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.
Author(s)
Carl Wilson, 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.
Reviews
"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,
"A book pondering the aesthetics of Céline risks going wrong
in about 3,000 different ways…Instead, this book goes very deeply right.”
–New York Magazine
Sam Anderson,
"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." --Montreal
Gazette
,
“A bit of a departure for Continuum’s 33 1/3 series exploring
classic records…readers of the dizzingly dweeby intellectualizing that often
makes Wilson’s blog an exhausting pleasure to read will not be surprised that,
for him, a discussion of the love theme from Titanic must encompass an examination
of Quebecois culture, the history of parlour entertainment as it relates to the
immigrant experience, the philosophies of Hume and Kant and the sociological
experiments of Pierre Bordieu.” –Eye Weekly
Edward Keenan,
“By exploring taste, kitsch, culture, fans, the state of
contemporary criticism, Quebec nationalism, and economics in Celine Dion’s Let’s
Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, Carl Wilson manages to produce
one of the most interesting and erudite books on why people love and hate
certain kinds of art…Readers will find themselves evaluating their views on
arts with added scrutiny after reading this surprising and provocative book --Hipster
Book Club
,
"A wide-ranging book, one predicated on the possibility that what repels us may say more about us than what attracts us...[an] insightful, engaging, and unexpectedly moving book." -Jason Anderson, The Globe and Mail
Jason Anderson,
"An important study- not just of Dion and pop music but also of the changing nature of criticism in the popular realm." --Andy Battaglia, Bookforum
Andy Battaglia,
"As refreshing a music book I have read in a long time." --Largehearted Boy, Book Notes
David Gutowski,
"An illustration of the best side of music criticism." --Erasing Clouds
,
“Wilson
uses Dion’s record as a crowbar, and pries open the assumptions and prejudices
which shape our tastes in the first place. Despite our preconceptions surrounding Wilson’s ostensible subject (or perhaps,
because of them), the results are subtle, and startling enough to give the most
jaded of readers pause.” –Flavorpill NYC
Alex Abramovich,
“I still don’t like what I know of Dion’s music and probably
never will. But Wilson’s efforts to
examine the rote critical assumption that Celine Dion’s music blows digs up all
kinds of fascinating issues about the nature of taste and the hierarchy of pop
culture.” –Bohemian.com
,
“An insightful,
engaging and unexpectedly moving book.” -Globe and Mail
Jason Anderson,
"Brilliant." --Alex Ross, author of The Rest is Noise
,
"Consistently thought provoking" --Express: A Publication of The Washington Post
Matthew Siblo,
"This book is especially interesting on Dion's background... His book is intelligent and often moving."
-The Daily Telegraph
,
"Music criticism is often just guy-world. Wilson’s
the real thing. I can’t praise this
small book enough. Smart, but humane.” –Heather
Mallick, CBC News: Analysis and Viewpoint
Heather Mallick,
“It’s fascinating stuff…By turns hilarious and heartwarming.”
--Guardian Unlimited Arts blog
Dave Stelfox,
"Framed by an irresistable
concept...Wilson
turns the [33 1/3] series on its head by seriously considering a blockbuster
hit by Celine Dion." --Christopher
Gray, Portland Phoenix
Christopher Gray,
"Wilson's approach to Celine Dion...stands out. Wilson examines why he loathes it, its creator and everything about her-- and what inspires devotion in her bast army of followers around the world...Clever and witty, it almost make me seek out the album. But not quite." --The Herald, Glasgow
Keith Bruce,
“Constantly
interesting and thought-provoking…and I think he can teach us a few valuable
things about criticism, for what it’s worth.” –Uncut, UK
John Mulvey,
“Wilson
covers a lot of ground in his 161-page quest; the second half of the book reads
like a Cultural Studies power ballad, invoking Roland Barthes, Theodor Adorno,
Immanuel Kant, Clement Greenberg, Arthur C. Danto, and scores of other
contemporary critics in rapid succession. Perhaps most impressively, Wilson condenses French
sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s mammoth (and seminal) tome Distinction: A Social
Critique of the Judgment of Taste into one spry little chapter.” -Rain Taxi
,
“It’s said there’s no accounting for taste, but Canadian
music critic Carl Wilson certainly makes a Herculean effort in this latest
entry in Continuum’s 33 1/3 series…En route, Wilson finds plenty of fellow
detractors, generously hashes out a lengthy definition of “schmaltz,” and drags
Elliott Smith, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Clement Greenberg, Pierre Bourdieu,
and a gaggle of shameless starry-eyed Dion fanatics into his intellectual and
aesthetic morass.” –Baltimore
City Paper
Raymond Cummings,
“’Morally you could fairly ask, Wilson writes, ‘what is more laudable about excess in the name of rage and resentment than immoderation in thrall to love and connection?’ That is, indeed, a fair and moral question, and it leads Wilson to wonder ‘if anyone’s tastes stand on solid ground, starting with mine.’ He doesn’t reach any definite conclusions, but the conversation he carries on through the centuries with everyone from philosophers David Hume and Immanuel Kant to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, is by turns enlightening, provocative and unexpectedly moving. Wilson aptly calls Let’s Talk About Love ‘an experiment in taste,’ and maybe as much as anything else, the book argues that such an experiment is one we’d all do well to conduct.” —No Depression
David Cantwell,
"The 33 1/3 of pocket books ... are superb little volumes devoted to classic albums. What unites them is not so much their subject as the standard of the writing and imagination that the authors have brought to their task... every one I've read has been well worth the attention. Wilson's approach to Celine Dione, however, stands out ... Clever and witty."
Keith Bruce, The Herald (Glasgow), Saturday 8th March 2008.
,
"Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste is Canadian journalist Carl Wilson's Celine Dion contribution to Continuum's inspired 33 1/3 series of short books ... Music criticism is often just guy-world. Wilson is the real thing. I can't praise this small book enough. Smart, but humane."
Heather Wilson, CBC, Monday 25th February 2008.
,
"[A] fascinating new book"
Dave Stelfox, Guardian Unlimited [Web], Thursday 6th March 2008.
,
“I teach in a university drama programme and I plan to
integrate the book into our first-year Critical Theories course as a way to
introduce students to principles of aesthetics, and to the discourse around
pop/high culture. It's difficult to make Kantian aesthetics accessible to 18
year olds. Let's Talk About Love is a
rare instance of the transmission of complex and sophisticated ideas in
language that is accessible without being dumbed-down.”
-Karen Fricker, Lecturer in Contemporary Theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London
,
“Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste offers
a rare combination of compelling research and enormously entertaining writing,
a real find for students of popular culture. It's a compact little volume
packed with keen insights into the ideologies that have shaped music criticism
and scholarship, thought-provoking commentary on problems of aesthetics, and
sensitive reflexive analysis. That reflexivity, along with a careful
balance of critical theory and field research, makes this work particularly
appropriate for courses with an ethnomusicological angle. And as
ethnomusicologists continue to cultivate a growing sub-field in popular music
studies, Let's Talk About Love is a timely and valuable resource.”
-Katherine Meizel, Lecturer in Ethnomusicology,University of California, Santa
Barbara
,
"written keenly and with great generosity"
Reviewed in Idolator, 24 December 2008
,
"the book, an engaging and intelligent study of taste and critiism framed by Celine Dion's tragic music, ...and written by local-boy-making-good/toatal Torontopian scenester Carl Wilson"
EyeWeekly, 24 February 2009
,
"...a brilliant read and a total eye-opener. Unlike other contributors, Wilson
doesn't shore up another crumbling wall of the canon but dives into a world of
kitsch to ask what makes us hate music. How can we know that 'bad' music really
is bad, and what is taste anyway? It'll shake all your critical certainties,
which is not a very good idea when you're in my line of work."
-The Word Magazine
,
"Blending pop culture, cultural history, music criticism with Wilson’s eclectic sensibility, the book is a fascinating look at how highbrow, middlebrow and nobrow rub meaningful observations along the way, moving on to the next without ever belabouring a point. The book is clever without the writer himself ever coming across as trying to be clever.
It’s like having an interesting conversation with a friend whose opinions you respect."
Toronto Star Online, November 2009
,