#eric weisbard

[bigtickhk]

Touring American Pop Music by Way of the Writers Who Have Addressed It

In “Songbooks,” the scholar and critic Eric Weisbard surveys music writing from the 1700s to today, with special attention to voices on the margins.

Songbooks: The Literature of American Popular Music by Eric Weisbard https://amzn.to/2SRD9we 

https://bookshop.org/a/17891/9781478014089

[reading3313]

41. Use Your Illusion I and II (Guns N' Roses) - Eric Weisbard [Continuum] [Amazon]

I think this is the only book in the series that's about two albums, released separately though they share cover art and a release date. For the most part, Weisbard is examining the pair as a phenomenon, which he describes as 'blockbuster' albums, and the book is not following any story-studio-release-tour format where dealing with multiple albums might be trickier.

Weisbard's style is reminiscent of feature writing, opening with the line, "Welcome to the season of the blockbuster", and setting out the commercial landscape of music in 1991 - grunge is hitting the charts, country music is visible as a huge market, MC Hammer and Mariah Carey release big and sell relatively modestly, and rock music is still huge, hard rock most of all. Albums are still selling and the myth of rock as oppositional to the mainsteam persists, and Guns N' Roses represent "the liberatory dream of the counterculture subverted into fascistic right wing entertainment."

The first section is a sort of cultural lit review, from hard rock's place in music media to David Geffen's career to sales and sales targets, and it's a reminder that Guns N' Roses fit into a context that's extremely easy to forget from here in 2011. Then, Weisbard's own relationship with UYI, conversational and biographical and work-related (with an interesting bit on Chuck Klosterman), and how he had made his own tape from the two albums - at this point, Weisbard isn't listening to the albums, just remembering them.

The longest section is about the band, or the perception of the band and particularly Axl Rose. Restaurant blow-jobs, "Axl dates models", "you ex-Commie bastards", pissing on fans, the Tallarido family suicides, domestic violence, bondage imagery, and a brief summary of events up to the Chinese Democracy void (filled since publication of the book). The last section is a commentary on the songs, Weisbard finally confronting the album and managing a pithy response to each one - for example, 'Bad Apples' begins with "More rote glam boogie woogie and Exile copping" (a note-perfect summary). To conclude, more editing and reordering of Weisbard's own perfect version.

As it's mostly coming from outside looking in, I imagine it might be unsatisfying to a Guns N' Roses superfan. For the rest of us, it's a very enjoyable read and an entertaining survey of this particular period in popular culture.

I found myself thinking about Kurt Cobain even more frequently than he was mentioned, and the artists who set out with explicit aims to make arena-sized, planet-sized albums with groupies on tap backstage (G N' R), and how differently both small and large successes are measured there rather than for those coming from a background or a platform in punk. It's a side I don't see into very much, and it's interesting, especially presented by an author who's aware of the other phenomena taking place and can find interest in music beyond/apart from his own enjoyment of it.

I must have subconsciously chosen this one a couple of weeks ago after reading and rereading the Pop Conference call a lot, but didn't realise what I'd done until last week. Timing unintentional.