![]() ![]() The puppy wants to play and make the girls happy. And Sheffield knows that (some) girls like excited puppies. And Sheffield loves music all across the board, like an excited puppy, whether Debbie Gibson or Lita Ford or Big Daddy Kane. Never in a million years would I have admitted, at age 18, to liking Poison. Sheffield likes to portray himself as a wuss with a weakness for shiny pop but he's way more brave than me. The book also reads like the memoir of a polite, Catholic indie-rock fan who fears/adores his three sisters, sells ice cream from a truck, and really, really wants a girlfriend. Rob Sheffield's Talking With Girls About Duran Duran is less about Duran Duran and more about the ways boys in the 80s (and any era, really) accessed music to help them articulate what they can't quite say to girls or each other. Needless to say, I guess I'm not the audience. I just kept being reminded of every douchey guy I've ever met that has talked down to me about music. I enjoyed his previous book- Love Is a Mixtape-but this one's a big mixed bag that just put me in a solemn mood by reminding me that rock journalism is still a big f-ing boys club. I had to give up about halfway through, but not before skipping to the Replacements chapter out of curiosity because I love that band. I enjoyed the funny bits interspersed throughout, particularly where he's talking about his family life and the times where he made it more personal rather than just merely a longwinded pop reference wankfest. Believe me, I'm as music-obsessed as they come, but Sheffield's constant need for dropping pop culture references and lyrics into his writing gets a little tiring in this instance, just like with Chuck Klosterman and Nick Hornby (although they do it a little better.) ![]() His ego takes control of the book, spitting out some witty one-liners every now and then that my younger self would perhaps be more fond of. Sadly, the stereotyped gender statements continue, which just end up getting on my nerves. So, with that having rubbed me the wrong way, I cynically read on. (They love "Stand by Me" but they don't care that it's really called "Train in Vain" instead of "Stand by Me.")" It's a sad attempt at humor through perpetuated gender stereotypes and it only serves to anger any women who LOVE the Clash and have tons of music knowledge. But it's tougher to talk to women about the Clash. "This is just the way we dissect the things we love. I should've known what I was getting into, but I found the intro to be extremely patronizing. These songs-and Sheffield's writing-will remind readers of that first kiss, that first car, and the moments that shaped their lives. Sheffield's coming-of-age story is one that we all know, with a playlist that any child of the eighties or anyone who just loves music will sing along with. Girls, every last one of whom seems to be madly in love with the bassist of Duran Duran. These were the years of MTV and John Hughes movies the era of big dreams and bigger shoulder pads and, like any all-American boy, this one was searching for true love and maybe a cooler haircut. When he turned 13 in 1980, Rob Sheffield had a lot to learn about women, love, music and himself, and in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran we get a glimpse into his transformation from pasty, geeky "hermit boy" into a young man with his first girlfriend, his first apartment, and a sense of the world. Now, in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, Sheffield shares the soundtrack to his eighties adolescence. ![]() "No rock critic-living or dead, American or otherwise-has ever written about pop music with the evocative, hyperpoetic perfectitude of Rob Sheffield." So said Chuck Klosterman about Love is a Mix Tape, Sheffield's paean to a lost love via its soundtrack. The author of the national bestseller Love is a Mix Tape returns, with a different-but equally personal and equally universal- spin on music as memory. ![]()
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