Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on the Albums That Changed Their Lives – A Celebration of Music's Unique and Transformative Inspiration

by Peter Terzian

Colm Tóibín on Joni Mitchell • James Wood on The Who • Stacey D'Erasmo on Kate Bush • Daniel Handler on Eurythmics • Lisa Dierbeck on the Pretenders • Clifford Chase on the B-52s . . . and other writers on the soundtracks of their lives In Heavy Rotation , twenty of our most acclaimed contemporary writers pay homage to the record albums that inspired them. Benjamin Kunkel remembers how the Smiths' Queen Is Dead transformed him into an adolescent Anglophile. Pankaj Mishra describes how a bootleg cassette of ABBA's Super Trouper evoked a world far from his small Indian village. Kate Christensen relives her years as an aspiring novelist in Brooklyn listening to Rickie Lee Jones's Flying Cowboys . And Joshua Ferris recalls his head-banging passion for Pearl Jam's Ten . Exploring music from the Talking Heads to the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack, this extraordinary anthology is a moving, funny, uplifting, and unforgettable celebration of the unique and essential relationship between life and music.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 6, 2009

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflecting on how Eurythmics taught him about the ironic power of fakery, Daniel Handler describes record albums as "pegs on which to hang stories." In "Heavy Rotation," 20 contemporary writers hang stories -- of alienation and identity, of growth and nostalgia -- on a particular music collection. Editor Peter Terzian largely succeeds in his goal of bringing music and literature together. What could have been a crop of fanboy/girl exercises is a collection of informed essays that offer personal insight and literary merit.

"Heavy Rotation" features essays on 11 bands, four singers, three soundtracks, a trio of singles and an archival collection. A distinctive feature of this anthology is that the contributors are not primarily known for their music writing. Most are novelists (including Colm Tóibín, Joshua Ferris and Kate Christensen), and the journalists are better known for their writing about literature, with the exception of music critic John Jeremiah Sullivan. Sullivan's album of choice is a Revenant Records release of prewar country blues (1897-1939), and he most convincingly portrays the cultural -- rather than personal -- importance of an album.

Personal narrative is the prevalent form in the collection, although Terzian has managed to select a wide variety of anecdotes and angles. There is enough stylistic diversity and experimentation to keep things interesting. Many contributors naturally chose to focus on the pivotal moment in their adolescence when a particular album conveyed them across the crucial threshold between child and adult. Through identification with the singer-songwriter, the faults and weaknesses -- the humanity -- of the idol often served as reassurance to the uncertain teen, whether it was Joni Mitchell bringing comfort to Tóibín in a small Irish town or Jermaine Jackson as a source of pride for Martha Southgate in an American rust-belt city.

In his introduction, Terzian explains how listening to music as a youth made him feel like he "was learning about . . . the many different ways of living a life." As the adult writers reflect on their obsessive teen selves, there is a poignant nostalgia. In his fond remembrance of discovering mod culture through the Who's album "Quadrophenia," critic James Wood wonders if he can still sing the lyric "thank God I ain't old" from "Sea and Sand" without hypocrisy.

"Heavy Rotation" also shows how an album can sneak up and cause unexpected changes in an identity already established. In a candid and moving contribution, Claire Dederer describes how the demands of her grown-up life made her feel she had become a "soulless roaster of chickens." She felt she "was missing the essential quality of a listener: a soul." Her essay describes how she was dragged to a production of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and the "painted-up, red-mouthed, big-top artifice" mercifully returned music to her.

An unintended pleasure of the collection is that it provides a narrative history of music's technological journey over the last few decades. The writers navigate the transition from vinyl to cassette to compact disc to MP3. The first essay opens with Benjamin Kunkel flipping his tape of the Smiths' 1986 release "The Queen Is Dead." Soon, Kunkel made the move from communal cassette to "a private indulgence, Walkman listening." Other writers describe not being able to understand the lyrics of their special life-changing album until it came out in a newer technology and with the benefit of "decent earphones."

Whether playful '80s kitsch, classic rock standards or obscure minor label gems, each album in the collection inspires a different flavor of personal epiphany. A conspicuous omission, considering the collection's time frame of the last 30 years, is an entry on a hip-hop album. For example, although more than one writer mentions Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" as influential, it is never discussed at length.

On the whole, "Heavy Rotation" is an engaging meditation on how a discrete selection of songs can alter a listener's impressions and identity. An album can provide profound connection to a specific person, or it can be significant for its role as the soundtrack to a very particular time or place. In many of the essays, the chosen album encapsulates a powerful yet transient emotional landscape in an individual's personal history. Perhaps this is why several of the writers compared the discovery of that monumental music to falling in love.

- Originally appeared in LA Times 7/19/09

[Greg Olear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some are better than others, but the ones that are good are really really good. Terzian's is my favorite, on an album that doesn't exist.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit that most of these essays were not very worthwhile to read, at least not in bulk, though there are certainly some of these essays that certainly would have stood out more on their own rather than being covered in the sameness that is hipster culture.  Indeed, almost all of the essays included here about various albums can be summarized with a few statements:  seminal albums reflecting personal identity (race, gender, sexuality) and struggles to be oneself in the face of perceived pressures to conform, and ironic looks at popular music because such much is too uncool to appreciate unironically.  I can't say this surprised me, because if there is any population that has its head up its own posterior more than music critics, and any sort of realm of people whose opinions are so narrowly defined by hipster concerns, it is hard to imagine such a group.  In some cases the authors don't even claim to like these albums anymore, just to have considered them vital in changing their lives and opening their perspectives about the sort of music, even if in many cases the writers appear rather narrow-minded about their present musical interests.

One can learn a lot by looking at the sort of music that people view to be life-changing.  For example, here is a list of the albums discussed here, in order as they appear:  The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead, the Annie soundtrack, The Beatles' Meet The Beatles, Fugazi's self-titled album, Talking Heads' Remain In Light, American Primitive Vol. II:  Pre-War Revenants (1897-1939), Kate Bush's The Sensual World, the Topless Women Talk About Their Lives soundtrack, Pearl Jam's Ten, Eurythmic's Savage, the self-titled B-52s album, the self-titled Pretenders album, Gloria Estefan's Mi Tierra, Joni Mitchell's Blue, ABBA's Super Trooper, Rickie Lee Jones' Flying Cowboys, The Who's Qudophenia, The Jackson 5's Greatest Hits, Miaow's unreleased Priceless Innuendo, and the original cast recording for Hedwig And The Angry Itch.  In the essays about these albums the authors, none of whom I know about nor particularly care to read anything more from, talk about coming out of the closet, give catty reviews to popular albums and glowing reviews to more obscure hipster choices, and drone on about how their teenage years and young adults years were a hard knock life, as if it wasn't for everyone.

Even so, although there is a great deal that is irritating and annoying about this book, I left this book with at least a few albums I want to check out.  For example, the Pre-war Revenants collection that shows some obscure blues and gospel artists is one I definitely want to check out, even if it is obscure.  Some of the albums I am already somewhat familiar with, given the popularity of Meet The Beatles, Blue, Super Trooper, and Qudophenia, for example.  In some cases, as was the case with the woman who write about the discrimination she faced as a black American visiting the Dominican Republic, I felt a certain sense of compassion, as I did for the Indian writer who had to deal with the lack of choice of popular music in his home area due to India's socialism and resulting poverty of culture and choices.  In other cases, though, I simply wished the authors would get over themselves and find within themselves the freedom to enjoy what other hipsters would consider lame and uncool.  Why should we care so much about what narrow-minded hipster elites like in the first place?  If one cannot unironically appreciate music like ABBA or Pearl Jam or the Eurythmics, what is the point of writing about music anyway?

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

When this book is at it's best (Peter Terzian) it is a better than cinematic walk down Newbury Street in the 80's inside the head of someone you passed on the street and wondered briefly, Where are they headed? what does their apartment look or sound or smell like. Our relationship with music is beyond intimate, as it forces us to shake hands with strangers and neighbors that live in our heads. When the writers take us inside their heads and lives, as the segment on Mi Tierra does, empathy is reached. Four stars because not all chapters rise up to the level of the aforementioned. Reading along with the power of streaming is a pleasure almost unimaginable to some of the writers of this 2009 book. While a great tool, the writing in the book remains us of the most magic of choosing between buying a record or being practical.

[Chatty · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable compilation of memoir type stories themed around the writers’ favorite albums. Generally, the stories were less about the music and more about the time, place, and memories that come with the music. Which makes sense, as there’s only so much you can do to describe music without hearing it. Loved a few, liked a lot, couple duds. Favs in no order:

What Annie Knew
What You’ve Done to My World
O Black and Unknown Bards
Mental chickens (fav)
Am I Getting Warmer?
No Mod Cons
Nine Lives
Bewigged

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a thoroughly enjoyable and readable collection of books (especially for a person who is more ore less a peer of most of the writers in this collection). That said, fewer of the chapters really focused on the music than I expected. I hardly fault them -- I doubt I would under the same constraints. What I'm really saying is that you should come for the writers more than the music criticism here. If you do, you won't be disappointed.

[Petty Lisbon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay book. As usual, some of the essays were more captivating than others (I was surprised to like the Hedwig one so much, the Pearl Jam one was like looking into a bizarro world version of my own life, the Eurythmics made me enjoy the duo again, the Rickie Lee Jones one was bittersweet, and I liked the Jackson 5 essay) but the American Primitive one was rough. I at least admire that the authors al picked different albums than the ones usually chosen for these kinds of books.

[Marc Mcdonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fine tales of record obsession stuffed into stories that drift in and out and around the subject. It’s always fun to be reminded of great albums and their impact. Each of us has a different lived experience as it relates to music and some are far more relatable and interesting than others. High marks for mentioning Newbury Comics, Stawberries, The Chills and Flying Nun Records, C86 compilation, the B-52s, the Smiths, The Cure, Siouxsie, etc.

[Donald J Potts · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you would expect in a collective book of this type, the choice of music and the styles of writing are very eclectic. Some of the writing is impressively moving while others are downright juvenile. Pick and choose at your leisure. Those stories trying to be the most intense were the ones I tossed off first.

[Mercer Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is good. Neither excellent nor horrible. Lovers of music will love these essays: some deeply personal, some more technically-focused on talking about the mechanics. I enjoyed that this ran the gamut.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Joy of Albums.

[Dave Carruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just read the relevant chapters on the Smiths, the Who, Pearl Jam, Fugazi and the Eurythmics.

[Lanew-yorkaise · Rating 3 out of 5]

From http://lanew-yorkaise.com/

We all have albums that have impacted our lives in some way: soundtracks to a certain summer, lyrics that spoke to a transition (love or otherwise) in our lives. In Heavy Rotation: Twenty Writers on The Albums That Changed Their Lives, edited and with an introduction by Peter Terzian, the personal musical musings of twenty bright talents are explored.

Stand-outs included Colm Toibin’s “Three Weeks in the Summer,” his story of a deep connection with Joni Mitchell’s Blue album over a stretch of summer in the town of Enniscorth in Southeastern Ireland in 1971. Toibin identifies the particular morning when everything changes: August 9, 1971, when the then-sixteen year-old read Stewart Parker’s review of Blue in The Irish Times:

“Blueberries and waffles don’t change their flavor, but the American Zeitgeist does: this summer I sense a mood of stasis, of passivity, turning inward. Yesterday’s radical oracles about the war and the credibility gap are today’s commonplace facts…. Attention has turned back on the self.”

The article, which shared print space with accounts of bloody conflicts—including one in his home country—struck a chord with the young man, who went down to the local music shop and bought the only copy of the record.

Toibin would play Blue obsessively for three weeks, the time left to him before a return to boarding school signaled an end to record-playing (this was definitely pre iPod days, and the priests were not exactly keen on the latest from an American songstress.)

Toibin admitted to not understanding everything that Mitchell wrote about, especially not the kind of love she describes in “A Case of You.” He writes: “It was hard to imagine—indeed it still is—that all around me in our semi-detached houses was love, or something that had once been love and was still like love in some way or other. Love in 1971 for me was not when the neighbor and his wife tended the garden together, or when my mother made supper, it was when the needle touched the vinyl.”

Even if he hadn’t experienced the love the singer described, Toibin felt a type of longing, identified with something contained in the rise and fall of that unmistakable voice—a voice his parents worriedly called “not quite right.” For Toibin, “not quite right” described his experience as a gay young man in a small, conservative town, surreptitiously listening to a voice from far away that held a promise of experiences to come.



Joshua Ferris’s “Elegy for a Discarded Album,” an ode to Pearl Jam’s Ten, is another great read, explaining Ferris’s journey from musical ignoramus, hawking surveys in a suburban mall outside of Chicago that piped in the latest pop from Sam Goody, to an “initiate” and an “outrider”—and the dangers of such categories of appreciation. He writes:

“The outrider is what the initiate becomes after he forgets his former life as an ignoramus. He dismisses anything smacking of the masses or widespread exposure, oftentimes without regard to the music itself…new music must spring out of the underground for it to pass the litmus test of acceptability. The outrider passes the new album along to one or two like-minded friends, but only if they can be trusted. That way the music remains a secret possessed only by vetted and qualified believers.”

But what if the new music becomes the mass-music, as is the case with Ten?

Ferris writes: “The outrider condemns the newcomers as arriving ‘late’ to an album—the atomic bomb of indie insults—and forsakes the album.”

The latter happened to Ferris after he left his small town and went off to college only to discover that everyone and their mother was listening to Pearl Jam. The disavowal of the album felt a lot like “mourning” for him, and he described his disillusionment as his private pleasure became a very public pain.

Happily, Ferris has since gotten over his outrider views, though he admits that he still has trouble listening to Ten: some things are just better in memory.



If you missed Terzian and contributors Martha Southgate, Clifford Chase, Todd Pruzan, and Lisa Dierbeck at the newly renovated Book Court tonight, you can get your copy signed (and talk music with the contributors) at these upcoming New York City Events:



Wednesday, July 1st at 12:30 PM at Bryant Park Reading Room

Peter Terzian is joined by contributors: Joshua Ferris, Clifford Chase, Stacey D’Erasmo, Asali Solomon and John Jeremiah Sullivan, who will also perform music from the book with his band Fayaway.



Tuesday, July 14th at 7 PM at McNally Jackson

Peter Terzian is joined by contributors John Haskell, Martha Southgate, Lisa Dierbeck, and Todd Pruzan.

[Kalle Wescott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I loved the concept of writers writing about the music (in this case, one album per writer - remember albums?) that they loved, that had changed their lives.

However, it turned out to be fairly uninteresting.... even when I listened to the albums they were writing about as I read each piece.

The one exception to this is No Mod Cons, by James Wood, about the Who's Quadrophenia, which is a fantastic piece that explores Quadrophenia, the Who, and their music and lyrics, in the context of what was happening in the UK and in the world at that time. 5 stars to that one piece.

[Mixter Mank]

I thoroughly enjoyed this — even if I had no idea who the writer was, even if I never heard the album before. These are essays about the ways in which we struggle to human and the ways in which music eases that struggle. Comforting and inspiring, this book reminded me just how connected a few billion people could be.

[Gato Negro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me a while to get through this one...mostly because the chapters are independent of one another and this kind of book can be put down and picked up weeks later without fear of missing anything. Anyway...a great book for music lovers (especially alternative music lovers). I wish I had been able to contribute a chapter.

[John Bastin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heavy Rotation

Not interesting, for the most part. I’ve experienced some of the music, but I guess my head was never captured in the same manner as were these writers. “Changed My Life?” Not so much.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breezed through about half the essays (sorry no interest in some of the albums).

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

*But here I am, wondering about a friend who's almost entirely vanished. There's no email to re-read anymore, nothing to find on Google, nothing but a compact disc.* - "Mental Chickens" - Todd Pruzan

[Tina Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great anthology for music lovers or cultural studies nerds. =)

[Abigail (Abbe) · Rating 3 out of 5]

a cool book. i really enjoyed the piece by Alice Elliot Dark. very talented.

[Brendan]

Rating: 3 1/2

The weaker ones are 3 stars, so it's a high floor collection. But there aren't enough true gems to rate it a 4. There's a decent amount of variety, even if most of the selections fall somewhere in the rock or pop categories.

Favorites:
"Just Like Me" - Martha Southgate on the Jackson 5.
"Still Ill" - Benjamin Kunkel on the Smiths.
"Am I Getting Warmer?" - Clifford Chase on the B-52s.

I was very aware of joy because the joy I'd once remembered feeling had long since disappeared.
- John Haskell, "Tiny Big Dreams"

Ten years ago, I took a photograph of things that don't exist.
- Todd Pruzan, "Mental Chickens"