Eric Barker (3)

So...very...breezy! Blogger Eric Barker knows how to end a section with a cliffhanger, and if the next section doesn't completely satisfy, the next cliffhanger is often coming soon. Substitute the word "teaser" for "cliffhanger" if it works better for you. The point is that Barker knows how to keep you reading, even when you weren't satisfied by what you just read.

I wasn't satisfied because essential to Barker's method is the tossing of factoids that may or may not be true. My suspicions were irrevocably aroused on page 27, when he claimed that David Geffen sued Neil Young because Young's album Trans was "too country." Too country? Trans was entirely constructed with synthesizers and electronica, and on several songs, the humanity of Young's voice was lost as they were played through a vocodor. Earlier Young albums with a country flavor like Harvest and Comes a Time were among his biggest sellers, so it makes no sense for Geffen to complain about Trans—Young's least country album to that point—being "too country." Precisely the opposite was the case.

Barker summarizes this anecdote by saying that Young "was sued for being himself." Barker apparently adapted the phrase of a writer for Rolling Stone, Don McLeese, who wrote "Neil Young is the only artist in the history of modern recording to be sued for refusing to be himself." Barker inverted it to say that he was sued for being himself, and then he supported his anecdote with a statement that was on the face of it the opposite of the truth.

What makes this especially disturbing is that every page of Barker's book is sprinkled heavily with quotes and factoids to support his argument (or, as in the case of the Neil Young anecdote, to pique the reader's interest: after rereading the section, I can't figure out what it has to do with any bigger point of Barker's). None of these quotes and factoids are footnoted, so it's difficult to look them up to confirm or refute them. (To Barker's credit, there is an extensive bibliography, but connecting its entries to his anecdotes is a hit-or-miss endeavor.)

For me, this situation is a dealbreaker that broke my trust. All this said, Barker's book (Barking Up......get it?) may be valuable to some as a provocation to thinking differently about success. Many of his suggestions and examples do indeed run counter to conventional wisdom, and I'm all for that. I even think many of them are probably true.… (meer)