Pop Phenomenology

It's no secret that Nick Hornby is mad about music. After all, his career was basically launched from the record racks. Check the set lists that permeate High Fidelity, the Badly Drawn soundtrack of About a Boy, the hummable highs and lows of How to be Good - hear anything? Yep, some pretty nifty songs make this man.

SongbookWhich lends credence and delight to Songbook (Riverhead Trade $13), a collection of aurally-induced essays addressing more than a few of popist Hornby's favorite tunes. Call it a literal mix-tape, the rattle behind the hum of a pop phenom, shots from a melodic canon. But don't call it cranky. Or hostile. Or in any way contrary. 'Cause even though Songbook can at times be all of those things, it's less about bashing and more about praise. Why we like what we like. Or at least why Nick likes it.

Increasingly the likeable sort, Nick's now well over the danger and edginess that is "borne out of peacetime and prosperity and overeducation." So, no more Suicide. ("I don't want to be terrified by art anymore.") And since the pop snobbery inherent in urbane wordslinging no longer holds much appeal either, the unabashed trumpeting of Bruce's "Thunder Road" (it "knows how I feel and who I am") and Jackson Browne's "Late for the Sky" ("perfect accompaniment to a divorce") must be considered no snarking matter. In fact, Springsteen's really Nick's top pick (over The Clash's "White Man (in Hammersmith Palais"), despite - or because of? - the many popular identifiers. Accordingly, "a lot of people liking what you do doesn't necessarily mean that what you do is of no value it just might suggest the opposite." He's right, of course; it might. And Hornby's got every right to defend populist might. But does that excuse "You don't like 'Late For the Sky'? Well, fuck you, because I don't give a shit."

Probably not. Especially since this is from someone who once upon a time "did take Half Man Half Biscuit over Jackson Browne every day of the week."

But the biscuit's grown stale and Nick's on to something a bit more preservable. Like many men of a certain age, he digs stewed Rod ("Mama Been On My Mind"), spicy Santana ("Samba Pa Ti"), and, forgoing the battle between good and bad, the loud fare of Led Zeppelin ("Heartbreaker"). Unlike most married men of his generation, though - outside of smart cities anyway - he's developed a taste for Aimee (Mann) and Ani (DiFranco), which certainly makes him much more a gourmand than your average everyday Luddite rockist.

And, tastefully, he's into the ripple of sensation. Just as every Dylan ("Can You Please Crawl Out of Your Window?") gives birth to a Badly Drawn Boy ("A Minor Incident"), and every Beatles ("Rain") spurs its Teenage Fanclub ("Your Love is the Place Where I Come From"), Ian Dury ("Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3") and Patti Smith ("Pissing In A River") can and do bequeath Soulwax ("No Fun/Push It") and The Avalanches ("Frontier Psychiatrist"). Can the pedigree, and damn the reactionaries, to Hornby a pop song is still "capable of just about anything." And sometimes, when the Muses are allied and the stars are aligned, a song can even "make you grateful for the music you know, the music you have yet to hear, the books you have read and are going to read, maybe even the life you live."

These are the instances of - and for - which Hornby writes.

In its original incarnation as a hip McSweeney's hardcover, it also happens to be the sentiment upon which Songbook ended. In this paperback, however, we get more, lots more: an essay on Mann (if Montaigne were mad about the girl); reports on the second coming of Steve Earle (with due deification); a candid exposition of some of Nick Cave's "confessional" canon (replete with belts of the Bible); a growl and a howl on behalf of Los Lobos (boxes need not always be square - or full of filler); and a quick look at the American pop charts that shows Hornby's pop isn't even pop anymore. Not even close.

But that hasn't prevented him from pontificating. Nor should it. Hornby's earned his platform. Maybe, as he says amid a rant on Nelly Futardo, disposability is a sign of pop's maturity; then again, maybe - cite Ben Folds & Zadie Smith - pop needs the sui generis of literature. Or maybe, just maybe, it's all about the song. Who knows? But who better to ask about the phenomenology of pop than a bona fide pop phenomenon?

Note: This article was first published online in the now defunct Bully Magazine. Supplied with immense thanks to Ken Wohlrob.

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