is buying

― thomp, Thursday, 25 September 2008 18:08 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no, this is hilarious!