Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Top ten music books of the decade

The staff at Paste magazine came up with a list of the ten best music books of the decade (2000-2009).

One title on the list:
1. Carl Wilson—Let’s Talk About Love (A Journey To The End Of Taste) (2007)


No one expected Continuum’s 33 1/3 series to cover Céline Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love—we were used to glowing observations on records that don’t suck, like Pet Sounds and OK Computer and Exile On Main Street. Céline seems like an easy target—she’s just so detestable, especially for fellow Canadians like Globe And Mail writer Carl Wilson. But Wilson avoids cheap shots in favor of a brainy socio-cultural examination of taste: Why do so many people love her? Why do so many more people hate her? What does this say about us as culture consumers? While Love isn’t Dion’s most popular album, it’s her most egregious—mostly because it features that ubiquitous song from Titanic—and Wilson gives it his undivided attention, even attending one of her Vegas shows. Now that’s a devoted author. Kate Kiefer
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue