Shelving: Rob Sheffield's Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love and Karaoke

I like Rob Sheffield. He writes about music as both a fan and a critic, but always a fan first. His new book, Turn Around Bright Eyes, follows the same pattern as his first two: music and girls and more music and girls. He's not ashamed to profess his love for Karaoke the same way he's not afraid to profess his love for some of the cheesiest pop music, which is always a good thing.

Turn Around Bright Eyes is a charming, easy read. My major criticism is that he tends to dip into this rock-boy gender essentialism that's endemic to aging Gen-x'ers who write about music. (Or maybe I just notice it more now that I am an aging Gen-x'er myself.) They way he writes about women as music fans always reads a little dismissive to me, though there's a lot less of it here than in his other books. And while I don't doubt he loves the women in his life, he tends to turn them into manic pixies.

Random Notes:

He says that to be a successful Karaoker (Karaokeier?) one should find their vocal doppelgänger: someone whose songs you can sing reasonable well. If you're a music fan, you probably already know this. I think mine is Pete Shelley from The Buzzcocks.

Rush. I can sum up everything that's ever been written about Rush: girls don't like them. Even when they do. We get it. (I had a friend tell me that Sleater-Kinney's Corrine Tucker sounds a lot like Geddy Lee. I argued that she sounds more like Undertones' Feargal Sharkey or Pete Shelley, my alleged vocal doppelganger.).By that logic, I guess that would make Geddy Lee my secondary vocal doppelganger.

If you lived in New York during 9/11, and you write a memoir that spans the 00s, you have to include your 9/11 story. I think it's been written into law now. I liked that his was honest.