Reviews

Great Pretenders: My Strange Love Affair with '50s Pop Music by Karen Schoemer

bupdaddy's review

Go to review page

5.0

Schoemer's trademark confessional-style interview writing is at full force plus in this book, wherein she discovers through interviews with 1950's whitewashed, bowdlerized versions of rock and rollers, why she's never been to her.

It works. She evolves past rock critic. She dismisses the notion that one determines if music is "good" by analyzing whether or not it's good. Amusingly, she uses the word good in ironic quotes more often than probably any book in history. She gives herself, and all of us, permission to like whatever music we want.
More...