It can be but not really tailored made for the Celine Dion fan, but this book is really about the nature of taste in pop(ular) music and it's a fascinating read because of it. With her synthesized strings and genuine pearls and her opera-crossover attempts, she aspires to the highbrow culture of a half-century ago. * Rob Sheffield * Carl Wilson is a profound listener and an extraordinary writer. At once among the most widely beloved and most reviled and lampooned pop stars of the past few decades, Céline Dion's critics call her mawkish and overblown … The kind of contempt that’s mobilized by “cool” taste is inimical to that sympathy, to an aesthetics that might support a good public life.”. By crowing about it, I’m making a pretty naked ploy to increase my relative social status by showing off the wide range of my reading. Great….these are aaaaaall going on my list. He remains adamant about what he perceives as the characteristics of Celine’s music–sentimentality, a lack of innovation, and a lack of cultural (and self) awareness. I learned more from this 160 page book about aesthetics than I did in an entire class my senior year. Being not only Canadian, but a Quebec-born French Canadian myself, I can certainly match, if not exceed, Carl Wilson's distaste for Céline Dion. Forester Rahul's Question: Where are all the bad books? Most elite consumers of culture are omnivores. (That was also not a joke.) BUY IT! What counted in the end was to give Let’s Talk About Love a sympathetic hearing, to credit that others find it lovable and ask what they can tell me about music (or globalism, or sentimentality) in general. His writing style and perspective about taste and perception are spot on for me. I could easily carry it around in my pocket. Music writer Carl Wilson decided to get serious about the goddess of pop, Celine Dion. Can’t be done. Let’s Talk About Love: by Carl Wilson. By my current standards, I have often had some pretty bad taste. What defines “good taste”? Personally, I often struggle to produce criticism that is descriptive rather than prescriptive. But he has the same anxiety about it that everyone has. Dion, Céline. Everything I believe about what it means to have musical opinions is talked about in here, with great intelligence, humor, and heart. My reading record isn't accurate at all anymore, but quite frankly I'm not even sure I even give a damn. Rather, he seems to come to the conclusion that all the listeners are responding to much the same qualities, but he is responding to them negatively while her listeners respond to them positively. Ultimately, this book is a riveting investigation of what it means to love music and what it means to hate music. Wilson’s aim is to examine taste. ... Other books in Continuum’s 331⁄3 series (short volumes devoted to single albums by canonical musical acts) have varied from historical synopses to personal … Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste (33 1/3) BY Carl Wilson. Let's Talk About Love A Journey to the End of Taste (Book) : Wilson, Carl : Non-fans regard Céline Dion as ersatz and plastic, yet to those who love her, no one could be more real, with her impoverished childhood, her (creepy) manager-husband's struggle with cancer, her knack for howling out raw emotion. I truly believe that Wilson loves music and I feel his love in this book about something he hates. Let's Talk About Love (Kobo eBook) By Carl Wilson. Fun but not substantive enough. Carl Wilson manages to drop Fanon and Kant all over the place and not be remotely pretentious! Description. Share. I hate the subtitle to this edition, but everything else is pretty great. Celine Dion Let's Talk About Love. More accessible than your standard-order Bourdieu but not lacking in thoroughness... eager to tackle the essays from the expanded edition at some point! I haven't read any of the other selections in the, those who are obsessed with pop culture and somehow have a heart to like Celine Dion. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Even I'm not that crazy! (A Dance With Dragons), The first and last novels that made me cry, Life is too short to waste time on boring books, If you die and leave me with your brilliant unfinished manuscripts, I will burn them, The poverty and evanescence of literary acclaim in SF, Why I am deeply suspicious of Malcolm Gladwell, A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe, Vanity Fair, by William Makeapeace Thackeray, “If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy.”. The same goes for books and video games. We’d love your help. But—and this is serious—reading Carl Wilson’s “Let’s Talk About Love” could make you a better person. $10. Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste By Carl Wilson. For me, reading this book providing a road-map for journeying into the heart of my own motivations. So thorough and well written with a lot of dry wit and heart. Dion, Céline--Criticismand interpretation. The same goes for books and video games. To see what your friends thought of this book, This is a beautiful meditation on art, one of the best I’ve ever read. Basically Wilson hates this particular album, but he wants to know why. We’ve also been liberated by “poptimism,” whose major text, Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love, has just been reissued. And, in an earlier section (while watching Celine’s Vegas show): “And this…is why Celine winds up mocked, because her efforts at class and taste always go wrong. Book Review: Let’s Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste by Carl Wilson. Wilson, using the perhaps low-hanging-fruit of her 1997 a. For his 2007 critically acclaimed 33 1/3 series title, Let's Talk About Love, Carl Wilson went on a quest to find his inner Céline Dion fan and explore how we define ourselves by what we call good and bad, what we love and what we hate. I want to call this the best book I’ve read all year. ‘A Grief Observed’ is also really good- more autobiographical than philosophical, but still an incredible gut punch of a book. Originally released in 2007 as a standalone entry in the perennially well regarded 33 1/3rd series, Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love was an overdue conversation about taste, snobbery, and the parts of the human race whose opinions are often left out … Rahul's Question: Where are all the bad books? Have you read it? In the Aeroplane Over The Sea, OK Computer, Pink Moon, Rid of Me, Paul’s Boutique, Loveless, Meat is Murder… even if your own choices for an “essential/seminal albums” list are different, these titles all have a lot going for them. It's perhaps hard to remember how universal Celine Dion was at the close of the Nineties, when "My Heart Will Go On" was every-damn-where and her enthusiastic, bombastic style of singing drowned out anyone else trying to make a living at the time (hyperbole, but still). Coming to a bookstore near you on March 13, 2014. However, that was taken from, Another re-read (a running theme of this time in our history, perhaps), this is Carl Wilson's great exploration of what "taste" means and why some people have "bad taste." He starts by correcting noting that sentimentality is kind of the bogeyman of modern art. Plus, I listed to. For his 2007 critically acclaimed 33 1/3 series title, Let's Talk About Love, Carl Wilson went on a quest to find his inner Céline Dion fan and explore At once among the most widely beloved and most reviled and lampooned pop stars of the past few decades, Céline Dion's critics call her mawkish and overblown while millions of fans around the world adore her “huge pipes” and even bigger feelings. I’ve been lurking around here for a while now-I think your stuff is excellent. $24.99; $24.99; Publisher Description. Top Books Top Audiobooks Oprah’s Book Club Let's Talk About Love Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste. There's nothing cool about Céline Dion, and nothing clever. More interesting is the information about the effect on dopamine levels when we encounter new music and the payoff when our brains resolve more difficult listening into what we identify as music. 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