September 10, 2009
What are some of the books
or CDs which were the last you bought ‘automatically’, out of habit, just because the author or artist was someone you had journeyed with for a good while? They changed or you changed (or both), and you found you just didn’t enjoy the work anymore.
I seem to have signed off on Bob Dylan (whose records I’d been buying since the ’60s) with Love and Theft, a CD on which I found not one stand-out song.
Cities of the Plain was the last Cormac McCarthy book I bought, and I left Louise Gluck with either Ararat or Wild Iris.
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I held onto REM way too long, out of love and respect. I left Cormac at Cities as well. Don DeLillo at Underworld. Davenport sustained all the way through. I’m starting to wonder about Wes Anderson. The Coen brothers’ No Country was excellent, but I started to wonder about them too.
Ani DiFranco after So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter – things went downhill steeply from then on, as if her song-writing bone just upped and left her body. Prince after Emancipation, which was possibly the first time an artist/author had shat all over my expectations. Although I saw him at the O2 last summer, and he was extraordinary. Blur after the Great Escape.
I left DeLillo at Underworld too, Kim Stanley Robinson after 40 Days of Rain, Neal Stephenson half-way through the Baroque Trilogy. Iain Banks after Whit & Inversions, although Matter & The Steep Approach to Garbadale have got me interested again. My two favourite writers, Vonnegut & Foster Wallace, are both dead now, and I’ve yet to find anyone to replace them.
The Foo Fighters…what the fuck happened???
Richard Powers and Kazuo Ishiguro. And Phoenix, I love me so french pop rock music.
Just bought the new Nick Cave book even though probably wont read it. I might, read all the other stuff even his entry to the book of Mark, all the records but haven’t even listened to the last ones since Grinder Man which, I found interesting as a statement of personal jest, but a waste of Warren Ellis.
As to McCarthy books, I understand why you fell off, but the Road is completely worth it. Ten years from now, no one will be able to talk about The Wastelands with out mentioning The Road.
Musically also I keep buying Mark Kozelek, Richard Hawley and Mark Eitzel. Kozelek continues to grow, Hawley to swoon (besides a few stinkers on the last record) but Eitzel has not gotten me since 60 Watt, but still have hopes for him.
But who am I to say, I haven’t put out a record for a few years myself.
nice thread
jesse
The poetry of James Tate quit doing anything for me after The Worshipful Company of Fletchers, though that hasn’t stopped me from buying his more recent collections and quickly shelving them in frustration.
I think I’ll soon be to the same place, musically speaking, with The Flaming Lips. From what I can tell, I’ve reached it with The Super Furry Animals, thanks to their Love Kraft album.
I’m nearing that point with comedian Lewis Black’s albums, too. I have no doubt that he’s one of the most consistent comics working, but the freshness of the discovery is gone — for me and him both, I’m afraid. I enjoyed his first book immensely, for what it was, but couldn’t force myself to pick up his book about quote unquote religion.
This is a great question, Coop. I held on to David Byrne for a long time post-Talking Heads, but I finally had to accept the fact that I had more of an interest in him as a person and in what he was attempting with music than with the music itself.
I’m with you on Louise Gluck. I discovered her with Descending Figure and was just devastated by her brilliance, but all later work failed to do it for me. Then again, I have pretty much given up on poetry altogether. Fuck poetry, that’s what I say.
I haven’t given up on Cormac, nor am I disappointed in him. I simply think he has different priorities now. I’d still read a thousand of his lesser pages to experience one of his great ones.
I’m not so sure about Wes Anderson anymore.
I see nothing wrong with creating one great work in one’s life.
It’s funny (peculiar) you should use that record as an example. I bought Love and Theft at the HMV on 86th and Lexington on my first outing from Brooklyn to Manhattan days after 9/11. I brought it home and my husband and I listened to the whole thing together. We talked about how that day had thrown us headfirst into adulthood. Somehow the particular mix of impending doom and quiet, sarcastic, musing hope on that record – especially Mississippi – hit the nail on the head. I think about that song every year on this day.
Not that that answers your question in any way.
Helluva question…
Reminds me of a book by David Bayles called Art and Fear, in which the author discusses the paralyzing feeling many artists/musicians/creators feel after they’ve created something astoundingly well-received.
Kottke mentioned it a while back too. It’s a goodie.
There’s also a TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert in this same vein.
Bob Dylan – like Sonnet, after I bought Love and Theft I was hooked and went and bought everything I could get from the past and still pick up whatever he releases.
McCarthy – again, the Crossing Trilogy started my love for him and enjoy his work after that much more than the work before.
Haruki Murakami – just seems to get better and better
REM – I continued to buy their albums even when I recognized that I just really didn’t enjoy what they were doing. That was sad.
Merle Haggard – I’d buy a recording of him reading from the phone book. I’ll never forget when I saw him down in Salinas a few years ago. He started off with new stuff with an indifferent reaction from the fans. When he launched into Okie from Muskogee, the crowd erupted. He stretched the song out and the crowd got really amped. When he finished, he took a long pause and looked out over the crowd, started to say something, stopped. Paused again and then said “You know, when I wrote that song I was dumb as a rock. I didn’t understand this country at all.” Silence from the crowd. Then he launched into new stuff again.
Stairwell Sisters – fantastic bluegrass and old time music. A bit uneven at times but still very spirited. One of he best bluegrass shows I ever saw was them playing in the BART station in San Francisco.
Hazel Dickens – a long dry spell for new stuff since “Hard to tell the singer from the song” several years ago. She’s still got it – or at least she did at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival a couple of years ago. Why no new albums, Hazel?
I stepped off the U2 train a LONG time ago. We’re talking “Rattle and Hum” here. Haven’t looked back. Thought I had given up on Beck, but his last record was actually pretty tight and listenable. I should have let “Plans” (wildly underrated) be my last Death Cab, but I caved and got the latest. Anyone want it?
I’m in violent agreement with those who haven’t given up on McCarthy. “The Road” is one of those books that seeps in on a dark fog of quiet despair, revealing a master at the top of his game. (Kills me that guys like McCarthy are ALWAYS at the top of their damn game.) Looking forward to the film.
Would also like to track down the unedited “No Country” (fat chance, I know) as I’ve read that Cormac’s editors made him cut it in half…and it sort of reads that way. Oddly, the film, which I truly enjoyed, suffers from a similar choppiness. Speaking of, just saw “Burn After Reading” and was disappointed to say the least. But I’m far from giving up on the Coens.
I still buy REM albums out of obligation even though I haven’t been satisfied with one in over a decade. I’m also still hanging on to Peter Gabriel and I think I will continue to get excited with whatever Tom Waits is doing. With books, it’s a little harder because everyone is dead. But I do seem to go through a phase every 5 years or so and reread all of my beat-up Bukowski paperbacks.
[...] Bob quoting Merle: “You know, when I wrote that song I was dumb as a rock. I didn’t understand this country at all.” [...]
[...] conjunction with Renner’s excellent question on the literary / musical equivalent of jumping the shark, friend of clusterlfock Teresa R. reminds me of this article in Slate a few years back speculating [...]
I think it happens to the best of ‘em sooner or later.. usually later but it does. It happened to me with Garcia Marquez at some point. But more often than not I think maybe it’s me who has changed. Out of everything I like, few are the things that persist the time test; after the initial surprise, many things seem even silly in my eyes.
This is a little off to the side–but I find myself trailing off on magazines I subscribe to. Maybe an issue will attract my attention and I look forward to the next few issues, then they start piling up without being read.
It’s funny how much I find myself agreeing with in this thread (pertaining to writers): Gluck, Tate, Powers, Marquez…. But I’m still with McCarthy. For one thing, I think it is just amazing that a writer in his 70s can swerve in such a big way to write The Road and do such a fine job of it. No Country has brought out lots of accusations that he prostituted himself of the big bucks of a movie deal–but Jesus, so did Faulkner. The need to make a living and look after the future needs of one’s family doesn’t stop because one makes the decision to pursue writing. I also think that writers who never write a book that fails are probably not risking anything–they are finding a seam and mining it unto death with the same shovel.
Daryl, it’s funny–I’ve expressed many of the same views you offer here about McCarthy in a private email exchange that Renner and I are having. We’re a couple of peas in a pea holder, all right.
A couple of peas in a pee chute?
“I held on to David Byrne for a long time post-Talking Heads, but I finally had to accept the fact that I had more of an interest in him as a person and in what he was attempting with music than with the music itself.”
Yes Cindy, I’m obsessed with David Byrne DAVID BYRNE and I like his music, but it’s mostly his musical philosophy and such.
Mr. Scroggins paraphrases my life’s guiding principle: “I also think that writers who never write a book that fails are probably not risking anything.”
The more I work and make and learn the more I know that if I’m not scared of what I’m doing, it’s probably not worth doing.