Review
(Title mention in Sue Baker's Selection of forthcoming titles - Jan 07 Publishing News )
"Let's Talk" about one of the most interesting music books you'll read this year... The always critical and erudite Mr. Wilson actually approached Let's Talk About Love as a non-fan grappling with questions of "good" and "bad" taste... It's almost certainly the only installment in the series to discuss French-Canadian race relations, rockism, and Milan Kundera's thoughts on kitsch."
-Idolator.com
"This could be the best book of the series...razor-sharp and unerringly intelligent." -John Wenzel, The Denver Post (John Wenzel )
"This book seriously explores the wide divide between mainstream pop that is mass-marketed and purchased, and the critics who usually sneer at it for those very reasons. It's a heady work that examines everything from 'reductive Marxist theories of culture' to why critics value restrained singing while 'American Idol' fans embrace 'show-offy' technical power." -Las Vegas Review Journal (Mike Weatherfork )
"A book pondering the aesthetics of Céline risks going wrong in about 3,000 different ways...Instead, this book goes very deeply right."
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"Let's Talk About Love is a rigorous, perceptive and very funny meditation on what happens when you realize that there's more to life than being hip, and begin to grapple with just what that "more" might be." -
Product Description
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. There's nothing cool about Céline Dion, and nothing clever. That's part of her appeal as an object of love or hatred — with most critics and committed music fans taking pleasure (or at least geeky solace) in their lofty contempt. This book documents Carl Wilson's brave and unprecedented year-long quest to find his inner Céline Dion fan, and explores how we define ourselves in the light of what we call good and bad, what we love and what we hate.
About the Author
Carl Wilson is a writer and editor at The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper, and his work also has appeared in Pitchfork, Slate, The New York Times, Blender and many other publications. His pieces were selected for two of Da Capo Books' annual Best Music Writing collections, in 2002 and 2007, by guest editors Jonathan Lethem and Robert Christgau. He runs the popular music blog Zoilus.com and is part of the team behind Trampoline Hall, Toronto's acclaimed nightclub series of lectures by non-experts, which toured America in 2002.
