Adam Brent Houghtaling

I didn't like how biographical in character the entries in this book were. They weren't tied together in a meaningful way or written with an interesting critical voice. I wanted the depressive's Greil Marcus and I got a slightly moody version of the old Rolling Stone Rock and Roll Enyclopedia (anyone remember that?). Rather than reading like informed or enthralling criticism, the entries just seemed like rote biographical narratives that I could have found anywhere. I skipped around in this but ultimately found it unsatisfying, and it kind of seemed like the author felt that way, too! Where was the passion or even interest in his subject?… (meer)

This was an interesting collection of short articles about roughly 80 composers/songwriters/performers whose music can roughly be categorized as "miserablist" as in the sense of "sad" music. They range from the English Renaissance composer of laments John Dowland, to singer songwriters such as Nick Drake & Elliot Smith, to country stars such as Hank Williams & Johnny Cash to present day bands/groups such as Nick Case and the Bad Seeds & Radiohead with some blues & jazz artists and a very few number of classical composers. Most of the performers have a Top Ten list of miserablist works included. Several longer essays focus on individual works such as Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" or Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". The book concludes with a listing of the 100 Saddest Songs.

It did seem several times that the work was not based on first hand knowledge and that some short cuts from Wikipedia or other sources may have been used to fill out the biographies. Errors such as referring to bassist Ashley Hutchings as a "her", or that the Robert Wyatt voiced Wyattron was used on Björk's "Oceania" (it was "Submarine" wasn't it?), or listing Son House's "Death Letter" twice in the list of 100 Saddest Songs (as both #83 & #97) seemed to indicate some sloppiness or lack of familiarity. These were based on artists I knew and therefore noticed, but there are a lot of artists in this book that were completely new to me and this lack of care made me less sure of how much I could trust about the accuracy of the rest.

Still there was a lot of new information here and the book was well organized and easy to read and anyone with interest in the subject will likely already have a few favourite artists here and they can judge the book for themselves on that basis. And likely they will find at least several new names that they will be interested in hearing more about.… (meer)